Rae Langton is professor of philosophy at MIT. Her areas of interest include the history of philosophy, ethics, political philosophy, metaphysics, and feminist philosophy.
Her book on Kant's metaphysics and epistemology, entitled Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves, was published by Oxford in July 1998. Her most recent book, Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification, was published by Oxford in January 2009.
Born and raised in India, she studied at Sydney University and Princeton University, then taught at Monash University, Melbourne, 1990 to 1996; was a fellow in the philosophy program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1997-98; taught at Sheffield University, 1998 to 1999; and the University of Edinburgh, 1999 to 2004, where she was professor of moral philosophy, a position for which David Hume was turned down in 1755.
She was the first woman to be appointed professor of philosophy in Edinburgh, and indeed in Scotland. She has been a visitor and guest speaker on many occasions at universities in Australia, Canada, the United States, UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Germany, India and Switzerland.
Abstract
Milton and Brandeis urged us to fight bad speech with more speech. We should "let Truth and Falsehood grapple," said Milton, "for Truth will never be 'put to the worse, in a free and open encounter."
Can bad speech always be fought with good? Free speech doctrine is sometimes premised on that hope. But there can be structural, as well as material, constraints on a speaker's capacity to fight back. It is a familiar idea that speech acts may disabled in ways more subtle than gagging.
I want to extend this inquiry in directions that deserve more attention, illustrated by the dynamics of social generics, and their role in hate speech, propaganda, and other kinds of generalizing speech. Generics such as "Tigers have stripes" or "Mosquitoes carry the West Nile Virus" have received close attention by philosophers of language and psychology.
Social generics about gender and race (e.g. "Girls don't do science," "Boys don't cry") should be of comparable interest to political debates about speech. I aim to show how they pose structural handicaps, forcing counter-speakers to grapple with their hands tied.
