Philosophy Paper 2
Langton’s Argument that Pornography promotes Subjugation of women
-Lakshmi Prasanna Ethiraj
Langton, in her Speech Acts and Unspeakable acts, argues that Pornography is a speech act. Langton says there are speech, act and speech act. According to Mill, speech shouldn’t be regulated, it should be free. Acts can be regulated based on the Harms principle, which is, you can prevent someone’s action if it will cause harm to a third person. Langton defines Speech act as an utterance that performs a function or act. She argues that Pornography is a speech act whose implied function is to subordinate women. Pornography, in her view is an act with several effects. Pornography depicts women as sexual objects, sometimes tied up, raped and treated brutally. The effects of pornography as an act are many. Because it depicts subordination of women, and it actually causes subordination of them. Their subordinate status makes them undergo domestic abuse at home and rapes in street, lower pays and gender discrimination in the society on the whole. She says “this simply demonstrates the power of pornography as speech “.
Pornography not only depicts subordination or women but also causes it. Pornography itself is a form of subordination of women. We take a minute to delve into linguistics of philosophers. When you say something, it…show more content… She compares subordination through pornography to subordination of blacks in apartheid South Africa. In the later case, she argues that the intent to subordinate is always there. The subordination is also done by necessary authorities, so the uptake effect is also present. In case of pornography the intent to subordinate may or may not be there, it might be just for entertainment. There is no recognized authority and not all people who watch pornography have uptake effect of performing illocutionary acts of
