Conference Presentations by Michelle Laplante
In some cases, it seems appropriate to forgive a person for wrongdoings committed when we judge t... more In some cases, it seems appropriate to forgive a person for wrongdoings committed when we judge that person to be an unwitting product of her time or circumstances. This is due to our understanding of moral responsibility as having an epistemic component: a person is not blameworthy (or praiseworthy) for her action if she did not have some reasonable belief about the moral status of her action or its consequences. However, it also seems as though there are cases where ignorance does not excuse, e.g. when they ought to have known better. In this paper, I will be exploring the topic of individual moral responsibility for oppressive acts within an oppressive framework, in light of a criticism that Alexander Bird makes of Rae Langton. He claims that if we accept Langton's view that women's speech acts in the sexual sphere are disabled (a.k.a. illocutionary silencing), then we would also have to admit that the men who don't understand ''no'' as refusal are not morally responsible for the actions they commit despite the woman's ''no'', because our society would be such that they are unculpably ignorant of the speaker's meaning, given the social meaning of the utterance. In defense of Langton, I submit that even in such a society, these men are indeed culpable in their ignorance and blameworthy for their resulting actions. This will be shown via Kevin Timpe's solution to the tracing condition problem as outlined by Manuel Vargas, whereby an appropriate formulation of the epistemic condition for moral responsibility can explain why and when a person can be morally responsible despite their ignorance of certain relevant facts.
Freedom of speech is often used as an argument in defence of pornography. Rae Langton and other p... more Freedom of speech is often used as an argument in defence of pornography. Rae Langton and other philosophers of language have criticized this position by arguing that the prevalence of pornography creates a context where women are no longer able to communicate a denial of consent to sexual actions. This deprives women of the freedom to refuse. Taken more broadly, it is a matter of illocutionary freedom. This is to be differentiated from the negative right to freedom of speech, where one is free to perform speech acts (which would be locutionary freedom); as well as from a sort of positive right to perlocutionary freedom, where speech acts can secure uptake, and one's freedom involves others responding in the ways one intends. Instead, what I call ''illocutionary freedom'' is the ability for a speaker to have her ''speaker's meaning'' recognized as purposive meaning. For example, in a culture where male to female rape imagery is normalized, when a woman performs the speech act of saying ''no'', the speaker's meaning (to refuse consent to a sexual action) is not recognized as meaning ''no'', because the cultural context has denied her the illocutionary freedom of having her intentioned, purposive meaning recognized. This goes beyond simple misunderstanding or miscommunication when the conditions are set in advance and, in some sense, unavoidable by the victim.
In this essay, I argue that certain conditions of luck and social context are heteronomous impediments to the freedom constitutive of purposive conveyance of meaning. A person who, in certain conditions of illocutionary silencing (Langton) or illocutionary luck (Auch) does not have the ability to convey certain meanings by their speech acts, which are not taken as purposive, will find themself in a context of oppression, characterized by this restricted freedom and, importantly, autonomy. Finally, I will answer to the objection raised by Jacobson that if the illocutionary act was silenced, it did not take place—thus, in our example, since the woman
failed to deny consent, there was no refusal, therefore the ensuing act was not rape—by arguing that where there is an impediment to the speaker's illocutionary autonomy, it is the interlocutor's responsibility to recognize it.
Talks by Michelle Laplante
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Conference Presentations by Michelle Laplante
In this essay, I argue that certain conditions of luck and social context are heteronomous impediments to the freedom constitutive of purposive conveyance of meaning. A person who, in certain conditions of illocutionary silencing (Langton) or illocutionary luck (Auch) does not have the ability to convey certain meanings by their speech acts, which are not taken as purposive, will find themself in a context of oppression, characterized by this restricted freedom and, importantly, autonomy. Finally, I will answer to the objection raised by Jacobson that if the illocutionary act was silenced, it did not take place—thus, in our example, since the woman
failed to deny consent, there was no refusal, therefore the ensuing act was not rape—by arguing that where there is an impediment to the speaker's illocutionary autonomy, it is the interlocutor's responsibility to recognize it.
Talks by Michelle Laplante
In this essay, I argue that certain conditions of luck and social context are heteronomous impediments to the freedom constitutive of purposive conveyance of meaning. A person who, in certain conditions of illocutionary silencing (Langton) or illocutionary luck (Auch) does not have the ability to convey certain meanings by their speech acts, which are not taken as purposive, will find themself in a context of oppression, characterized by this restricted freedom and, importantly, autonomy. Finally, I will answer to the objection raised by Jacobson that if the illocutionary act was silenced, it did not take place—thus, in our example, since the woman
failed to deny consent, there was no refusal, therefore the ensuing act was not rape—by arguing that where there is an impediment to the speaker's illocutionary autonomy, it is the interlocutor's responsibility to recognize it.