Who would have thought, even 10 years ago (much less 20 or more), that journalists would be among those not merely tolerating, but celebrating, censorship? I spare you documentation of this claim. If you follow the news, either online or off, you know whereof I speak. Certain journalists are celebrating Twitter’s banishment of President Trump from its platform. And not just President Trump; many other prominent conservatives, libertarians, and assorted contrarians have found their voices silenced by having their access to YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram either limited or denied altogether.
Perhaps we should not be surprised by this. After all, journalists are not merely journalists. They are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, socialists, libertarians, leftists, rightists, and many other things. A given journalist who celebrates the de facto silencing of President Trump may be doing so in his or her capacity as a leftist rather than in his or her capacity as a journalist. Qua journalist, we might say, he or she is principled. Qua leftist, he or she takes sides in various cultural, moral, or political battles.
I am not appeased by this way of thinking. Shouldn’t journalists, of all people, be principled, whatever else is true of them? Shouldn’t they be committed to the free-speech principle, which asserts that speech should not be censored or punished, by government or by anyone else with vast powers over individuals, on the basis of its content? A given person may be pleased that a political opponent is silenced, but would he or she be pleased if a political ally were silenced? Better yet, would he or she be pleased if he or she were silenced? The relevant question is not “What result would please me in this instance?,” but “How would I like it if my speech were censored?”
When I was in college (and especially later, when I was in law school), it was a good thing to be principled. Being principled was difficult, in that one is often tempted (sometimes strongly so) to employ a double standard (one for one’s friends, another for one’s enemies), but it was something to be aspired to by people of intelligence and good will. Being principled was an aspect of adulthood, even of citizenship. It signaled that one had a mature, discriminating mind, one that could rise above the political fray, as it were, one that could see the world sub specie aeternitatis (under the heading of eternity). Not to sound corny, but it gave one a sense of being superhuman, even Godlike. Unprincipled people, by contrast, seemed all too human—even, in their willingness to be guided by emotion, animal-like.
I remember thrilling to the following words of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who, in 1989, voted to reverse the conviction of a young man (Gregory Johnson) who had burned an American flag in protest:
The hard fact is that sometimes we must make decisions we do not like. We make them because they are right, right in the sense that the law and the Constitution, as we see them, compel the result. And so great is our commitment to the process that, except in the rare case, we do not pause to express distaste for the result, perhaps for fear of undermining a valued principle that dictates the decision. This is one of those rare cases.
Justice Kennedy made it clear in his opinion that he did not like the result of the case—a flag-burner walking free—but his principles compelled him to vote as he did. His words were, and remain, immortal and inspiring.
What does it mean to be principled, anyway? According to the New Oxford American Dictionary (2010), the adjective “principled,” when applied to a person or to a person’s behavior, means “acting in accordance with morality and showing recognition of right and wrong.” A principled person, in other words, acts in accordance with moral principles.
Moral principles have two salient features. First, they are prescriptive. This means that their function is to guide behavior, not to describe reality. Second, they are universal. This means that they must make no reference to individuals. An example of a moral principle is, “One ought never to make false statements.” Moral principles may be more or less general. The moral principle, “One ought never to make false statements to one’s wife,” is less general (i.e., more specific) than the first. The moral principle, “One ought never to make false statements to one’s wife about one’s whereabouts,” is less general still.
Suppose I say (referring to my wife), “I ought never to make false statements to Katherine.” This is not a moral principle, because it makes reference to two individuals: Keith and Katherine. It is prescriptive, and therefore action-guiding, but not universal. The genius of moral principles is that they apply to whoever fills the various roles picked out by the principle. The moral principle, “One ought never to make false statements,” entails all of the following judgments, and more:
Keith ought never to make false statements.
Keith ought never to make false statements to Katherine.
Katherine ought never to make false statements to Keith.
President Trump ought never to make false statements to the American people.
To return to our journalists, a free-speech principle, if it is a moral principle, must be both prescriptive and universal. It must say something like, “One ought not censor people on the basis of the content of what they say.” This principle entails all of the following, and more:
Twitter ought not censor President Trump on the basis of the content of what he says.
Facebook ought not censor President-elect Biden on the basis of the content of what he says.
The United States government ought not censor Jack Dorsey (the co-founder and CEO of Twitter) on the basis of the content of what he says.
My university ought not censor me on the basis of the content of what I say.
I hope you can see how principles help us rise above partisanship and special pleading. They require that we make identical judgments about relevantly similar cases. If I ought not be censored on the basis of the content of what I say, then, unless there is some morally relevant difference between the cases, President Trump ought not be censored on the basis of what he says. Since I in fact assent to the judgment that I ought not be censored on the basis of the content of what I say, I am committed, logically, to making the same judgment about President Trump. In other words, the following three propositions are logically inconsistent:
I ought not be censored on the basis of the content of what I say.
President Trump ought to be censored on the basis of the content of what he says.
There is no morally relevant difference between the two situations.
Any two of these propositions entail the falsity of the third. A rational person must therefore reject at least one of the three propositions. This is what it means to be principled. It means being rational, which means being bound by the laws of logic. Unprincipled people are irrational. They make exceptions for themselves and for those they hold dear. They single out others for persecution, when they would howl in protest about being persecuted by others for the same actions. An unprincipled person would endorse all three propositions, even though not all of them can be true.
My forlorn hope is that journalists come to their senses. Many of them appear to be driven by hatred (or some other form of animosity, such as enmity or ill-will) toward others (including President Trump). If they would reflect on their judgments, they would see that they cannot consistently will that he be censored without also willing that they themselves be censored, when in relevantly similarly circumstances. And isn’t that just the Golden Rule? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The Golden Rule, it turns out, is an invitation (or exhortation) to be principled rather than partisan.
(I am indebted to the British philosopher R. M. Hare [1919-2002] for some of the examples used in this column.)