Freedom of the press in Benjamin Constant's work: liberal individual right or republican political guarantee?

Abstract

The article examines the theoretical status of freedom of the press in Benjamin Constant's work, with reference to its distinction between principles of freedom and guarantees. The hypothesis is that freedom of the press is a component of the freedom of the moderns in which the articulation between the sphere of freedom principles and that of guarantees occurs. This articulation refers to the author's effort to integrate two fundamental political languages for the elaboration of his political theory: republican and liberal. The article reconstructs a theory of freedom of the press developed by the author in liberal language, which delimits the field of thought and its expression as belonging to the individual domain and defines this freedom by the formula of nonintervention. It then contends that arguments derived from republican language are constructed in parallel with the purely liberal justification. These Republican arguments understand press freedom as a fundamental feature of a free constitution in which the institutional framework and public spirit oppose the emergence of arbitrary power. This aspect of Constant's work is mobilized to reassess the normative foundations of press freedom and its challenges in modern society.

Keywords

• benjamin constant
• liberdade de imprensa
• liberalismo
• republicanismo