1 - Introduction

Summary

This chapter discusses the importance of freedom of speech in reference to Enlightenment thinkers, among others. It analyzes deontological and consequentialist defenses of this freedom in order to provoke a reflection on its legitimate limits. Then, it presents cases in the United States where reference to human dignity serves to justify a protective conception of freedom of expression and cases in France where reference to the same concept serves e to justify limitations of the same liberty. The argument in this book builds off Hans-Georg Gadamer’s analysis of legal hermeneutics. According to this analysis, anticipations of meaning condition the receptivity of a reader of a text. The ex ante understanding of the role of the government present in jurists in France and the United States affects their understanding of the legitimate limits to freedom of expression. The difference in the approach indicates a difference with regard to the “imaginary institution” of the political phenomenon on each side of the Atlantic.