The topic of this essay is derogatoriness of speech in the sense of its capacity to harm or offend in a way that is commonly taken to be unacceptable in a liberal society. I take the folk terms slur and hate speech to aim at capturing this aspect. The question I am interested in is: what makes speech derogatory, as opposed to merely insulting? I identify two main ways of approaching this question, both in public discourse and in philosophical theorizing: an expressivist approach (derogation consists in expression of hateful attitudes, e.g. Marques 2023, Jeshion 2013) and an identitarian one (derogation results from violating people’s right to self-identification, including choice of respectable terms for the group they belong to; e.g. Anderson and Lepore 2013). I argue that both approaches face difficulties with their theoretical foundations and empirical adequacy, but more importantly they are politically problematic, as they allow for powerful social groups to label any dissent or criticism as derogation. The common problem of the expressivist and identitarian approaches is that they are essentially subjectivist, basing their construal of derogatory speech on the attitudes of either, respectively, the speaker or the target. However, not every inimical attitude is derogatory, and not everyone who feels insulted is thereby derogated – in the strongly normative sense implied by our concepts of slurs or hate speech. One can stipulate additional extra-subjective conditions under which the attitudes in question support classifying some speech as derogatory – but that makes it doubtful if relying on the attitudes is necessary at all. I propose an account of derogatory speech that does away with subjective conditions and defines derogation as property of speech that is a material part of social practices of discrimination and subordination. Instead of considering the (unavoidably opaque and often self-serving) attitudes of actors in a public sphere, we should focus on the material analysis of actual, objectively observable practices. To substantiate this approach to derogatory speech it is necessary to explain how it can materially contribute to practices of discrimination and subordination. To do this I refer primarily to theories of social practice and ideology found in the work of Sally Haslanger (2012, 2018) and Louis Althusser (1971). On the view I outline, the role of speech is not to create social situations of subordination, but to legitimize and reproduce them. Derogatory speech interpellates its targets as subordinate subjects of already existing practices of discrimination and violence. That is also why offending or insulting speech targeted at those in power cannot constitute derogation.

Towards a Materialist Account of Derogatory Speech

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2026年1月14日

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Leopold Hess

摘要

The topic of this essay is derogatoriness of speech in the sense of its capacity to harm or offend in a way that is commonly taken to be unacceptable in a liberal society. I take the folk terms slur and hate speech to aim at capturing this aspect. The question I am interested in is: what makes speech derogatory, as opposed to merely insulting? I identify two main ways of approaching this question, both in public discourse and in philosophical theorizing: an expressivist approach (derogation consists in expression of hateful attitudes, e.g. Marques 2023, Jeshion 2013) and an identitarian one (derogation results from violating people’s right to self-identification, including choice of respectable terms for the group they belong to; e.g. Anderson and Lepore 2013). I argue that both approaches face difficulties with their theoretical foundations and empirical adequacy, but more importantly they are politically problematic, as they allow for powerful social groups to label any dissent or criticism as derogation. The common problem of the expressivist and identitarian approaches is that they are essentially subjectivist, basing their construal of derogatory speech on the attitudes of either, respectively, the speaker or the target. However, not every inimical attitude is derogatory, and not everyone who feels insulted is thereby derogated – in the strongly normative sense implied by our concepts of slurs or hate speech. One can stipulate additional extra-subjective conditions under which the attitudes in question support classifying some speech as derogatory – but that makes it doubtful if relying on the attitudes is necessary at all. I propose an account of derogatory speech that does away with subjective conditions and defines derogation as property of speech that is a material part of social practices of discrimination and subordination. Instead of considering the (unavoidably opaque and often self-serving) attitudes of actors in a public sphere, we should focus on the material analysis of actual, objectively observable practices. To substantiate this approach to derogatory speech it is necessary to explain how it can materially contribute to practices of discrimination and subordination. To do this I refer primarily to theories of social practice and ideology found in the work of Sally Haslanger (2012, 2018) and Louis Althusser (1971). On the view I outline, the role of speech is not to create social situations of subordination, but to legitimize and reproduce them. Derogatory speech interpellates its targets as subordinate subjects of already existing practices of discrimination and violence. That is also why offending or insulting speech targeted at those in power cannot constitute derogation.