RELACS SPRING PRESENTATION

Not So Silent Majority: How (Do?) Groups and Institutions Send Messages

Dr. Andrew Morgan, Philosophy 

Historically, philosophical and linguistic investigations of expressive behavior have focused on the actions of individual agents, e.g. expressing an attitude through the use of conventional or natural signs and symbols, such as language, gestures, facial expressions, or images of different kinds. For the most part, this large body of literature has ignored the possibility of collective or institutional expressive behavior. This is surprising, because members of marginalized groups often claim that such behavior can send harmful or derogatory messages. For example, a classic argument developed by the disability rights critique against prenatal testing and selective abortion is these practices express ableist attitudes. Or consider the disproportionate rate at which African Americans are arrested and incarcerated for drug-related offenses. At the macro-level it is easy to see why members of marginalized groups feel a “message is being sent,” however it is difficult to fully explain the expression in question by reference to the attitudes, actions, and intentions of individual agents. In this talk we will explore several examples of “collective expression,” and consider some options for how best to revise theories of expression to capture the phenomenon (or phenomena).