Author Meets Critics: Matthew Kramer's Freedom of Expression as Self-Restraint

null, null, null, null, Ishani Maitra (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), Geoffrey Sayre-McCord (University of Edinburgh, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

In Freedom of Expression as Self-Restraint, Matthew Kramer rigorously expounds the principle of freedom of expression and provides a novel justificatory foundation for it. Under that principle, a system of governance in any society can legitimately prohibit various modes of communication but cannot ever legitimately prohibit them qua modes of communication. As the book argues, such a principle is absolute in that it is exceptionless; it imposes general duties that are binding always and everywhere on every system of governance.

In addition to injecting a new level of philosophical sophistication into the debates over these matters, the book supplies a novel justification for the principle of freedom of expression. It ties that principle to an ideal of governmental self-restraint, and it shows how that ideal connects to the paramount moral responsibility of every system of governance: the responsibility to bring about the political and social and economic conditions under which every member of a society can be warranted in harboring an ample sense of self-respect. In short, compliance by a system of governance with the principle of freedom of expression is integral to the fulfillment of that paramount responsibility.