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A Partial Defense of Illocutionary Silencing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Mary Kate McGowan ,
Alexandra Adelman ,
Sara Helmers  and
Jacqueline Stolzenberg
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Abstract

Catharine MacKinnon has pioneered a new brand of anti-pornography argument. In particular, MacKinnon claims that pornography silences women in a way that violates their right to free speech. In what follows, we focus on a certain account of silencing put forward by Jennifer Hornsby and Rae Langton, and we defend that account against two important objections. The first objection contends that this account makes a crucial but false assumption about the necessary role of hearer recognition in successful speech acts. In response, we argue that, as silencing primarily concerns communication, Hornsby and Langton are perfectly correct to treat hearer recognition as they do. The second objection contends that their particular account of silencing has the unacceptable result of undermining the responsibility of rapists. We here argue that no such result follows from their account.

Type
CLUSTER: SEXUAL EXPRESSIONS
Information
Hypatia , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , Winter 2011 , pp. 132 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by Hypatia, Inc.

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