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SUBMISSIONS INVITED John Stuart Mill famously argued in his essay On Liberty that every opinion should be allowed free expression. The opinion, whose nature cannot now be known for certain, may be true. Or it may be false. Or it may be true in part and false in part. If it is true, there is reason for its being heard. If it is false, there is also reason for hearing it -- its being heard and examined will result in a fuller understanding and greater effect of the contrary true opinion. If it is partly true and partly false, there are both reasons for its being heard. Mill
took this argument to have
the support of the Principle of Utility, somehow to the effect that
that the
right action, policy, institution or indeed society is the one whose
consequences are the greatest possible total of happiness, satisfaction
or
well-being.
It is easier to suppose the given argument for free expression, and in
general the importance of
truth,
is better defended by the Principle of Humanity.
In
any case, philosophers and
ambitious graduate students in philosophy are invited to submit
philosophical
pieces of up to
about
10,000 words for inclusion on this website. They can be on any of the
subjects
already considered on this website. They need to be at about the
standard of the good or anyway decent printed journals of philosophy
and related disciplines. They will therefore be superior to much WWW
philosophy. The points of view of course need not be my own. (For illustration, try the one that is Professor Richard Wolin's or the one that is Tamar Meisels'.) They may, for example, affirm classical free will, compatibilism or incompatibilism about determinism, any doctrine of consciousness and the nature of mind, conservatism in politics, liberalism, Zionism or neo-Zionism, or the rights of the Palestinians. This
note was originally prompted by
reactions among some neo-Zionist undergraduates to my own views, in
particular to a
lecture to the Edinburgh
International Festival in August 2004. See also a piece on the reactions and what followed. Ted
Honderich ---------------------- For a discussion of Mill's liberalism see the first essay in the collection On Political Means and Social Ends (Edinburgh University Press, 2003) HOME to T.H. website front page HOME to Det & Free website front page |