Abstract

My aim is to see what emerges about liberalism when its traditional commitment to the special protection of freedom of expression is challenged by a plausible argument for the legal restriction of that freedom. ;I submit that the legal restriction of freedom of expression can be justified under the following conditions: the availability of the relevant material would be seriously harmful, there is no less invasive means of effectively controlling that harm, and prohibitions on the relevant material would not cause any harm comparable to the one to be controlled. I suggest that, given the results of recent research about the effects of pornography on the attitudes of its consumers, we must consider the possibility that the legal prohibition of some kinds of pornography would be justified. ;In the theories of J.S. Mill, John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin, freedom of expression is defended for the sake of fundamental human interests in the informed and effective exercise of the faculties of understanding, judgment and choice . I contend that, where some form of expression failed to promote such interests and, indeed, proved harmful, legal restrictions on that form of expression would be acceptable within these theories. ;What emerges is a picture of liberalism in which it is based, not simply upon a commitment to the protection of liberty, but rather upon a conception of persons as essentially capable of self-determination. According to this conception of persons, they would have a fundamental interest in the exercise and realization of this distinctively human capacity. Government would be called upon to make equal provision for the fulfillment of that fundamental interest. The authors that I discuss acknowledge that systematic prejudice and other arbitrary disadvantages can thwart an interest in genuine self-determination. Equal provision for the fulfillment of this interest could, then, call for restrictions on liberty in order to alleviate such disadvantages. I suggest that it might even call for restrictions on freedom of expression.