ABSTRACT
While I call this chapter “free speech”, the fuller statement of the liberal freedom in this sphere is freedom of thought and its expression. Attacks on freedom of thought rather than on its expression have to take the form of inquisitorial procedures forcing a person to confess his inner beliefs. Such inquisitions are obviously outrageous from a liberal point of view, and I shall concentrate on the freedom to express one’s beliefs or what is usually called free speech. I shall mean by speech in this chapter any communication by one human being to others through words, pictures or other symbols in the various media of communication such as conversation, public speaking or demonstration, the press, radio, television, post, telephone and the Internet. By freedom I shall mean in the first place the absence of legal penalties for speech. But in the second place, I shall also consider restrictions on speech arising from what J.S. Mill called the moral coercion of public opinion and in particular the operation of what is now called political correctness. 1
