Article,
Conversational Exercitives and the Force of Pornography
Philosophy and Public Affairs, 31 (2): 155-189 (Spring 2003)
Abstract
MacKinnon has claimed that pornography both subordinates and silences women and it is unclear how pornography (mere pictures and words) could do either. Austin has shown that speech can constitute action and, since pornography is treated as speech by our courts, some theorists, such as Langton, defend the coherence of MacKinnon's claims by offering a speech act analysis of pornography. I here present five challenges to Langton's analysis. Each is motivated by the theory of speech acts on which her analysis rests. I then present a previously overlooked sort of speech act, the conversational exercitive, and demonstrate that it enables Langton to avoid the five challenges and thus affords a better speech act model for her purposes. I also present some of the challenges remaining for the revised speech act model offered here.
