QuestionsWhat is a just society?Freedom to think and to speak
What is a just society?Liberties

Freedom to think and to speak

Benedictus de Spinoza 1632 · 1677God, that is, Nature: everything follows by necessity.
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What it claims

The state must regulate actions, and let everyone think what they like and say what they think.

Why

No one can be forced to think otherwise: banning speech does not change thoughts, it only corrupts good faith.

In short

"Freedom to think and to speak" is an argument by Benedictus de Spinoza (Theological-Political Treatise, ch. 20) on the question "What is a just society?" (answer: liberties). Its claim: The state must regulate actions, and let everyone think what they like and say what they think. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Theological-Political Treatise, ch. 20
Valid with an implicit premise

In 1670, in a country where books were censored, Spinoza published, without his name, a plea for freedom of thought. His argument does not rest on good feelings, but on what a state can and cannot obtain from people.

P1No one can transfer to another their right to reason and judge freely, nor be forced to.
P2In forming the state, each person gave up the right to act on their own decision alone, but not the right to reason and judge.
P3The end of the state is not to dominate or to turn people into automata, but freedom.
P4Forbidding people to say what they think does not change what they think: they think one thing and say another, good faith is corrupted, flattery and treachery thrive.
P5 · implicit premiseA state must not demand what it cannot obtain, when demanding it harms peace and contradicts its own end.
Therefore the state must regulate actions, and let everyone think what they like and say what they think.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a case where thought is inalienable, the pact covers only actions, the state aims at freedom and censorship does harm, yet the state is not bound to let people speak.
With P5 the conclusion follows. Without it, one could accept all the facts (thought cannot be commanded, censorship breeds hypocrisy) and still conclude that censorship is needed, for instance to save souls or impose the true religion. P5 is the rule of political prudence linking the facts to the conclusion. Note the limit Spinoza himself sets: one may say anything, but must obey the laws in one's actions.
Analogy. A teacher can demand silence during a test: that is an action. He cannot demand that his students think he is right. If he punishes those who contradict him, he gets not their agreement, only students who pretend.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Objection anticipated by Spinoza attacks premise 4

Words can harm authority as much as deeds. Letting people say anything means letting them preach revolt.

Spinoza replies
Spinoza
The only seditious opinions are those which, once asserted, destroy the pact: for instance, that the sovereign has no right, or that no one must keep their promises. Those may be banned, because they count as actions. The others must remain free.
Hobbes 1651 · attacks premise 2

Hobbes grants that inner thought remains free. But speaking, publishing and teaching are actions, and men's actions proceed from their opinions. To secure peace, the sovereign must therefore judge which opinions and doctrines may be taught: citizens transferred that right to him (Leviathan, ch. 18).

Spinoza replies
Spinoza
What separates me from Hobbes is that I always keep natural right intact: the sovereign has right over subjects only in proportion to his power. And, as the Treatise shows (ch. 20), no power can command minds.
Locke 1689 · attacks the conclusion

Toleration has a limit: those who deny the existence of God are not to be tolerated, since promises, covenants and oaths, the bonds of society, have no hold on an atheist.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in 1689, after the author's death (1677).