>The challenge for free speech absolutists is to demonstrate that free speech takes priority over
Why? And how, in principle? Why is the burden of evidence not on others - and equally, how, in principle, could they furnish evidence?
The entire point is that freedom of speech is a core moral value; they have weighed the potential harms and come out against censorship, because they consider censorship to be inherently harmful. There is no objective way to compare different kinds of harm to each other; each individual's moral values are what they are.
When a free speech absolutist argues that freedom of speech is more important than whatever goal the censor has in mind, that argument is of fundamentally the same kind as the censor's argument, just with opposite polarity. When the censor says that "hate speech" needs to be prohibited, that, too, is based on a relative weighing of values and purported rights (i.e. freedom from hearing it).
Why? And how, in principle? Why is the burden of evidence not on others - and equally, how, in principle, could they furnish evidence?
The entire point is that freedom of speech is a core moral value; they have weighed the potential harms and come out against censorship, because they consider censorship to be inherently harmful. There is no objective way to compare different kinds of harm to each other; each individual's moral values are what they are.
When a free speech absolutist argues that freedom of speech is more important than whatever goal the censor has in mind, that argument is of fundamentally the same kind as the censor's argument, just with opposite polarity. When the censor says that "hate speech" needs to be prohibited, that, too, is based on a relative weighing of values and purported rights (i.e. freedom from hearing it).