Free Speech and Learning from Difference

Abstract

In debates about campus speech, there are arguments from the left and from the right that the community function of a college and the intellectual functions of a college can’t both be maximized. Improving the community role necessarily entails placing limits on the intellectual roles, and improving the intellectual role necessarily entails placing limits on the community roles. Where these arguments disagree is in the valuation of the tradeoffs between these roles. I argue that the apparent tension between the community role and intellectual role of colleges can be resolved, or at least mitigated, if we make a clearer distinction between speech and community endorsement of speech. What’s more, if we understand speech to be exploratory in nature rather than declaratory, we may remove some of the status competition between different groups that characterizes the dispute. This can allow for potential complementarities to emerge from the community support role of a college and the intellectual role. The core idea that I wish to explore is the notion of discovery that is embedded in Mill’s defense of free speech and in his conception of experiments in living. This approach depends on the idea that we can abandon the goal of defeating our opponents, and instead embrace the goal of accommodating one another.