Spinoza on Freedom of Expression, Life, Universe and Everything

Freedom of expression has an utilitarian effect.

Spinoza also argues for freedom of expression on utilitarian grounds — that it is necessary for the discovery of truth, economic progress and the growth of creativity. Without an open marketplace of ideas, science, philosophy and other disciplines are stifled in their development, to the technological, fiscal and even aesthetic detriment of society. As Spinoza puts it, “this freedom [of expressing one’s ideas] is of the first importance in fostering the sciences and the arts, for it is only those whose judgment is free and unbiased who can attain success in these fields.”

Libertas philosophandi.

For Spinoza, by contrast, there is to be no criminalization of ideas in the well-ordered state. Libertas philosophandi, the freedom of philosophizing, must be upheld for the sake of a healthy, secure and peaceful commonwealth and material and intellectual progress.

But not absolute freedom of speech.

Now Spinoza does not support absolute freedom of speech. He explicitly states that the expression of “seditious” ideas is not to be tolerated by the sovereign. There is to be no protection for speech that advocates the overthrow of the government, disobedience to its laws or harm to fellow citizens. The people are free to argue for the repeal of laws that they find unreasonable and oppressive, but they must do so peacefully and through rational argument; and if their argument fails to persuade the sovereign to change the law, then that must be the end of the matter. What they may not do is “stir up popular hatred against [the sovereign or his representatives].”

So, as all absolutists say, what is "seditious ideas"?

Spinoza, presumably to allay such concerns, does offer a definition of “seditious political beliefs” as those that “immediately have the effect of annulling the covenant whereby everyone has surrendered his right to act just as he thinks fit” (my emphasis). The salient feature of such opinions is “the action that is implicit therein”— that is, they are more or less verbal incitements to act against the government and thus they are directly contrary to the tacit social contract of citizenship.

To be more precise:

As individuals emerged from a state of nature to become citizens through the social contract, “it was only the right to act as he thought fit that each man surrendered, and not his right to reason and judge.”

[Original Article by Steven Nadler in NYT]

What I gather from this is the delicate balance between individual liberties and social good. At a practical level, societies which operate in a state of equilibrium between the individual and collective will obviously prosper. At every stage, when the balance is skewed to one side, social forces act to correct the balance. In a dictatorship or totalitarian system, for example, in due course civil liberties and freedom of expression will evolve to a level that they significantly influence the fall of the system and vice versa.

It also makes the whole debate on freedom of speech pedantic. Whether or not there are laws to protect the individual in expressing or consuming any ideas of his or her choice, like life which starts to grow even in the harshest of environments, ideas will find their way of expression. We would not have had a peak at a typical day in the life of Ivan Denisovich and been so affected by it had it not been the system which triggered that idea and the process in which it became available to the public.