This is an a engaging exercise in theoretical reasoning, and I'd like to engage. I think the utility of the discussion might be strengthened by seeing the import of the term "free speech" as a practical issue. The term is principally applied in a legal context concerning limits on government, not on speech: government shall make no law abridging freedom of speech. To the degree people all "believe in" free speech in the US, it is a mandated belief, required by the Constitution. The principal area of live argument is about what the phrase does/should mean, and whether it is a founding principle of American society, beyond being a principle of law concerning government.
In terms of law, the Supreme Court has elaborated on the governmental limit by distinguishing between the content of speech and the time, place, and manner of its expression. This balances the legal imperative of unabridged speech against harms unrelated to the content of the speech (such as the physical disturbance of social order), and courts apply SCOTUS guidelines to specific cases. Supporting free speech in this context means applying those limits evenly, without regard to content.
Beyond that, it seems to me that arguing about the degree to which people do or don't "share the principle of free speech" seems to me to require a pretty detailed investigation of different views of the meaning of the phrase. I think we all have personal responses about what's acceptable in terms of content, as well as time, place, and manner contexts, and those responses can be nearly impossible to reduce to a principle. There is a great practical difference between a principle such as, "Thou shalt not kill," and "you should not abridge others' freedom of speech" (or, perhaps, "you should not support/accept government abridgments of speech"), especially since we have conventionally extended "speech" to cover some forms of non-verbal expression. The definition and practical range of "kill" are pretty clearly (but not entirely) demarcated, and, at least when applied to killing people, the instances are usually psychologically powerful and rare. But we negotiate issues of free expression daily--almost hourly in social contexts--and "freedom," "abridgment," and "speech" are soft concepts governed in varying contexts more by social habit than articulated principle. I think it would be hard to argue that people "support" or don't support free speech on principled grounds in ordinary social life, but as the context approaches large-scale public speech outside the legal issue of government license, individuals' patterns of habit in daily life shape the degree to which they are inclined to import the Constitutional principle into their judgments.
I think the main area of public argument over free speech right now concerns consistency of application. For example, people may be inclined to describe appropriate government time, place, and manner restrictions inconsistently depending on the content of speech--very easy to do, because identifying negative social consequences unrelated to content is always squishy territory. Or, lately, those who are generally most permissive of forms of government abridgment of speech, but most opposed to government abridgment of corporate freedoms, have become supportive of government compelling corporations not to abridge speech (and vice versa--it's interesting to contrast "cancel culture" and "fairness doctrine" alignments).
Thanks for drawing out an interesting line of thought. Overall, I think it may be helpful to mix philosophy with sociology and frame the issue in terms of styles of line drawing, with formal and ad hoc principles both guiding individual cases in richly context-bound ways.
"That, then, is my analysis of these line-drawing arguments. At best they are missing a premise, and far as I can tell, with my own limited imagination and capacity, any premise that could fill the logical gap would be implausible. But maybe I’ve missed some possibilities."
Yes, I think you are. Lacking imagination (or perhaps just experience) and therefore missing possibilities. Your airy sophistry about "aboutness" may be clever, but it's unrealistic. It's possible for conflicts over principle to arise even when both sides value the principle equally because the conflict really is also about something else, such as missing information. To demonstrate, I'll present a slightly "greeked" generalization of a real-world medical phenomenon. Apologies for it running somewhat long and clinical out of faithfulness to the real-world example it abstracts from:
Suppose D is rarely diagnosed and therefore considered a rare disease. Suppose a simple, inexpensive procedure P screens for D. Also suppose a set of doctors S, all of whom were scheduled to attend the same Rare Disease Day in medical school. Some missed that day, for reasons varying from good to bad. Some attended but were inattentive. Some attended and remember all, including the five minutes spent on D and P: these also, remembering the low estimated incidence of D, judge it so low that running P to screen for D won't be worth considering in their practice.
Suppose all doctors in S, despite their differing attendance and attention on just one day of med school, are otherwise competent and equally passionate in their commitment to science-based medicine.
Altogether, S is a set of doctors who are, in general, honestly committed to science-based medicine, but ignorant or dismissive of just one screening procedure, P for disease D, and so fated never to run P on a patient. In the whole scope of their practice, they all risk one incredibly small, unlikely oversight, one too small to charitably call their commitment to medical science, or general competence, into question.
Now suppose a patient X, who begins as committed to science-based medicine as the doctors in S. X has D. X visits a series of doctors in S but is never screened for D with P, and so is repeatedly dismissed rather than correctly diagnosed.
If you know real-world doctors and patients, you know a predicament like this is likely to destroy trust in both directions. X is likely to get a reputation among S as one of the "difficult patients" who probably deserves to have his complaints dismissed. X also has his commitment to science-based medicine severely tested by all these science-based doctors who nonetheless don't connect him to that one little sliver of science he actually needs. X may find himself, out of desperation, resorting to non-science-based care for whatever meager palliation it provides. To doctors in S, this looks like X betraying his commitment to science-based medicine: X now seems a quack-chaser. To X, the doctors in S may seem the traitors.
We now have a huge conflict over a principle, science-based medicine, where each side of the conflict is likely to see the other as betraying the principle, despite all starting with identical commitment to the principle. Differing commitment to the principle is not what drove the conflict over the principle, but rather a conflict between access to information (the doctors in S couldn't or wouldn't access information on D through P) on one side and a specific predicament (X actually does have D) on the other. The conflict *is* over the principle, but not *because* of differing degrees of commitment to the principle — though both sides are likely to end up doubting the other side's commitment to the principle *because* of the conflict.
People in desperate conflict over a given principle can be much closer in their commitment to that principle than you (or likely they) would seem to allow. While it is possible for conflict to arise over significantly different degrees of commitment to the same principle, it is not necessary. The messiness of the rest of life is more than sufficient — messiness which, if you're young and relatively sheltered, you could be forgiven for not grokking yet (and may you be so lucky as to never need to grok it!).
That stupid saw about shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is of course stupid, but depends on whether there really is a fire. Well, what if the honest conflict is really about whether fire is present?
More generally, there's a theme to what free speech is "really about" — the hope that open exchange of ideas will orient us toward honesty and truth. Both Rabinowitz's and Grossman's retorts to you struck me as pertinent. Rabinowitz cautioned you against making common cause with "free speech" "bullshit artists" (like Rufo) who reject ultimate orientation toward honesty and truth in pursuit of whatever they can get away with popularizing. Grossman correctly pointed out that those conflicting with your "side" on free speech can come much closer than you seem to allow to your degree of commitment to free speech. Don't flatter yourself or your "side" too much on your greater commitment to principle. It *could* be greater than the other side's, but be honest with yourself: is it?
This is an a engaging exercise in theoretical reasoning, and I'd like to engage. I think the utility of the discussion might be strengthened by seeing the import of the term "free speech" as a practical issue. The term is principally applied in a legal context concerning limits on government, not on speech: government shall make no law abridging freedom of speech. To the degree people all "believe in" free speech in the US, it is a mandated belief, required by the Constitution. The principal area of live argument is about what the phrase does/should mean, and whether it is a founding principle of American society, beyond being a principle of law concerning government.
In terms of law, the Supreme Court has elaborated on the governmental limit by distinguishing between the content of speech and the time, place, and manner of its expression. This balances the legal imperative of unabridged speech against harms unrelated to the content of the speech (such as the physical disturbance of social order), and courts apply SCOTUS guidelines to specific cases. Supporting free speech in this context means applying those limits evenly, without regard to content.
Beyond that, it seems to me that arguing about the degree to which people do or don't "share the principle of free speech" seems to me to require a pretty detailed investigation of different views of the meaning of the phrase. I think we all have personal responses about what's acceptable in terms of content, as well as time, place, and manner contexts, and those responses can be nearly impossible to reduce to a principle. There is a great practical difference between a principle such as, "Thou shalt not kill," and "you should not abridge others' freedom of speech" (or, perhaps, "you should not support/accept government abridgments of speech"), especially since we have conventionally extended "speech" to cover some forms of non-verbal expression. The definition and practical range of "kill" are pretty clearly (but not entirely) demarcated, and, at least when applied to killing people, the instances are usually psychologically powerful and rare. But we negotiate issues of free expression daily--almost hourly in social contexts--and "freedom," "abridgment," and "speech" are soft concepts governed in varying contexts more by social habit than articulated principle. I think it would be hard to argue that people "support" or don't support free speech on principled grounds in ordinary social life, but as the context approaches large-scale public speech outside the legal issue of government license, individuals' patterns of habit in daily life shape the degree to which they are inclined to import the Constitutional principle into their judgments.
I think the main area of public argument over free speech right now concerns consistency of application. For example, people may be inclined to describe appropriate government time, place, and manner restrictions inconsistently depending on the content of speech--very easy to do, because identifying negative social consequences unrelated to content is always squishy territory. Or, lately, those who are generally most permissive of forms of government abridgment of speech, but most opposed to government abridgment of corporate freedoms, have become supportive of government compelling corporations not to abridge speech (and vice versa--it's interesting to contrast "cancel culture" and "fairness doctrine" alignments).
Thanks for drawing out an interesting line of thought. Overall, I think it may be helpful to mix philosophy with sociology and frame the issue in terms of styles of line drawing, with formal and ad hoc principles both guiding individual cases in richly context-bound ways.
"That, then, is my analysis of these line-drawing arguments. At best they are missing a premise, and far as I can tell, with my own limited imagination and capacity, any premise that could fill the logical gap would be implausible. But maybe I’ve missed some possibilities."
Yes, I think you are. Lacking imagination (or perhaps just experience) and therefore missing possibilities. Your airy sophistry about "aboutness" may be clever, but it's unrealistic. It's possible for conflicts over principle to arise even when both sides value the principle equally because the conflict really is also about something else, such as missing information. To demonstrate, I'll present a slightly "greeked" generalization of a real-world medical phenomenon. Apologies for it running somewhat long and clinical out of faithfulness to the real-world example it abstracts from:
Suppose D is rarely diagnosed and therefore considered a rare disease. Suppose a simple, inexpensive procedure P screens for D. Also suppose a set of doctors S, all of whom were scheduled to attend the same Rare Disease Day in medical school. Some missed that day, for reasons varying from good to bad. Some attended but were inattentive. Some attended and remember all, including the five minutes spent on D and P: these also, remembering the low estimated incidence of D, judge it so low that running P to screen for D won't be worth considering in their practice.
Suppose all doctors in S, despite their differing attendance and attention on just one day of med school, are otherwise competent and equally passionate in their commitment to science-based medicine.
Altogether, S is a set of doctors who are, in general, honestly committed to science-based medicine, but ignorant or dismissive of just one screening procedure, P for disease D, and so fated never to run P on a patient. In the whole scope of their practice, they all risk one incredibly small, unlikely oversight, one too small to charitably call their commitment to medical science, or general competence, into question.
Now suppose a patient X, who begins as committed to science-based medicine as the doctors in S. X has D. X visits a series of doctors in S but is never screened for D with P, and so is repeatedly dismissed rather than correctly diagnosed.
If you know real-world doctors and patients, you know a predicament like this is likely to destroy trust in both directions. X is likely to get a reputation among S as one of the "difficult patients" who probably deserves to have his complaints dismissed. X also has his commitment to science-based medicine severely tested by all these science-based doctors who nonetheless don't connect him to that one little sliver of science he actually needs. X may find himself, out of desperation, resorting to non-science-based care for whatever meager palliation it provides. To doctors in S, this looks like X betraying his commitment to science-based medicine: X now seems a quack-chaser. To X, the doctors in S may seem the traitors.
We now have a huge conflict over a principle, science-based medicine, where each side of the conflict is likely to see the other as betraying the principle, despite all starting with identical commitment to the principle. Differing commitment to the principle is not what drove the conflict over the principle, but rather a conflict between access to information (the doctors in S couldn't or wouldn't access information on D through P) on one side and a specific predicament (X actually does have D) on the other. The conflict *is* over the principle, but not *because* of differing degrees of commitment to the principle — though both sides are likely to end up doubting the other side's commitment to the principle *because* of the conflict.
People in desperate conflict over a given principle can be much closer in their commitment to that principle than you (or likely they) would seem to allow. While it is possible for conflict to arise over significantly different degrees of commitment to the same principle, it is not necessary. The messiness of the rest of life is more than sufficient — messiness which, if you're young and relatively sheltered, you could be forgiven for not grokking yet (and may you be so lucky as to never need to grok it!).
That stupid saw about shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is of course stupid, but depends on whether there really is a fire. Well, what if the honest conflict is really about whether fire is present?
More generally, there's a theme to what free speech is "really about" — the hope that open exchange of ideas will orient us toward honesty and truth. Both Rabinowitz's and Grossman's retorts to you struck me as pertinent. Rabinowitz cautioned you against making common cause with "free speech" "bullshit artists" (like Rufo) who reject ultimate orientation toward honesty and truth in pursuit of whatever they can get away with popularizing. Grossman correctly pointed out that those conflicting with your "side" on free speech can come much closer than you seem to allow to your degree of commitment to free speech. Don't flatter yourself or your "side" too much on your greater commitment to principle. It *could* be greater than the other side's, but be honest with yourself: is it?