The Most Human Right: Why Free Speech Is Everything

“Despite the recent controversies over free speech, few people have a clear idea of why it’s so fundamental. This insightful and penetrating analysis shows how free speech is not just another good thing we have a right to, like food and protection from abuse, but a prerequisite to the very concept of a ‘right.’ (If you disagree, would it be OK for authorities to prevent you from saying why?)”—Steven Pinker, author of Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters “This engaging book makes a compelling case that freedom of speech constitutes an essential prerequisite for a regime in which other rights can be claimed by all individuals openly, candidly, and without fear, rather than bestowed by government as a matter of discretion.”—Nadine Strossen, author of HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship “A vitally important book about the most basic of human rights. We forget the importance of free speech to open and democratic societies at our peril.”—James Bloodworth, journalist and author of Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain “Human rights are often presented as a package—a set of interdependent and indivisible norms. Eric Heinze argues forcefully that free speech must have priority. Against the injustices of our world and the orthodoxies of reformers alike, Heinze has issued an articulate and provocative challenge.”—Samuel Moyn, author of Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War “Eric Heinze is one of our most thoughtful, informed, and imaginative scholars of freedom of speech. His book will reward a close reading.”—Robert Post, author of Citizens Divided: Campaign Finance Reform and the Constitution