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Silencing Speech

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Ishani Maitra
Ishani Maitra*
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, Newark, Newark, NJ07102, USA
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Extract

Pornography deserves special protections, it is often said, because it qualifies as speech. Therefore, no matter what we think of its content, we must afford it the protections that we extend to most speech, but don't extend to other actions. In response, Jennifer Hornsby and Rae Langton have argued that the case is not so simple: one of the harms of pornography, they claim, is that it silences women's speech, thereby preventing women from deriving from speech the very benefits that warranted the special protections in the first place. At first glance, it is hard to see how to make sense of this response. If the claim is that pornography prevents women from actually uttering words, then it just seems false; on the other hand, if that isn't the claim, then it isn't clear how anyone can be said to be silenced. Faced with such worries, many have been inclined to dismiss these claims about silencing as confused.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 309 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2009

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