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Under Objectivism How Does Free Speech Work?

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nimble

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Is there any limitations to free speech under Objectivism?

Yes, you cannot freely divulge secrets which would result in invasion by an alien nation (treason), you may not freely tell lies for the purpose of securing an agreement of some type (fraud), you may not freely tell lies while testifying under oath in a court of law (perjury). There is room for discussion, about whether there should be limits on you uttering the word "Fire" in a theater -- I don't support such laws because they are founded on bogus assumptions, but this is not a trivial area IMO.

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In my opinion slander and libel should be legal. Slander and libel involve making defamatory statements that harm a person's reputation. That may be immoral but there is no force involved, and no fraud in the legal sense.

Suppose I say "David Odden is a communist and you should have nothing to do with him." It's up to each person reading that to judge for themselves whether it is a valid statement or not, and act accordingly. My false statement may influence others to shun David, which would be harmful to him, but since all the actions are voluntary it should not be illegal.

I could be misunderstanding the issue, though, so I would welcome constructive criticism.

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In my opinion slander and libel should be legal. Slander and libel involve making defamatory statements that harm a person's reputation. That may be immoral but there is no force involved, and no fraud in the legal sense.

Suppose I say "David Odden is a communist and you should have nothing to do with him." It's up to each person reading that to judge for themselves whether it is a valid statement or not, and act accordingly. My false statement may influence others to shun David, which would be harmful to him, but since all the actions are voluntary it should not be illegal.

I could be misunderstanding the issue, though, so I would welcome constructive criticism.

The problem is that "fraud in the legal sense" is not the same as "fraud in the moral sense". It is true that defamation is not considered to be fraud under current US law, but current US law is not the best measure of what the law should be. Stating that a person has leprosy shouldn't be a crime or something that you can get sued over, but I believe that it consitutes slander per se, since leprosy is or might be considered a "loathsome disease".

My objection to invoking the concept "voluntary" is that fraud is predicated on the victim acting rationally and volitionally -- yet we agree that fraud should not be legal. [For example if I claim that I will ship you a working optical microscope if you give me $200, and then ship you a brick, I have not actually used or threatened to use force against you. You chose to give me your money voluntarily]. Where I think fraud and defamation are most significantly distinguishable is in the implicit duty behind a person's acts. Defamation is just "put out there", for each person to evaluate as they see fit. There is no quasi-contractual relationship between two specific people. Whereas in the case of fraud, there is an explicit agreement, a reciprocal and conditional transfer of ownership. Fraud should be illegal, because it involves disregarding the conditions that I set for transferring my property. And it does not involve saying that fraud is a special kind of initiation of force, whereby somehow a fraud victim did not have volition. It does reduce to the fact that reason cannot be applied to guide your volitional choices, as far as your life and property are concerned. So I agree with your conclusion, but not the exact reason.

A further note is that defamation is a civil matter, not a criminal act (in contrast to fraud, which is a criminal act). You don't do jail time for defamation, and all of the other things to go along with the statutory vs. common-law aspects of the law.

(Btw I've been called a fascist but not a communist, so for the hypothetical to be distinct from a comedy routine, let's suppose that you had called me a fascist).

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In my opinion slander and libel should be legal. Slander and libel involve making defamatory statements that harm a person's reputation. That may be immoral but there is no force involved, and no fraud in the legal sense.

I disagree.

What if a credit bureau falsely reports that "Godless Capitalist does not pay his bills, has no reliable source of income, and has been convicted of fraud twice" and, as a result, you lose your job, cannot get a mortgage, rent an apartment, or finance a car?

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What if a credit bureau falsely reports that "Godless Capitalist does not pay his bills, has no reliable source of income, and has been convicted of fraud twice" and, as a result, you lose your job, cannot get a mortgage, rent an apartment, or finance a car?

The expression "Prove it" should be used in such cases. Their inability to provide proof speaks loudly enough. Note that one of the false claims is that GC has no reliable source of income -- and he loses his steady job over that. He must be working for pretty irrational people, in that case.

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I disagree.

What if a credit bureau falsely reports that "Godless Capitalist does not pay his bills, has no reliable source of income, and has been convicted of fraud twice" and, as a result, you lose your job, cannot get a mortgage, rent an apartment, or finance a car?

If they do so you should be able to take them to court. If you can prove damage to your person or property then the court can find them liable and have to pay for their actions. This can be in the whatever form you and the relevant bureau can agree to or is ordered by the court.

Maybe that is a bit simplistic, but i support the simplest solutions to problems most times.

I am of the opinion that slander and the whatnot should not be illegal, but you are still responsible for what you say. If you yell "Fire!" in a crowded building and people or their property is damaged due to your actions then you are liable for those injuries and damages.

If i am missing something, i don't think i am, let me know.

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If they do so you should be able to take them to court. If you can prove damage to your person or property then the court can find them liable and have to pay for their actions.  This can be in the whatever form you and the relevant bureau can agree to or is ordered by the court.

(What you describe is how it is now). What is your basis for this conclusion? There are two relevant aspects: (1) saying something about a person's character that results in some type of harm and (2) saying something untrue. Equally worth considering are statements that are not about a person's character, but which cause harm. Such statements are not included in the concept of defamation (libel and slander). If you are actually advocating that lying should be grounds for civil action, that's a coherent and much simpler position worth debating, but it isn't the same as saying that defamation alone should be illegal (in the civil sense). Here's an example of the differentiating case. Suppose I publish a review praising a product -- a product which I have no other relation to. But my review is a lie: I know that it is a bad product and that people buying it are likely to suffer harm. My lie causes harm (because people voluntarily believe what I say), and under the principle that a person should bear responsibility for their lies which cause harm, then I could be sued. But the lie does not consititute defamation, so under current law I could not be sued for uttering a "false positive".

I'm curious to know how consistent you are willing to be in terms of holding people legally liable for every statement they make.

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I am of the opinion that slander and the whatnot should not be illegal, but you are still responsible for what you say. 

It should not be a crime, but it should be civilly actionable. A person does have a moral and legal right to his reputation just as he does to his physical and intellectual property.

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Whereas in the case of fraud, there is an explicit agreement, a reciprocal and conditional transfer of ownership. Fraud should be illegal, because it involves disregarding the conditions that I set for transferring my property. And it does not involve saying that fraud is a special kind of initiation of force, whereby somehow a fraud victim did not have volition. It does reduce to the fact that reason cannot be applied to guide your volitional choices, as far as your life and property are concerned. So I agree with your conclusion, but not the exact reason.

Ayn Rand had this to say about fraud:

A unilateral breach of contract involves an indirect use of physical force: it consists, in essence, of one man receiving the material values, goods or services of another, then refusing to pay for them and thus keeping them by force (by mere physical possession), not by right-ie.e, keeping them without the consent of their owner.  Fraud invloves a similarly indirect use of force: it consists of obtaining material values without their owner's consent, under false pretenses or fale premises.
from The Nature of Government

So fraud is the initiation of force precisely because it involves "disregarding the conditions" one has set for transfering property.

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Godless Caplitalist--

In my opinion slander and libel should be legal. Slander and libel involve making defamatory statements that harm a person's reputation. That may be immoral but there is no force involved, and no fraud in the legal sense.

I disagree. Slander and libel involve making defamatory statements that the speaker knows to be untrue. By your definition I could be punished for telling the truth. Say John works at a store that has expressly stated they will not hire communists. I find out John is a communist and publish it in the local newpaper, which I happen to own. John would presumably lose his job over this, causing him and his reputation harm. I am not the responsible party for telling the truth, John is the responsible party for committing fraud against his employer. It seems as though people are using fraud and libel & slander almost interchangably in this thread. Fraud is the direct use of force(ie lying to obtain a value or withholding a product that has been paid for), whereas libel and slander involve an indirect use of force. With libel and slander, the intent is to do a person harm indirectly--I am not directly trying to secure a value from that person through mutual exchange. In the above example John committed fraud to secure his job. Fraud is criminal whereas slander and libel are civil. The important thing to remember is that the judgement of what is libeleous and slanderous should not be left up to the government precisely because it involves the freedom of speech. You are free to say whatever you want and the government has no right to intercede there unless what you say causes direct harm to anther person, such as yelling Fire! in a crowded theater. (What is important to note in that situation is that the yeller can only be held resopnsible for physical harm caused. He can be held responsible because without the direct action of him yelling Fire! there would have been no stampede and no harm caused. His action directly resulted in the destruction of life or property.) The idea that libel and slander should be left up to the people and not the government does not make restrictions on libel and slander non-objective. There are still objective criteria that must be fufilled(that what was said was untrue and caused harm to the person being libeled or slandered), but it is up to the people as to whether these criteria are fufilled. The best example of which I can think to illustrate my point would be the 1735 case of William Cosby vs. John Peter Zenger. Cosby was the governor of the New York province. Zenger printed an editorial that basically said Cosby and his goons were jerks. Cosby sued him for damages, but the people ruled that because Cosby and his goons were in fact jerks that Zenger had not lied and any harm that had come to them was because they were jerks.

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Godless Caplitalist--

I disagree. Slander and libel involve making defamatory statements that the speaker knows to be untrue.  By your definition I could be punished for telling the truth. 

I agree; I should have been more precise and included the untruth condition.

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I disagree.

What if a credit bureau falsely reports that "Godless Capitalist does not pay his bills, has no reliable source of income, and has been convicted of fraud twice" and, as a result, you lose your job, cannot get a mortgage, rent an apartment, or finance a car?

But I don't have a right to a job, mortgage, apartment rental , car loan, etc in the first place. Those things depend on voluntary agreements, and the potential employer, lender etc. can use whatever means they want to decide whether to enter into a contract with me. If my rights are not violated by a person's refusal to deal with me, how can they be violated by a 3rd party influencing someone not to deal with me?

I also don't see how a person can have a "legal right to his reputation" (moral, yes). Your reputation exists in the minds of other people, and you don't have right to control other people's thoughts. You can only use noncoercive persuasive methods to try to convince people that you do pay your bills, etc.

I think legal action should only be possible if a contract exists, and one party violates the contract. Otherwise it may be a moral issue but not a legal one.

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I think there is an implicit contract upon which people who choose to live in a society agree--to be rational honest adults. I know I would not choose to live in a society that said you can say anything you want with no possibilty of accountability. If this were the case, I believe the society would rapidly descend into a distrust of every person and of all knowledge in general. You may believe on person is lying, but where would you go to get contrary information? To the other person that is lying?

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It seems as though people are using fraud and libel & slander almost interchangably in this thread.

The discussion should be stated in terms of defamation.

Fraud is the direct use of force(ie lying to obtain a value or withholding a product that has been paid for), whereas libel and slander involve an indirect use of force.
How do you justify that claim (especially given the quote from Rand which states contrarily that fraud is the indirect use of force?

With libel and slander, the intent is to do a person harm indirectly--I am not directly trying to secure a value from that person through mutual exchange.

The intention is irrelevant, unless you're looking for paving material for the road to hell. What matters is the nature of the act. More importantly, this focus on defamation suppposes that a person is only responsible for telling untruths that harm a subject's reputation. It ignores the other side of the question, that a liar can cause harm by covering up damaging facts, and that lies that are not about a person's character can cause harm. Why should a lie that gives false value to an evil person's character be treated differently from a lie that gives false disvalue to an good person's character?

The idea that libel and slander should be left up to the people and not the government does not make restrictions on libel and slander non-objective.  There are still objective criteria that must be fufilled(that what was said was untrue and caused harm to the person being libeled or slandered), but it is up to the people as to whether these criteria are fufilled.

I don't understand this. Are you suggesting that a lynch mob should deal with people who make defamatory statements? The only sense in which defamation is "left up to the people" is the same way in which murder is "left up to the people" -- a jury decides what the facts are and whether those facts show that there was a wrongdoing.

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I think there is an implicit contract upon which people who choose to live in a society agree--to be rational honest adults. 

What the heck is an implicit contract? A contract is an explicit voluntary agreement.

In any case, are you really advocating for the right to sue people for every dishonest or irrational act? The entire GNP would be required just to run the court system.

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It should not be a crime, but it should be civilly actionable.  A person does have a moral and legal right to his reputation just as he does to his physical and intellectual property.

Exactly what is my reputation? Is it not simply what other people think of me? ("The general estimation in which a person is held by the public." American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language) Thus to claim that I have a right to my reputation is to say that I have a property right to others' thoughts.

Let’s see how this would work in practice. Suppose I operate a school. I invite the parents in the neighborhood to an open house. I say to one of the visitors, “I hope you’ll consider enrolling your child in my school.” The parent replies, “I will not. I’ve got a hunch you are a witch and a daughter of Satan.”

Now, if my reputation is indeed my intellectual property (and I am not a witch), then I would have moral/legal grounds to force the parent to change her opinion of me. The trouble is, I have no idea how this could be done. Would a court permit me to torture the parent in Room 101 until she no longer considered me a witch?

Or to take a less extreme case, could Phone Company B sue Phone Company A’s customers, for wrongly thinking that that Company A offers superior service and rates?

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