Beyond Speech Acts: On Hate Speech and the Ubiquity of Norm Enactment

• Author: Mary Kate McGowan
• Position: Margaret Clapp '30 Distinguished Alumna Professor of Philosophy at Wellesley College
• Pages: 1055-1074

Beyond Speech Acts: On Hate Speech and the

Ubiquity of Norm Enactment

MARY KATE MCGOWAN*

ABSTRACT

This paper argues against two frameworks for thinking about how language

functions. The first such framework treats language use as primarily in the busi-

ness of communicating content. On this content expression view, when we say

things, we are only making claims about the world and/or offering considera-

tions for or against such claims. It is shown here that this popular and even in-

tuitive view of language use is problematically impoverished.

The second framework we shall consider is considerably richer; it acknowl -

edges Austin’s insight that we can do things with words, that speech can per-

form actions, enact facts, exercise power, and causally impact the world around

us in a myriad of powerful ways. Although these insights are necessary to prop-

erly understand the complexity of language use, a speech act framework is

nevertheless ultimately insufficient. In order to fully understand how our utter-

ances impact the social world around us, we need to go beyond the intentional

and conscious world of communicated speech acts; we need to recognize the

unintended and barely conscious normative impact of our words. And, doing

that requires a new framework beyond speech acts.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1056

II. THE CONTENT EXPRESSION VIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1057

A. Content Expression is Complex and Inferential. . . . . . . . . . . 1057

B. The Standard Liberal Stance: More Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1058

C. Criticisms of the More Speech Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1059

III. THE SPEECH ACT FRAMEWORK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1061

A. Intentionalism about Speech Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1061

* Mary Kate McGowan is the Margaret Clapp ’30 Distinguished Alumna Professor of Philosophy at

Wellesley College. She specializes in metaphysics, analytic feminism, philosophy of language, and

philosophy of law. Her most recent book, Just Words: On Speech and Hidden Harm was published by

Oxford University Press in 2019. I thank the participants at the Ethics of Freedom of Speech Workshop,

supported by the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics, for helpful comments on this

paper. © 2022, Mary Kate McGowan.

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B. Revisiting Public Hate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1062

C. On Verbal Norm Enactment and Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1064

IV. GOING BEYOND SPEECH ACTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1066

A. On Conversational Norm Enactment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1066

B. Conversational Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1067

C. Conversational Norm Enactment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1069

V. HOW IT GENERALIZES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1070

VI. PUBLIC HARM REVISITED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1072

VII. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1074

I. INTRODUCTION

Consider the following situation:

Public Hate: An Asian woman is walking to work when a young white man,

who is unknown to her, steps toward her on the sidewalk and angrily says, “I

lost my job because of your virus; go back where you belong and take your dis-

eases with you!”

Although this particular example is fictional, the recent rise, here in the United

States, in anti-Asian incidents like this one is all too real. Before we decide what

to do—individually or collectively—about such incidents, we must first under-

stand more clearly how utterances like this function—linguistically and other-

wise. This paper will focus on this clarifying task.

In the process, I will argue against two frameworks for thinking about how lan-

guage functions. The first such framework treats language use as exclusively

communicating content. On this sort of view, which we might call the content

expression view, when we say things, we are only making claims about the world

and/or offering considerations for or against such claims. As we shall see, this

popular and even intuitive view of language use is problematic.

The second framework we shall consider is considerably richer; it acknowl-

edges Austin’s insight that we can do things with words, that speech can perform

actions, enact facts, exercise power, and causally impact the world around us in a

myriad of powerful ways.

1

Although these insights are necessary to properly under-

stand the complexity of language use, a speech act framework is nevertheless

1. J. L. AUSTIN, HOW TO DO THINGS WITH WORDS (1962).

1056 THE GEORGETOWN JOURNAL OF LAW & PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 20:1055