Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification

Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press (2009)
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Abstract

Rae Langton here draws together her ground-breaking and contentious work on pornography and objectification. She shows how women come to be objectified -- made subordinate and treated as things -- and she argues for the controversial feminist conclusions that pornography subordinates and silences women, and women have rights against pornography.

Chapters

Introduction

Solipsism involves going on as if you are the only person. Traditionally viewed as a morally neutral problem in epistemology (Descartes), it can also emerge as the morally loaded problem of objectification, or treating other people as things (Kant, Nussbaum, de Beauvoir, MacKinnon). Object... see more

Speaker's Freedom and Maker's Knowledge

Mill thinks knowledge is good, and free speech promotes knowledge. Pornography apparently promotes false belief, not knowledge, so seems, in Mill's terms, indefensible. A closer look reveals the opposite. Pornography shapes the world: pornography-inspired beliefs are knowledge, being non-a... see more

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Rae Langton
Cambridge University

Citations of this work

Genealogy, Epistemology and Worldmaking.Amia Srinivasan - 2019 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 119 (2):127-156.
Harmful Salience Perspectives.Ella Whiteley - 2022 - In Sophie Archer (ed.), Salience: A Philosophical Inquiry. Routledge. pp. Chapter 11.
Group Assertion.Jennifer Lackey - 2018 - Erkenntnis 83 (1):21-42.

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