This article has benefited from the thoughtful comments and suggestions of many, including Susan Brison, Gilbert Harman, Sally Haslanger, Richard Holton, Win Kymlicka, Mark van Roojen, Michael Smith, Scott Schon, Katalie Stoljar, and the Editors of Philoso- phy & Public Affairs, I am grateful to them all. r, American Booksellers, Inc, v, Hudnut, 5g8 F. Supp. I327 (S.D. Ind. zgsA) (heresfter Hudnut).
Silence can sometimes be eloquent. Conversations consist not only in what is said but what is not said—the cold silence, the disapproving silence, the appreciative silence, the reverent silence, the baffled silence. Of particular interest is the approving silence, or the consenting silence, and this will be my topic here.
If, as many suppose, pornography changes people, a question arises as to how.1 One answer to this question offers a grand and noble vision. Inspired by the idea that pornography is speech, and inspired by a certain liberal ideal about the point of speech in political life, some theorists say that pornography contributes to that liberal ideal: pornography, even at its most violent and misogynistic, and even at its most harmful, is political speech that aims to express certain views about (...) the good life, 2aims to persuade its consumers of a certain political point of view—and to some extent succeeds in persuading them. Ronald Dworkin suggests that the pornographer contributes to the ‘moral environment, by expressing his political or social convictions or tastes or prejudices informally’, that pornography ‘seeks to deliver’ a ‘message’ , that it reflects the ‘opinion’ that ‘women are submissive, or enjoy being dominated, or should be treated as if they did’, that it is comparable to speech ‘advocating that women occupy inferior roles’.3 Pornography on this view is political speech that aims to persuade its listeners of the truth of certain ideas about women, and of course ‘the government must leave to the people the evaluation of ideas’.4 Another answer offers a vision that is not grand and noble, but thoroughly reductive. Pornography is not politically persuasive speech, but speech that works by a process of psychological conditioning. This view seems common enough in the social science literature. Consider, for example, this description of an early experiment, from a time that pre-dates contemporary political debate. (shrink)
Jaegwon Kim définissait une propriété intrinsèque comme une propriété compatible avec le fait que l'objet ne serait accompagné d'aucun autre être contingent. Mais cela impliquerait que la solitude serait une propriété intrinsèque, or c'est une propriété extrinsèque. Les auteurs définissent une propriété intrinsèque de base comme une propriété indépendante de la solitude et de l'accompagnement et qui n'est ni une propriété disjonctive ni une négation de propriété disjonctive. Deux doubles intrinsèques sont des objets qui ont toutes les mêmes propriétés intrinsèques (...) de base. Une propriété intrinsèque peut dès lors être définie comme une propriété qui ne peut jamais différer entre deux doubles. Cette définition est ensuite appliquée à différents problèmes. Si les lois de la nature sont absolument nécessaires ou qu'un être nécessaire existe, de nombreuses connexions deviendraient alors des propriétés intrinsèques et il sera nécessaire de conserver un sens à la possibilité que ces connexions nécessaires auraient pu ne pas exister. Les propriétés dispositionnelles seront intrinsèques ou non, selon la conception des lois de la nature. Il est possible de suivre les conséquences de la définition, en amendant éventuellement d'autres concepts. La définition peut aussi s'appliquer aux relations. Les auteurs comparent aussi leur définition à d'autres définitions antérieurement données par David Lewis et Peter Vallentyne. Jaegwon Kim had defined an intrinsic property as a property that does not imply that the object is accompanied by another contingent being. But this would imply that loneliness would be an intrinsic property, whereas it is an extrinsic property. The authors define a basic intrinsic property as a property independent from accompaniment or loneliness and which is neither a disjunctive property nor a negation of a disjunctive property. Two intrinsic duplicates are objects which have all the same basic intrinsic properties. An intrinsic property can be defined as a property which can never differ between duplicates. This definition is then applied to different problems. If laws of nature are necessary or if a necessary being exists, many connections will turn out to be intrinsic properties and it will be necessary to keep a sense of possibility according to which those necessary connections could have not obtained. Dispositions will be intrinsic or extrinsic depending on the conception of the laws of nature. It is possible to follow this definition of intrinsicness if one amends other concepts. The definition can also be applied to relations. The article ends by comparing this definition with previous ones by David Lewis and Peter Vallentyne. (shrink)
Rae Langton here draws together her ground-breaking work on pornography and objectification. On pornography she argues from uncontroversial liberal premises to the controversial feminist conclusions that pornography subordinates and silences women, and that women have rights against pornography. On objectification she begins with the traditional idea that objectification involves treating a person as a thing, but then shows that it is through a kind of self-fulfilling projection of beliefs and perceptions of women as subordinate that women are made subordinate and (...) treated as things. These controversial essays in feminist philosophy will be stimulating reading for anyone interested in the status of women in society. (shrink)
A claim to objectivity about value is sometimes cast as a claim about the value something has in itself, independent of its relations to other things. Goodness is supposed to be “separate from” relations to such irrelevancies as “private and personal advantage”, or “the positive will or command of God”, as Samuel Clarke put it.1 This thought about independence or separateness is also expressed in the idea of intrinsic value, so that it can be tempting to align a commitment to (...) objectivity in ethics with a commitment to intrinsic value. G.E. Moore thought that a hankering after objectivity was really a hankering after intrinsic value, and he envisaged an entailment in one direction at any rate: “from the proposition that a particular kind of value is ‘intrinsic’ it does follow that it must be ‘objective’”.2 What does intrinsic value really have to do with objectivity, though? I shall be arguing that the relationship between them is more distant than you might think: first, because the extrinsically valuable can be objectively valuable (as Moore allowed); second, and more surprisingly, because the intrinsically valuable can be merely subjectively.. (shrink)
Kant’s claim that we are ignorant of things in themselves is a claim that we cannot know ‘the intrinsic nature of things’, or so at least I argued in Kantian Humility.2 I’m delighted to find that Lucy Allais is in broad agreement with this core idea, thinking it represents, at the very least, a part of Kant’s view. She sees some of the advantages of this interpretation. It has significant textual support. It does justice to Kant’s sense that we are (...) missing out on something, in our failure to know things as they are in themselves. And it makes tellable, after all, Kant’s at first sight untellable tale, about the knowable existence of unknowable things: for we can know that things exist, without knowing what their intrinsic properties are. However, Allais is critical of the way I fill out this core idea, and she has an alternative to offer. She thinks Kant’s distinction between things in themselves and phenomena is not a distinction between two kinds of properties, intrinsic and relational. She is critical of my interpretation of causal powers, which I take to be the relevant relational properties: my idea, first, that causal powers are in fact relational properties; second, that causal powers are only contingently associated with intrinsic properties, so that creating substances with intrinsic properties is insufficient for creating causal power; and, third, that intrinsic properties are causally inert. Her criticisms of these three ideas.. (shrink)
Kant argued that we have no knowledge of things in themselves, no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of things, a thesis that is not idealism but epistemic humility. David Lewis agrees (in 'Ramseyan Humility'), but for Ramseyan reasons rather than Kantian. I compare the doctrines of Ramseyan and Kantian humility, and argue that Lewis's contextualist strategy for rescuing knowledge from the sceptic (proposed elsewhere) should also rescue knowledge of things in themselves. The rescue would not be complete: for knowledge of (...) things in themselves would remain elusive. (shrink)
Kant argued that we have no knowledge of things in themselves, no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of things, a thesis that is not idealism but epistemic humility. David Lewis agrees (in 'Ramseyan Humility'), but for Ramseyan reasons rather than Kantian. I compare the doctrines of Ramseyan and Kantian humility, and argue that Lewis's contextualist strategy for rescuing knowledge from the sceptic (proposed elsewhere) should also rescue knowledge of things in themselves. The rescue would not be complete: for knowledge of (...) things in themselves would remain elusive. (shrink)
What, if anything, has faith to do with intention?1 By ‘faith’ I have in mind the attitude described by William James: Suppose...that I am climbing in the Alps, and have had the ill-luck to work myself into a position from which the only escape is by a terrible leap. Being without similar experience, I have no evidence of my ability to perform it successfully; but hope and confidence in myself make me sure I shall not miss my aim, and nerve (...) my feet to execute what without those subjective emotions would perhaps have been impossible. But suppose that, on the contrary, the emotions of fear and mistrust preponderate; or suppose that...I feel it would be sinful to act upon an assumption unverified by previous experience,—why, then I shall hesitate so long that at last, exhausted and trembling, and launching myself in a moment of despair, I miss my foothold and roll into the abyss....There are then cases where faith creates its own verification. Believe, and you shall be right, for you shall save yourself; doubt, and you shall again be right, for you shall perish.2.. (shrink)
Dan Marshall and Josh Parsons note, correctly, that the property of being either a cube or accompanied by a cube is incorrectly classified as intrinsic under the definition we have given unless it turns out to be disjunctive. Whether it is disjunctive, under the definition we gave, turns on certain judgements of the relative naturalness of properties. They doubt the judgements of relative naturalness that would classify their property as disjunctive. We disagree. They also suggest that the whole idea of (...) judging relative naturalness is a dubious business. We reply that, like them or not, such judgements cannot easily be avoided. (shrink)
Did God give things 'accidental powers not rooted in their natures', powers not rooted in intrinsic properties? For Leibniz, no. For Locke, the answer is disputed. On a voluntarist reading, yes, secondary and tertiary qualities are superadded (Margaret Wilson). On a mechanist reading, no, as for Leibniz (Michael Ayers). Since Locke viewed these qualities as relational, his view of relations ought to bear on the dispute. Locke said relation is 'not contained in the real existence of things'. Bennett says Locke (...) means relations are reducible (as Leibniz thought), which supports the mechanist reading. Bennett is mistaken: Locke means relations are irreducible, in harmony with his voluntarism. (shrink)
In responding to the challenge that we cannot know that animals feel pain, Peter Singer says: We can never directly experience the pain of another being, whether that being is human or not. When I see my daughter fall and scrape her knee, I know that she feels pain because of the way she behaves—she cries, she tells me her knee hurts, she rubs the sore spot, and so on. I know that I myself behave in a somewhat similar—if more (...) inhibited—way when I feel pain, and so I accept that my daughter feels something like what I feel when I scrape my knee. The basis of my belief that animals can feel pain is similar...1 . Singer here suggests that the epistemological problem facing animal ethics is really the more general problem of other minds: the Cartesian problem of how to escape solipsism, how to cross the bridge from my own thoughts and feelings to the thoughts and feelings of any other being. The suggestion is that no-one can seriously be in the thrall of this sceptical problem. The method for building the bridge to other minds is familiar to us all: we use it every day in our ascriptions of thoughts and feelings to people near and dear, and to those far away. And we use it every day in our ascriptions of thoughts and feelings to animals. (shrink)
Rae Langton offers a new interpretation and defense of Kant's doctrine of things in themselves. Kant distinguishes things in themselves from phenomena, and in so doing he makes a metaphysical distinction between intrinsic and relational properties of substances. Langton argues that his claim that we have no knowledge of things in themselves is not idealism, but epistemic humility: we have no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of substances. This interpretation vindicates Kant's scientific realism, and shows his primary/secondary quality distinction to (...) be superior even to modern-day competitors. And it answers the famous charge that Kant's tale of things in themselves is one that makes itself untellable. (shrink)
We defend the view of some feminist writers that the notion of silencing has to be taken seriously in discussions of free speech. We assume that what ought to be meant by ‘speech’, in the context ‘free speech’, is whatever it is that a correct justification of the right to free speech justifies one in protecting. And we argue that what one ought to mean includes illocution, in the sense of J.L. Austin.
Something could be round even if it were the only thing in the universe, unaccompanied by anything distinct from itself. Jaegwon Kim once suggested that we define an intrinsic property as one that can belong to something unaccompanied. Wrong: unaccompaniment itself is not intrinsic, yet it can belong to something unaccompanied. But there is a better Kim-style definition. Say that P is independent of accompaniment iff four different cases are possible: something accompanied may have P or lack P, something unaccompanied (...) may have P or lack P. P is basic intrinsic iff (1) P and not-P are nondisjunctive and contingent, and (2) P is independent of accompaniment. Two things (actual or possible) are duplicates iff they have exactly the same basic intrinsic properties. P is intrinsic iff no two duplicates differ with respect to P. (shrink)
