Artifactual Speech

Abstract:     
The article explores two competing conceptions of the meaning of "speech" under the First Amendment, and the principal (sub)variants on each of the general conceptions. The two basic models are: speech as a communicative stimulant - an artifact given meaning by one or more audiences; and speech as a human act of free will, engaged in a social or transactional setting. The practical, jurisprudential, historical and textual, and communicative implications of the two principal views and their basic subvariants are analyzed. Specific attention (by way of illustration) is given to the Supreme Court's recent opinion in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, which the author claims is a confused mixture of both artifactual and human liberty-based ideas.

Keywords: free speech, communication, free will, Boy Scouts of America v. Dale

Accepted Paper Series