Taking the duty of non-interference seriously: internal limits to free speech rights

Dr Sarah Sorial (University of Wollongong)

In this paper, I focus on the right to free speech and the correlative duty of non-interference that is owed to speakers by governments and by others. I defend two main claims: first, taking the right to non-interference seriously means that every speaker who enjoys free speech rights also has a duty of non-interference with the speech rights of others. The duty of non-interference generates an internal limit to the right to free speech, or imposes constraints on what speakers can say. Second, that this limit does not generate a conflict of rights between liberty rights and equality rights. Instead, these perceived cases of a conflict of rights are more accurately interpreted as a failure of the speaker to meet her duty of non-interference with the speech rights of others.

Dr Sarah Sorial is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Wollongong. Sarah’s research specialization is primarily at the intersection of political philosophy and philosophy of law. The focus of her current project is free speech and political violence. Other recent publications are concerned with deliberative democracy, issues in rights theory, feminism and phenomenology. She is the author of Sedition and the advocacy of violence: Free speech and counter-terrorism (Routledge, 2011).