Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T01:08:24.911Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rape as an Essentially Contested Concept

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Eric Reitan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Because “rape” has such a powerful appraisive meaning, how one defines the term has normative significance. Those who define rape rigidly so as to exclude contemporary feminist understandings are therefore seeking to silence some moral perspectives “by definition.” I argue that understanding rape as an essentially contested concept allows the concept sufficient flexibility to permit open moral discourse, while at the same time preserving a core meaning that can frame the discourse.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , Spring 2001 , pp. 43 - 66
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Black, Max. 1949. Language and philosophy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Black's Law Dictionary, 6th ed., s.v. “rape.”.Google Scholar
Brownmiller, Susan. 1975. Against our will: Men, women, and rape. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Burgess‐Jackson, Keith. 1995. Rape and persuasive definition. Canadian journal of Philosophy 25 (3): 415–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess‐Jackson, Keith 1996. Rape: A philosophical investigation. Brookfield, Vt.: Dartmouth.Google Scholar
Burgess‐Jackson, Keith 1998. Wife rape. Public Affairs Quarterly 12 (1): 1–22.Google Scholar
Burgess‐Jackson, Keith 1999. A theory of rape.In A most detestable crime: New philosophical essays on rape, ed. Burgess‐Jackson, Keith. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1991. Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43 (July): 1241–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deevey, Sharon. 1975. Such a nice girl. In Lesbianism and the women's movement, ed. Myron, Nancy and Bunch, Charlotte. Baltimore: Diana Press.Google Scholar
Gallie, W.B. 1956. Essentially contested concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 56: 167–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garver, Newton. 1988. Violence and social order.Philosophy of law, politics, and society: Proceedings of the 12th international Wittgenstein symposium. Vienna: Holder‐Pichler‐Tempsky.Google Scholar
Gilligan, James. 1996. Violence: Reflections on a national epidemic. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Jaggar, Alison M. 1988. Feminist politics and human nature. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine. 1983. Feminism, Marxism, method, and the state: Toward feminist jurisprudence.In Feminist legal theory: Readings in Jaw and gender, ed. Bartlett, Katherine T. and Kennedy, Rosanne. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine 1987. Feminism unmodified: Discourses on life and law. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine 1989. Toward a feminist theory of the state. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Model penal code and commentaries, sec. 213.0(2).1980. Philadelphia: American Law Review.Google Scholar
Pineau, Lois. 1989. Date rape: A feminist analysis. Law and Philosophy 8 (2): 217–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Podhoretz, Norman. 1991. Rape in feminist eyes. Commentary 92 (4): 29–35.Google Scholar
Podhoretz, Norman 1992. Rape and the feminists. Commentary 93 (3): 6–7.Google Scholar