著者

池田 喬

出版者

日本哲学会

雑誌

哲学 (ISSN:03873358)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2018, no.69, pp.9-20, 2018-04-01 (Released:2018-08-01)

参考文献数

12

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Suppose a male philosophy teacher states in the classroom: philosophy is not suitable for women. This paper examines reasons this statement is a morally impermissible harassment speech. First, it examines some characteristics of this speech such as lack of vicious intention on the side of speaker, based on which one could claim that the speech is unproblematic. In opposition to this claim, this paper argues that speaker’s intention is not relevant to the moral nature of harassment speech. It further points out that speech act theory offers useful methods to analyze the moral wrong of harassment speech, particularly based on the reason that this theory is capable of directly addressing the right and wrong of the speech itself, without referring to speaker’s intentions nor consequences of the speech, neither of which are likely not to be observed in trustworthy methods in cases of harassment. Second, I analyze the above statement as subordinating speech that ranks female students as inferior to male students in terms of capabilities regarding philosophical research. The analysis particularly pays attention to the move of conversation within the specific context of the classroom, and clarifies the normative power involved in this move that forces hearers to accept the belief women are inferior to men regarding philosophical abilities. Third, the paper focuses on silence of male students as a reaction to the teacher’s statement, and argues that it licenses this statement and reinforces the authority of the speech. Moreover, it is pointed out that third person’s statements such as “you worry too much” cause secondary damage in which the moral personality of harasser is defended, while the personality of victims is blamed Overall, the paper shows that seemingly unproblematic statements could be impermissible harassment speech, because they subordinate a group to other groups and are also unacceptable due to harms they cause.