Silencing Without Uptake

Catharine MacKinnon has claimed that some pornography “silences” women. Some work in feminist analytical philosophy suggests it does so by depriving them of the capacity to perform certain speech acts, such as (and most prominently) the speech act of sexual refusal. This has been termed the silencing of “illocutionary disablement.” Critics object that this silencing claim involves a contentious thesis about the success conditions of speech acts such as sexual refusal: that the auditor’s comprehension, or “uptake,” of the speaker’s intent is required for the speech act to come off. I try to show that the illocutionary disablement claim can do without the uptake condition as it has heretofore been formulated. Even if audience uptake is not a success condition for each individual act of sexual refusal, reciprocity of a certain kind is still a condition of women’s continuing ability to engage the refusal illocution. When pornography disrupts the conditions for that reciprocity it will effectuate illocutionary disablement. I also consider whether the illocutionary disablement under consideration here is properly thought of as “silencing.”

The impact of linguistic style on customer satisfaction: a cross-cultural empirical study in Ecuador

PurposeDrawing on the dual process theory and the cultural dimension of power distance, the current research investigates the impact of a specific service clue—the linguistic style of address forms (salutation) in hotel manager letters to guests—on customer satisfaction in a hotel context in Ecuador.Design/methodology/approachFollowing an experimental design research approach, this research conducted a series of two studies to examine how customers' cultural values (high vs low power distance), linguistic style of address forms (formal vs casual) and service valence (service success vs service failure) together influenced customer satisfaction. Specifically, Study 1 examined the service success condition, and Study 2 investigated the service failure condition.FindingsThe research results show that, in the service success condition, customers follow their distinct cultural orientations (high vs low power distance) when responding to the different linguistic styles (formal vs casual). On the other hand, in the service failure situation, as customers desire for expressions of respect that can be reflected in a formal address form, the level of satisfaction is lower when the casual address form is used in guest communications, regardless of customers' cultural orientations in power distance.Originality/valueThis research adds to existing cross-cultural service research, particularly in terms of service valence, and provides practical implications for enhancing service providers' cultural awareness and sociolinguistic competence to effectively communicate with customers from diverse cultural backgrounds.

On Virtues of Love and Wide Ethical Duties

In this article I argue that understanding the role that the virtues of love play in Kant’s ethical theory requires understanding not only the nature of the virtues themselves, but also the unique nature of wide Kantian duties. I begin by making the case that while the Doctrine of Virtue supports attributing an affective component to the virtues of love, we are right to resist attributing an affective success condition to these virtues. I then distinguish wide duties from negative and narrow (positive) duties in order to make the case that prudential considerations often unavoidably and unproblematically play a role in deliberation about how we fulfil our wide duties. In the final section I combine these findings, arguing that the virtues of love play an important moral role by shaping these prudential considerations.

Justice Ex Post or Ex Ante?

The success condition for intervention can be interpreted in several ways. Some interpret it as requiring that interventions actually be successful; such a condition can only be judged to be satisfied ex post. Others interpret it as requiring that interventions have a good enough chance of succeeding ex ante. Yet others accept a mix of the two. This chapter argues that the purely ex ante view is the only acceptable position. As a result, interventions are, quite simply, justifiable only when they have a good enough chance of success ex ante.

The Success Condition

The success condition for intervention is part of the standard theory of just war. However, in both theory and practice, few people take the condition sufficiently seriously. The success condition holds that justified wars must have a good enough chance of succeeding. This chapter defends the condition on both theoretical and intuitive grounds, explains both the notions of success and of probability that this condition must assume, and defends the success condition against an important objection.

Three Structural Problems

This chapter explains in greater detail why accepting the success condition means accepting the presumption against intervention. It identifies three structural problems that interventions must in general deal with: the problem of conflicting aims of intervention, the problem of severe lack of information, and the problem of perverse (democratic) incentives. These problems help explain the empirical finding that success rates for interventions have historically been extremely low.

Looking for Exceptions

The success condition implies that intervention is almost never permissible. This may seem counter-intuitive. This chapter shows why those intuitions are not reliable. First, evidence from cognitive psychology shows that we regularly overestimate our ability to make a positive difference in the world, and underestimate the possibility that we might fail. This means that we should discount the intuition that interventions can succeed more often. Second, the chapter turns to the example of the intervention of Kosovo. This is one of the favorite examples cited by interventionists to defend their position. However, looking at the details of that case shows that even Kosovo offers at best only tenuous support for interventionism.

The Ethics of the Anselmian Being I (Promotion)

While Chapter 4 gives an account of God’s necessary ethics that is less stringent than what is typically ascribed to God, Chapter 5 offers an account of how God’s ethics may in one way be more stringent. This chapter argues that there is a distinct mode of response to value, respect, which is commonly affirmed by Kantians and various sorts of natural law theorists. It holds that God, as an Anselmian—that is, absolutely perfect—being, has not only requiring reasons, but decisive requiring reasons, to respect the good of creatures by not intending evils to creatures. For when an end is intended, it becomes a success condition for one’s action, and God’s perfection precludes evils’ constituting the success of divine action.

Actions as Prime

In this paper I am going to argue that we should take actions to be prime. This will involve clarifying what it means to claim that actions are prime. I will consider Williamson's construal of actions as prime in a way that parallels his treatment of knowledge. I will argue that we need to be careful about treating our actions in the way suggested because of an internal relation between the success condition of an action and the action itself; a parallel relation does not hold for most cases of knowledge.