Conversational exercitives and the force of pornography

Philosophy and Public Affairs

Volumn 31, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 155-189

  McGowan, Mary Kate ^a  

^a WELLESLEY COLLEGE   (United States)

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EID: 34248046515     PISSN: 00483915     EISSN: 10884963     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1088-4963.2003.00155.x     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. See, for example, Words That Wound, eds. Kimberlè Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Mari Matsuda and Charles Lawrence (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993);
2. The Price We Pay, eds. Laura Lederer and Richard Delgado (New York W and Wang, 1995);
3. Catharine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987)
4. and Catharine MacKinnon Only Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993).
5. See, for example, Michelle J. Anderson, "Silencing Women's Speech," in The Price We Pay, pp. 122-30.
6. and Diana E. Russell, "Pornography and Rape: A Causal Model" in Feminism and Pornography, ed. Drucilla Cornell (Oxford Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 48-93.
7. MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified; Only Words.
8. and "The Roar on the Other Side of Silence" in In Harmk Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings, eds. Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997). pp. 3-24.
9. See, for example, Rae Langton, "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts," Philosophy & Public Again 22 (1993): 293-330;
10. Rae Langton, "Subordination, Silencing, and Pornography's Authority," in Censorship and Silencing, ed. Robert C. Post (Los Angeles, Calif.: Getty Research Institute, 1998), pp. 261-83;
11. with Jennifer Hornsby, "Free Speech and Illocution" Journal Legal Theory 4 (1998): 21-37
12. and, with Caroline West, "Scorekeeping in a Pornographic Language Game," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (1999): 300-322.
13. MacKinnon makes other provocative claims about the nature of pornography that are not discussed here. In particular, she claims that pornography enacts a false construction of women's nature that is, mistakenly, taken to be correct in part because of pornography's social authority. See, for example, her Feminism UnmodQed and her Only Words.
14. Moreover, even if one could establish that such claims are true, this is insufficient for establishing that pornography ought to be prohibited.
15. See Frank Michelman, "Civil Liberties, Silencing, and Subordination" in The Price We Pay, pp. 272-76.
16. Consider also Rae Langton, "Whose Right? Ronald Dworkin, Women and Pornog- raphers, " Philosophy0 PublicAffairs 19 (1990): 311-59.
17. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.
18. See also his "Performative Utterances," in Philosophical Papers, 3rd ed., eds. J. 0. Urmson and G. J. Warnock (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 233-52.
19. Notice that any locutionary act is an illocutionary act since assertion is an illocutionary act. Saying "Peter is tall,'' for example, constitutes the act of uttering, asserting, and describing. For a detailed explication of this point, see John Searle, "Austin on Locutionary and Illocutionary Acts." Philosophical Review 77 (1968): 405-24.
20. In Austin's own words, an exercitive "confers or takes away rights or privileges." See J. L. Austin, How To Do Things with Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 120. I choose to speak in terms of permissibility since all exercitives essentially concern what is permissible. A judge's sentence, for example, is essentially a declaration that the convict is not permitted to live within free society for a certain period of time. Conferring or taking away rights or privileges can also easily be cashed out in terms of permissibility.
21. John Searle, "The Distinction Between Brute and Institutional Facts, " in Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), pp. 50-53.
22. While familiar examples of Austinian exercitives involve the explicit assertion of the content of the rules enacted, I leave open the possibility that such an exercitive might express the content of the enacted rule in some other manner (e.g., presupposition or Gricean implicature). See H. P. Grice, "Logic and Conversation," in Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989). pp, 26-31.
23. Unless otherwise noted, all Langton citations are of her "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts.".
24. Technically, Langton maintains that pornography is also a verdictive speech act. She says: "Pornography is, first, verdictive speech that ranks women as sex objects, and, second, exercitive speech that legitimates sexual violence" (pp. 307-08). I simplify the discussion here by subsuming the verdictive ranking within the permissibility conditions enacted. Such a move is warranted since verdictive speech acts have an exercitive component. Verdictives are authoritative judgments about an antecedent matter of fact or value. Consider, for example, an umpire's call. Since it is an authoritative judgment about an antecedent matter of fact (i.e., whether the runner reached the base before being tagged), this is a verdictive speech act. The umpire's call also fixes what counts as being the case (for the purpose of the game) and this has obvious permissibility consequences. Thus verdictives are exercitive since they fix what counts as being the case in a certain realm which, in turn, partially determines what is permissible in that realm.
25. Ibid., p. 324.
26. She discusses three types of silencing, but I here focus, as she does, on illocutionary disablement.
27. Notice that if pornography silences, it deprives women of an important power (i.e., the power to do with her words what she wants). As a result, the silencing claim is part of the subordination claim.
28. The distinction is required since a right to free speech does not, of course, guarantee a right to be able to perform any illocution whatsoever. My inability to set the laws for the state of Massachusetts, for example, does not constitute silencing. For a discussion of this point, see Daniel Jacobson, "Freedom of Speech Acts? A Response to Langton," Philosophy & Public Affairs 24 (1995): 64-79. and Ishani Maitra has an excellent beginning of a solution, In Her Unpublished Manuscript "silencing Speech."
29. Consider Langton's sexual refusal case: A woman says "no" intending to refuse sex but the man fails to recognize her intention to refuse sex. According to Langton, the woman fails to refuse exactly because uptake fails. It is genuinely unclear what precise role Langton assumes uptake to play. First, she may think (as does Hornsby) that uptake is necessary for illocution generally. They appear to say so in their "Free Speech and Illocution." Second, she may think that uptake is necessary only for certain sorts of speech acts (e.g., telling someone that p). For an exploration of this possibility, see Maitra. Finally, she may think that pornographic speech sets incoherent felicity conditions for women. On this view, pornography makes certain speech acts unspeakable for women by setting the felicity conditions such that uptake is both necessary and impossible for women.
30. I am here following Leslie Green. See his "Pornographizing, Subordinating, and Silencing," in Censorship and Silencing, ed. Post (Los Angeles, Calif.: Getty Research Institute, 1998), pp. 285-311.
31. I do this, in part, because theorists disagree.
32. One might be tempted to say, in such a case, that the president's utterance fails to enact new college policy exactly because she does not intend to do so. I am unconvinced that the speaker's illocutionary intentions play such a crucial role, but this much, at least, is clear. Speaker illocutionary intention is an important felicity condition of Austinian exercitives and the failure of this condition constitutes a defect of some sort (whether fatal or not).
33. Again, one may be tempted to say in such a case that I have failed to enact new permissibility conditions for my children exactly because they do not recognize my intention to do so. I am unconvinced of this but we can conclude at least that the hearer's recognition of the speaker's illocutionary intention is an important felicity condition of Austinian exercitives.
34. Langton recognizes this difficulty with uptake and discusses it at length in her "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts."
35. Langton stresses this point in her "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts." In fact, her conclusion there is conditional on establishing that the speaker has the requisite authority.
36. Sally Haslanger offers just such a structural analysis of gender. See her "On Being Objective and Being Objectified" in A Mind of One's Own, eds. Charlotte Witt and Louise Anthony (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993): 85-125;
37. "Ontology and Social Construction," Philosophical Topics 23 (1995): 95-125.
38. and "Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them To Be?" Nous 34 (2000): 31-55.
39. Some theorists dismiss Langton's analysis over this very issue. See, for example, Martin Golding, Free Speech on Campus (Landham, Maryland Rowman & Littlefield, 2000): 107-l2.
40. David Lewis, "Scorekeeping in a Language Game," Philosophical Papers Volume I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983): 233-49.
41. For a detailed discussion of the score, see Lewis, pp. 236-38.
42. Of course, there are other rules operative in conversational contexts that are not rules of accommodation. The rules of grammar, for instance, are rigid rules that are operative in any linguistic context.
43. The salience facts can, of course, change back again in a variety of ways. Such facts can change by nonconversational means if, for example, Mike's dog starts barking where the conversation is taking place. (See Section V, part 3.) Such facts may also change back again by conversational means if, for example, Mike says something that requires that his dog is the most salient. For a discussion of this possibility and the challenges that it raises, see Section VIII, part 2.
44. Of course, what is permissible can change later in the conversation.
45. I am not inclined to say that my Finbar utterance enacted felicity conditions for Mike's dog utterance. Instead, my Finbar utterance changed the circumstances of utterance for Mike's dog speech act such that the (antecedent) felicity conditions of his intended speech act are not satisfied. Thus, it is not a perfect parallel to Langton's analysis of silencing.
46. Suppose, for example, that I want to communicate my desire that Deirdre share her chocolate with me. I can do so verbally (by requesting that she do so) or I can do so nonverbally (by gazing longingly at her box of chocolates as I lick my lips). Clearly, what can be done verbally can also be done nonverbally.
47. John Searle, "Indirect Speech Acts," and "Speech Acts and Recent Linguistics" in Expression and Meaning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 30-57 and pp. 162-79.
48. See also William Lycan, "Indirect Force," in his Logical Form in Natural Language (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1984).
49. One may, for example, understand conversational contributions as merely functioning as exercitives. For a discussion of such a conservative approach to indirect speech acts, see, for example, Rod Bertolet, "Are There Indirect Speech Acts" in Foundations of Speech Act Theory, ed. Savas Tsohatzidis (New York Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1994), pp. 335-49. If one is wary of literal meaning, one need only notice that the utterance 'Can you pass the salt?' has the syntactic form of a question.
50. Similar strategies are suggested, for example, in Nelson Goodman, "Seven Strictures on Similarity," in his Problems and Projects (NewYork: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972), pp. 437-46.
51. and David Lewis, "New Work for a Theory of Universals," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (1983): 343-77. Since assertion is an act, all locutionary acts are illocutionary acts and yet illocution is not trivialized. See n. 10.
52. Lewis's own language stresses this point. Of presupposition, for example, he says: "Say something that requires a missing presupposition, and straightway that presupposition springs into existence, making what you said acceptable after all." See his "Scorekeeping in a Language Game," p. 234.
53. Moreover, since the conditions in question do not function as epistemic criteria either, their failure in no way undermines the claim that pornography is akin to a conversational exercitive. For a discussion of this issue, see Section W, parts 2 and 3.
54. In virtue of operating within the bounds of conversational permissibility, however, it seems that my interlocutor recognizes, at some level or other, the permissibility consequences of my utterance.
55. Although the authority issue does not undermine the conversational exercitive approach to pornography in the same way that it undermines Langton's, the fact that conversational participants appear to be on a par with one another does afford a disanalogy between conversational contributions, on the one hand, and pornography, on the other. Such concerns are explicitly addressed in Section VIII, parts 2 and 3.
56. Of course, the rules of accommodation operative in the sociosexual arena may be different rules of accommodation from those operative in conversational contexts.
57. I thank Rae Langton for suggesting that I consider this.
58. See Kent Bach and Robert Hamish, Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1979)
59. Herbert Clark calls these staged communicative acts. For an illuminating discussion of how such speech functions, see his Using Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
60. In their "Scorekeeping in a Pornographic Language Game," Rae Langton and Caroline West explicitly address the concern that pornography, as mere fiction, cannot do what they contend. They there argue that fiction manages to express propositions via presupposition and implicature. Since conversational exercitives do neither, this response is not appropriate for the current proposal. See also Section IV, part 1.
61. For an interesting discussion of nonserious conversational contributions (i.e., layering), see Clark, pp. 353-84.
62. Arguably, the case of pornography is relevantly different from this conversational joke-telling example. Presumably, it is most often the case that only one party to real heterosexual sexual interaction is part of the "conversation" of (i.e., consumes) pornography. Since mostly men do so, it seems that pornography, as akin to a conversational exercitive, changes the permissibility facts for men in the heterosexual sociosexual arena and, because of male dominance, men are able (consciously or not) to enforce or impose these permissibility facts on women.
63. Since Mie is prevented from performing the speech act he intends to be performing there is a sense in which Mike is silenced. Since Mike is silenced, in part, by the permissibility fact enacted by my Finbar utterance, conversational exercitives silence. If it can be shown that the permissibility facts enacted by pornography unjustly prevent one from performing speech acts that one ought to be able to perform, then pornography silences in the precise manner that Langton contends. Since silencing unjustly deprives one of important powers, silencing is a form of subordination.
64. For a discussion of this point, see Lewis, "Scorekeeping in a Language Game,"
65. Notice also that by raising the standards of accuracy, Seamus disabled his interlocutor by rendering certain otherwise appropriate utterances out of bounds.
66. I thank David Lewis for this example and for suggesting that I discuss this challenge to the revised proposal.
67. Consider again the sexual refusal case. A woman says no and the man takes it to mean yes. In such a case, it might be extremely difficult for the woman to recognize that such a presupposition is operative. After all, there are plenty of other explanations for the man's behavior. Even if she recognizes that such a presupposition is operative, it is unclear that she can easily cancel that presupposition. Suppose, for example, that she says, "I know that you think that no means yes but coming from me no means no." Such an utterance may not be enough. After all, the man may not question his presupposition but just think that she is especially coy.