AAP 2026 CONFERENCE

The aim of this paper is to present and defend a pragmatist interpretation of John Stuart Mill’s arguments defending freedom of expression. By drawing a comparison between Mill’s arguments in On Liberty and the work of Charles Peirce, this paper argues that Mill’s fundamental commitment to epistemic fallibilism as a basis for supporting freedom of expression situates him more closely to the pragmatist tradition of collaborative inquiry than the liberal notion of a clash of competing perspectives. This reading of Mill provides a more precise theoretical groundwork for further re-examination of the limits of free speech without necessary reference to the Mill’s utilitarian harm principle, with the right to voice one’s opinion contingent upon said opinion’s pragmatic contribution to collaborative inquiry in the collective pursuit of truth. His arguments provide further reasons to question liberal ideas of static preferences, suggesting that freedom of opinion entails being receptive to the experience of genuinely felt doubt as a basis for remaining open to revising our personal commitments and opinions.