On Speaking One's Mind

ABSTRACT This paper argues that a sweeping prohibition against content‐based censorship is called for by the need to protect two distinct but related vital interests: first, our autonomy interest in making and implementing our own judgments about what is worth having or doing and, second, our social interest in living in contact with others. Because the most readily available way of overcoming our isolation is to bring the thoughts of others into either alignment or engaged opposition with our own by talking to them, every instance of censorship undermines our autonomy by preempting a choice that should properly be ours alone.