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Women's Objectification and the Norm of Assumed Objectivity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Evangelia (Lina) Papadaki
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Abstract

MacKinnon has famously claimed that there is a connection between objectivity and objectification. This paper examines this connection by focusing on a particular norm of objectivity, Assumed Objectivity, which is linked to women's objectification. Haslanger argues that this norm should be rejected since, under conditions of gender inequality, (a) it harms the interests of women (it is pragmatically bad), and (b) it yields false beliefs (it is epistemically bad). Langton attempts to go beyond Haslanger's critique, suggesting that this norm is also epistemically bad because it yields true but unjustified beliefs (beliefs that have a wrong direction of fit). I argue that while the norm of Assumed Objectivity is epistemically problematic in yielding false beliefs, it is wrongly accused of yielding true but unjustified beliefs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , June 2008 , pp. 239 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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References

REFERENCES

Haslanger, S. 1993. “On Being Objective and Being Objectified.” In Antony, L. M. and Witt, C. (eds.), A Mind of One's Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
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Langton, R. 2000. “Feminism in Epistemology: Exclusion and Objectification.” In Fricker, M. and Hornsby, J. (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, C. 1987. Feminism Unmodified. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, C. 1989. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar