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Areopagitica Summary. The major arguments of Areopagitica are those advocating freedom of the press. Milton argued that the government should not be allowed to punish individuals simply because they printed text that was controversial.

Areopagitica is among history's most influential and impassioned philosophical defences of the principle of a right to freedom of speech and expression.

This controversial pamphlet, entitled Areopagitica was written by John Milton in 1644. It argues against the censorship of books before their publication, and is often held up as the first impassioned plea for free speech.

The heart of Milton's argument is the idea that no book should have to be approved before it can be printed. Milton wasn't against all censorship, but he didn't feel that books should need government pre-approval. To this end, he uses references to both the bible and ancient Greece and Rome to support his position.

Unless morally bad books were printed, readers would be denied the benefit of learning how to discern moral falsity through the vicarious experience of it in reading. Third, he argued that prepublication censorship is an ineffective means of achieving the goal of protecting public morality and religion.

Milton thinks of bound books as though they were living, breathing creatures and that to censor, restrict, or “license them is like killing a man. Furthermore, they encapsulate the "seasoned life of man” by containing the thoughts and desires of the man who wrote them as well those of the man or woman who reads them.

Milton wrote his pamphlet as a protest against Lilburne's treatment. In fact, Areopagitica had little impact. It was not until 1695 that laws on printing were relaxed, allowing for a blossoming of newspapers and provincial presses.

The title 'Areopagitica' alludes to the rocky area outside near the Acropolis in Athens where the democratic council of the city state would meet to decide law and policy. So Milton was appealing to a vision of a democratic parliament making just laws through free and open discussion.