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Generic View of Gendered Slurs and the Subset Argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2022

PASI VALTONEN Open the ORCID record for PASI VALTONEN [Opens in a new window]
PASI VALTONEN*
Affiliation:
TAMPERE UNIVERSITY pasi.valtonen@tuni.fi
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Abstract

The neutral counterpart assumption is widely accepted in the study of slurs. It provides a simple and effective explanation for the meaning of slurs. Slurring terms are coextensional with their neutral counterparts. However, Lauren Ashwell (2016) has questioned this assumption. She argues that gendered slurs refer to a subset of their neutral counterparts. Hence, slurs are not coextensional with their counterparts. She goes on to present a view that is not based on the counterpart assumption. Still, her view is a unifying view of slurs as it also applies to ethnic and racial slurs. In this paper, I defend the counterpart assumption with a generic view of slurs. While being a unifying view, it accommodates the subset argument with its eponymous feature that the meaning of slurs involves a generic component.

Keywords

gendered slursethnic and racial slursneutral counterpart assumptiongenerics
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , Winter 2022 , pp. 762 - 779
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Philosophical Association

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Footnotes

I thank everyone in philosophy at Tampere University for a warm and friendly atmosphere. I also thank Giulio Pietroiusti. The idea for the expressive linguistic test stemmed from his comments while I was a visiting member of LOGOS research group. Many thanks to the referees for helpful comments and suggestions. This work is supported by the Kone Foundation. I am also grateful for the opportunity to work in Kristiina Rolin's project ‘Social and Cognitive Diversity in Science’ funded by the Academy of Finland.

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