Tuesday, November 18 11:45 AM - 12:35 PM
Lo Schiavo Science — 104 - Getty Study
John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, published in 1859, is the most prominent classic philosophical defense of the broad liberty of thought and opinion. In it, Mill presented a utilitarian defense of free speech, a topic that had been the subject of vigorous debate in Britain and across the European continent for hundreds of years prior, and which remains a topic of debate worldwide to this day. Eighteen years earlier, in 1841, however, Frederick Douglass delivered a “Plea for Freedom of Speech,” which encapsulated the Abolitionist movement’s natural rights-based defense of expressive liberty. The views of Mill and Douglass are featured in my work-in-progress, “Frederick Douglass on Free Speech, Respect, and Dignity.” In this brief presentation, I will share and look forward to discussing with you their respective and at times differing views, as well as my preliminary conclusions about Douglass’s defense of free speech and the enduring value of that liberty.
Catering will be served!
This event is free and open to the public, and has been generously supported by the Mortimer Fleischhacker fund and the Philosophy Department at the University of San Francisco.
For more information, please reach out to the Program Assistant for the Philosophy Department, Brandon Marsh at bmarsh@usfca.edu