Episode 155: Rebecca Lowe discusses speaking freely

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What does “speaking freely” actually mean and how is it different from free speech?

Rebecca Lowe 0:12

Yeah.

Matt Teichman 0:19

Hello and welcome to Elucidations, an unexpected philosophy podcast. I'm Matt Tykman, and with me today is Rebecca Lowe, Philosophy Senior Research Fellow and Director of Emerging Scholars at the Mercatus Center, and she is here to discuss speaking freely. Rebecca Lowe, welcome to Elucidations.

Rebecca Lowe 0:35

Hey Matt, thanks for having me.

Matt Teichman 0:38

Uh so I can't resist opening by asking the question, Am I speaking freely to you right now? How do I tell? Is there a test?

Rebecca Lowe 0:46

Uh I'm gonna give a really annoying philosopher's answer and say something like because some of the conditions I think that need to be met for you to be speaking freely. things I just don't really have the epistemic capacity to hold forth confidently on, like, is there an evil demon controlling the content of your words? I can't really say, but the account that I've kind of come up with, I think, is much better at, for instance, being able to identify instances in which someone is not speaking freely.

Matt Teichman 1:13

Oh yeah. This kind of duality occurs a lot in philosophy and especially in logic. Th there are many cases where it's easier to tell if something's not true than whether it is true. So maybe this is one of those.

Rebecca Lowe 1:23

I think so. I mean We can talk about this in more detail. I think one of the Problems at all of also one of the philosophically interesting things about this idea of speaking freely is that it can mean different things. And I think that's part of like when you say, I'm not speaking freely, like you can be being constrained in different kinds of ways. And the account I've come up with tries to distinguish between some important instances of those. And it actually does try to come up with some kind of checklist that somebody could use to try to help to come to some interesting and important conclusions about those kinds of instances. Like they read about a case in the in the press and they're trying to work out what's going on.

Rebecca Lowe 2:01

I think that part of one of the kind of practical bits of value of what I'm thinking about, beyond hopefully it's rigorous philosophical interest, is giving somebody the kind of the tools to think in a little bit of detail of what's happening in an instance. I think there are going to be like epistemic limits on stuff like, are you speaking freely? I just probably don't have enough context and if I could ever have enough context. That's an annoying answer, but My kind of deep and rigorous account I think necessitates me to say something like that up front.

Matt Teichman 2:28

So maybe I'll flip it back around and say, uh like can you remember a time in the recent past when you were sadly not able to speak freely?

Rebecca Lowe 2:35

So I mean I can say, for instance, it might be the case we're recording this um in a building that I think is owned by your university. Yes. So it might be the case, for instance, that you're not speaking freely because perhaps you feel inhibited um to say the full content of the things that you otherwise would want to say or would have decided to say, because you think one of your colleagues might walk past the room and be offended. Um there are some of the things. Yeah, we're in the

Matt Teichman 2:58

Logan Media Center, so maybe I don't want to start screaming about how much I hate the Logan Media Center. That's right.

Rebecca Lowe 3:03

So I could say something like that. Perhaps also you have some kind of Condition where if you smell a particular type of perfume your throat gets constricted. I'm not actually wearing any perfume, but say I was. So there are I am

Matt Teichman 3:16

allergic to perfume. That's an excellent example. So there you go.

Rebecca Lowe 3:18

So that would be a very different kind of constraint. That would be something like a constraint on your capacity to utter words entirely. I don't think that's happening now.

Matt Teichman 3:25

Somebody got me in a headlock in the middle of the show. Similarly I physically Yeah, physically

Rebecca Lowe 3:29

preventing

Matt Teichman 3:29

the physical thing.

Rebecca Lowe 3:29

So the kind of account that I've come up with helps us to distinguish between these different instances. In both of those kinds of instances, I think it's fair to say that you couldn't speak freely, but something very different is happening in those cases.

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Chapters

8 chapters

1 What does “speaking freely” actually mean and how is it different from free speech? 0:12–4:33 2 How does Rebecca Lowe categorize the three main ways people can be blocked from speaking freely? 4:33–9:11 3 What are examples of Type 1 constraints that prevent the capacity to utter words or determine their content? 9:11–14:05 4 How do Type 2 constraints limit communication even when you can speak and choose your words? 14:05–18:54 5 What are Type 3 constraints and how do perceived risks shape what we choose not to say? 18:54–24:13 6 Why is it important to distinguish between these constraint types when evaluating free‑speech controversies? 24:13–29:28 7 How can the three‑type framework help analyze real‑world cases like blackmail, corporate speech, and academic disputes? 29:28–33:52 8 What practical tools does the guest suggest for individuals and policymakers to assess speech‑freedom violations? 33:52–40:10

Speakers

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Matt Teichman 7 min

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Twitter 1 Police 1 Aaron Powell 2 Elucidations 2 Matt Teichman 86 Rebecca Lowe 85 university 1 State 1 Mercatus Center 1 evil demon 1 Logan Media Center 1 G. A. Cohen 1

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Recorded01 May 2026

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Show notes

Last episode, we talked about free speech, and this time, we sit down with Rebecca Lowe (Mercatus Center) to discuss the related but slightly different topic of speaking freely. Speaking freely: the thing you feel entitled to do when a superior says to you: “you may speak freely.” But although speaking freely is the phenomenon our guest is interested in characterizing, rather than trying to characterize it directly, her approach is to get granular about what it means not to speak freely. What are the different ways you might be blocked from saying what you would otherwise say, if you were fully unfettered?Rebecca Lowe discusses three broad categories of failing to speak freely. Type 1 is where you lack the capacity either to utter words or to determine their content, e.g. because you have laryngitis, or because someone put their hand over your mouth, or because an evil demon controls everything you say. Type 2 is where you’re able to speak, and you’re able to control what you say, but something is preventing you from communicating in the way you’ve decided to, e.g. when you want to call your friend, but your phone battery is dead. Type 3 is where you’re able to speak, you’re able to control what you say, and the situation allows you to communicate in the way you’ve decided to, but you refrain from speaking your mind because of some perceived risk, e.g. when you want to suggest your friend dump her boyfriend, but hold back because you’re worried she’s going to get offended.One subtlety of these categories is that they are not logically independent. If you’re blocked from speaking freely in the Type 1 way, you’re thereby also blocked from speaking freely in the Type 2 and Type 3 ways. And if you’re blocked from speaking freely in the Type 2 way, you’re thereby also blocked from speaking freely in the Type 3 way. The converse doesn’t hold: for example, as our bad boyfriend example emphasized, you can be blocked from speaking in the Type 3 way without being blocked from speaking in the Type 1 way. Indeed, as Rebecca emphasizes, it’s only people who can speak in the Type 1 way who can be blocked from speaking in the Type 3 way!In this episode, our guest argues that the public conversation about a person’s right to speak their mind would go more smoothly if we tried to keep these distinctions in view. That is, whenever we feel indignant about someone’s ability to speak being suppressed, we should consider the details of the situation. Which of these three types of obstructions was it? Was the person able to speak their mind in the situation? Then, we can consider whether they were entitled to do so. Generally we are, but it seems there are certain exception cases. The hope is that by breaking down what is at issue in any particular case we’re discussing, we’ll arrive at a better understanding of what its moral lessons are.It was a fun and lively conversation, and I hope you enjoy it! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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