Truth, Autonomy, and Speech

Feminist Theory and the First Amendment

Susan Williams

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9780814795118
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Feminism & Feminist Theory
• Index: Social Sciences

Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Titles 2005 Winner

Amidst the vast array of literature on the First Amendment, it is rare to hear a fresh voice speak about the First Amendment, but in Truth, Autonomy, and Speech, Susan H. Williams presents a strikingly original interpretation and defense of the First Amendment, written from a feminist perspective. Drawing on work from several disciplines—including law, political theory, philosophy, and anthropology—the book develops alternative accounts of truth and autonomy as the foundations for freedom of expression. Building on feminist understandings of self and the social world, Williams argues that both truth and autonomy are fundamentally relational.

With great clarity and insight, Williams demonstrates that speech is the means by which we create rather than discover truth and the primary mechanism through which we tell the stories that constitute our autonomy. She examines several controversial issues in the law of free speech—including campaign finance reform, the public forum doctrine, and symbolic speech—and concludes that the legal doctrine through which we interpret and apply the First Amendment should be organized to protect speech that serves the purposes of truth and autonomy.

Index

Abortion, restrictions on speech about, 224

Abstract values, Nussbaum on, 99

Abstraction: interpretation and, 237

need for certainty, stability, 234

Actions, narratives and, 66

Advertising, free speech and, 207–208

Aeropagitica (Milton), 13–14

Agency: capacity for, 133

creativity and, 160–161, 229

interpersonal recognition self-respect and, 133–134

prerequisites for experiencing it, 142

transformative agency and subjecthood, 161

Agentic recognition self-respect, one’s standing in a community, 133–134

Aggregative model of democracy: autonomy and, 145, 146

narrative autonomy theory of free speech, 170

tenets, 144

utilitarian version, 276n65

Animal rights, truth claims based on, 126

Antisubordination, in judging social practices, 87–88

Argumentation, narratives compared to, 180

Associational rights: of First Amendment, 194

Supreme Court’s understanding, 197

Audience understanding, in Spence test, 201–203

Autonomous man: Benhabib on, 59

Nedelsky on, 59

Autonomy: aggregative model of democracy and, 145, 146

being known and, 63–64

broadcasting and, 199

central focus, 149

character and, 135–137

choice and, 41–42, 46–47, 65–66, 163–164, 200

coercion and, 42, 46–47

collective identity creation, 171

connection to epistemology, 206

consciousness raising and, 144

contra-causal freedom and, 137–138

creativity and, 160–163, 229

cultural dependence of, 150–156

definition, 131, 145

democracy and, 30–31, 143–148, 224–228, 226

determinism and, 42, 158, 254n38

discursive/deliberative model of democracy, 145, 147, 224–228

feminism and, 79–80, 143

forms, 253n32

free speech and, 19–20

free will and, 42, 137–138

freedom and, 145–146, 204–205

functions of, 6, 9, 130–148, 158–172

gender bias and, 205

government influence on preconditions for, 221

happiness and, 146

Homiak on, 138

identity and, 228

individualism and, 259n45

inequality and, 154

integrity and, 64, 130, 135–137, 166

internal restraints and, 63

in interpretive approach, 237

jettisoning the co...