Before the law: A Ricoeurian approach to civil discourse

ABSTRACT

The discussion on free speech is often framed in terms of the rights of the speaker (civil liberties) and those of the addressee (civil rights). This legalistic framework is not always a good measure of what is just, nor what is ethical. This paper addresses how a legalistic understanding of free speech can be limiting and even damaging, especially when applied to freedom of expression in educational contexts. Inspired by Paul Ricoeur’s elaboration of the Aristotelian notion of phronesis in relation to normative ethics, this paper seeks to reframe the free speech debate along ethical lines and offer a transformation of the stakes in the rights vs. liberties conversation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ In Pennsylvania, Congress passed such a law though the governor refused to enact it. See https://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/Legis/PN/Public/btCheck.cfm?txtType=PDF&sessYr=2021&sessInd=0&billBody=H&billTyp=B&billNbr=1532&pn=1679. See also https://academeblog.org/2021/06/26/the-lunacy-of-pennsylvania-hb-1532/

² See ‘The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word.’ Randall Kennedy, Pantheon, 2022.

³ http://www.duqsm.com/reckoning-with-shank-part-1-a-tenured-professor-a-racial-slur-and-a-reinstatement-leave-a-predominantly-white-institution-asking-where-do-we-go-from-here/

⁴ This is true for both high school and university students. See, https://www.aalrr.com/EdLawConnectBlog/students-and-social-media-can-schools-discipline and https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/us/colleges-social-media-discipline.html