Kate Greasley (University of Oxford, Faculty of Law) has posted Pornography and the Limits of Speech Act Analysis (Forthcoming in R. Chang and A. Srinivasan eds. New Directions in Jurisprudence (OUP, 2022)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Some feminist philosophers have argued that harmful pornography is not mere speech, but, in the right conditions, constitutes the speech act of subordinating women. This chapter considers the ramifications of this speech act analysis for the standard liberal argument that pornography should enjoy protection from legal interference under the principle of free speech. It begins by setting out the putative normative significance of the view that pornography is the ‘illocutionary’ act of subordination, and not only speech that harms. This apparent significance inheres in the idea that free speech only protects expression as such, not harmful conduct carried out through communicative means. It then explores some reasons for which the speech act analysis might be thought to obscure a core thread of the feminist critique of pornography-as-speech, by acceding to, or even further entrenching, the double standard according to which pornography, but not some other harmful speech, is legally assimilated with its expressive content. I end by suggesting some ways in which the speech act analysis can bolster that feminist argument in legal and political terms, by placing the double standard of pornography’s protection into sharper resolution.
Highly recommended.
