Freedom of Expression/Philosophical Origins/Tradition contributions/Benthamite Utilitarianism
What have religious and philosophical traditions contributed to our understanding of this right?
Benthamite Utilitarianism
To Bentham, the purpose of free expression, especially press, is to identify and censure government abuses, which Bentham believed would have more positive than negative consequences. Like other liberties in Bentham’s thought, it is an instrumental right, not an intrinsic right (Niesen 2019, 4). He worried that a chilling effect would prevent the press from serving its purpose, and he opposed censoring of “bad sentiments” (something Blackstone supported) because he did not trust society’s ability to identify them. Bentham not only advocated for the protection of true statements, but of false ones, provided they were not “‘groundless’ and made with ‘wilful mendacity, accompanied with the consciousness of its falsity, or else with culpable rashness” (Niesen 5). A “wilful mendacity” standard resembles the “actual malice” standard of contemporary American jurisprudence on libel of a public figure.
References:
Niesen, P. ‘Speech, truth and liberty: Bentham to John Stuart Mill.’ Journal of Bentham Studies, 2019, 18(1), pp. 1–19. DOI: https://doi. org/10.14324/111.2045-757X.046.