Objectification is treating or depicting a person as a mere thing. What does this involve? By now we\u2019re all familiar with the idea that it\u2019s an aspect of women\u2019s subordinate status in society that they are sexually objectified: they are treated and depicted as sex objects. Practices such as sex work, pornography, street harassment, and marriage have been subject to feminist critique on the grounds that they permit or even encourage the treatment of women as objects for the satisfaction of men\u2019s sexual wants, while pornography, Hollywood films, music videos and lyrics, and advertising have all been criticised for consistently depicting women as sex objects. We\u2019re much less familiar with the idea that objectification need not be sexual, but we can probably be brought on board pretty quickly by examples. The practice of slavery need not be sexual (which is not to deny that this is all too often one element), but it too is naturally seen as objectifying; it involves treating a person as a mere thing which can be exploited for one\u2019s own aims, bought and sold as property, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
What I want to explore here is a still less familiar idea,\nnamely that one way to mistreat people is to epistemically <\/em>objectify them. Epistemology is the branch of\nphilosophy that looks at what it takes to have knowledge, evidence, and justified\nbeliefs, as well as what it takes to pass these on to others. To epistemically\nobjectify someone is to treat them or depict them as mere objects within our\nepistemic practices: our practices of producing, gathering,\nand sharing knowledge. What would objectification of this sort look like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n One proposal comes from the philosopher Miranda Fricker in\nher influential book Epistemic Injustice<\/em>.\nShe focuses there on a phenomenon she calls testimonial\ninjustice<\/em>. When testimony goes well, it involves an audience gaining new\nknowledge from the words of someone else (whether spoken or written). But one\nway testimony can go wrong is that the audience holds prejudices against the\nsocial group that the speaker belongs to, and on that basis dismisses what they\nhave to say. Prejudices of this sort are all too familiar; for instance, an\naspect of both sexist and racist oppression has been the portrayal and\ntreatment of certain people as less intelligent or rational. This kind of\nunfair and prejudicial dismissal of someone\u2019s testimony is testimonial\ninjustice <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Fricker, one epistemically objectifies someone\nwhen one subjects them to a testimonial injustice. One doesn\u2019t treat them as a\nperson from whom one stands to learn something by listening to what they have\nto say. Rather, one simply dismisses what they have to say, and instead treats\nthem as an object which one might be able to infer some information from, just\nas I can infer the age of a felled tree if I know the relationship between its\nage and the growth rings in its trunk. I can learn something from the tree, but\nnot because I treat it as a person with the capacity to produce, gather, and\npass on knowledge. Likewise, suggests Fricker, I can learn things from someone\nwhose testimony I treat dismissively\u2014I can learn\nthings from their appearance and behaviour,\nperhaps\u2014but again this isn\u2019t in virtue of treating them as having the\ncapacity to produce, gather, and pass on knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fricker describes one way that someone can be epistemically\nobjectified; they are treated as epistemically inert<\/em>, as lacking the kind of agency required to produce, gather,\nand transfer knowledge. However, treating someone as inert is only one of many\nways in which one can treat them as object-like, the philosophers Martha\nNussbaum and Rae Langton have discussed. I think that considering the full\nrange of different ways that one can objectify someone gives us a richer and\nmore useful picture of epistemic objectification and its significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here is an illustration of what I have in mind. One way of sexually objectifying someone is by treating them as lacking in sexual agency: as lacking their own desires, as unable to choose for themselves what kind of sexual behaviour to engage in, and so on. But a different way that one can treat a person as a sex object is by treating them as fungible<\/em>: as interchangeable with at least some others for sexual purposes. Analogously, one can treat someone as epistemically fungible; one treats what they have to say as representative of what any member of a group they belong to would say; on the topic at hand, one thinks one might as well speak to any member of that group as any other. The speaker isn\u2019t listened to as if they\u2019re an individual with something distinctive to contribute, but rather as if they\u2019re a mouthpiece for the homogenous views of an entire group. Sometimes treating someone this way may be totally unproblematic; indeed, one would hope that the information one gets about the price of a train ticket would be the same no matter which of the company\u2019s employees one consulted. But sometimes the assumption that the testimony of different members of the same group wouldn\u2019t importantly vary reflects harmful prejudices against people who share a certain social identify, prejudices that depict them as lacking individuality and as incapable of making unique contributions to knowledge. Prejudicially treating someone as fungible in this way is a second kind of dismissive attitude an audience can take towards someone offering testimony, and we might take this too to be a form of testimonial injustice (as has been suggested in recent work by Emmalon Davis).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let me briefly suggest another place that the notion of\nepistemic fungibility might be applied. As mentioned above, it\u2019s a common\ncomplaint against at least some pornography that it objectifies women. Usually,\nwhat\u2019s meant is that pornography sexually<\/em>\nobjectifies women, by depicting them as mere sex objects. But we might add that\npornography often epistemically objectifies women too, by depicting women as\nfungible on topics like their sexual preferences. Much pornography presents a\nhomogenous and often distorted picture of female sexual preferences, one on\nwhich relatively unpopular and potentially harmful acts are nearly universally\ndesired by women; these include unprotected sex, anal sex, ejaculation on the\nface and body, and deep-throating. There are various ways in which pornography\ncan present women as fungible in this way, but one familiar example is the\ntrope of the \u2018girl next door\u2019, where the women in pornographic films are\nexpressly depicted as sexually representative of the women that men will\nencounter in their everyday lives; it\u2019s this trope that\u2019s partially subverted\nin the 2004 romantic comedy The Girl Next\nDoor<\/em>. Here, sexual objectification and epistemic objectification go hand in\nhand. This highlights the need for pornography to present a realistic and\ndiverse range of people and sexual preferences, particularly since in many\nplaces it still too often functions as a stand-in for proper sex education.\nSome pornography already does justice to this kind of diversity; much does not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are a variety of ways that we can treat and depict people like objects such that we are prevented from acquiring knowledge about and from them. I\u2019ve only scratched the surface of two of those ways here. However, I hope that the examples of testimonial injustice and pornography give some sense of why the task of developing a fuller picture of epistemic objectification and the different ways it manifests itself in our epistemic practices has some urgency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Picture by Aleksandar Radovanovic on Unsplash <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Objectification is treating or depicting a person as a mere thing. What does this involve? By now we\u2019re all familiar with the idea that it\u2019s an aspect of women\u2019s subordinate […]","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A new post by @AidanMcGlynn Objectification, Knowledge, and Pornography for Open for Debate","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[172,173],"custom_author":[174],"class_list":["post-646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-for-debate","tag-pornography","tag-testimonial-injustice","custom_author-mcglynn-aidan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8KPlM-aq","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":974,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/not-people-like-us-the-epistemic-objectification-of-the-uks-most-vulnerable-and-why-the-pandemic-is-unlikely-to-change-this-treatment\/","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":0},"title":"\u2018Not people like us\u2019: the epistemic objectification of the UK\u2019s most vulnerable and why the pandemic is unlikely to change this treatment","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"July 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Poverty and human rights abuses in the UK: fear and compassion \u201cI wash in what I call a birdbath \u2013 a little hot water in a basin and have a spruce down. To keep warm I wrap up in layers and layers. I never thought I would be 48 and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/07\/BW-staring-out-from-inside.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/07\/BW-staring-out-from-inside.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/07\/BW-staring-out-from-inside.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/07\/BW-staring-out-from-inside.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/07\/BW-staring-out-from-inside.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/07\/BW-staring-out-from-inside.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1138,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/modeling-sex-as-a-joint-activity\/","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":1},"title":"Modeling Sex as a Joint Activity","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"February 22, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"There has been an ongoing philosophical discussion over the last three decades on consent and refusal of sex qua speech acts \u2013 that is, acts performed in the uttering of certain words (typically, \u2018yes\u2019\/\u2018no\u2019) in a sexual setting[1]. Both consent and refusal are \u2018second-turn speech acts\u2019. The thought is simple:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/02\/jason-leung-F2WX4BTIkpQ-unsplash.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/02\/jason-leung-F2WX4BTIkpQ-unsplash.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/02\/jason-leung-F2WX4BTIkpQ-unsplash.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/02\/jason-leung-F2WX4BTIkpQ-unsplash.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/02\/jason-leung-F2WX4BTIkpQ-unsplash.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/02\/jason-leung-F2WX4BTIkpQ-unsplash.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1905,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/slurring-images\/","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":2},"title":"Slurring Images","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"March 4, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"\/\/ content warning: racist language and racist imagery \/\/ In 2012, the Swedish artist Makode Linde displayed an extremely controversial work of art at the Modern Museum in Stockholm. In celebration of World Art Day, Painful Cake was shown at a reception attended by the Swedish Culture minister. The work\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/03\/Makode_Linde_in_Feb_2015-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/03\/Makode_Linde_in_Feb_2015-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/03\/Makode_Linde_in_Feb_2015-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/03\/Makode_Linde_in_Feb_2015-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/03\/Makode_Linde_in_Feb_2015-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/03\/Makode_Linde_in_Feb_2015-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1802,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/how-to-become-an-incel\/","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":3},"title":"In-Between Identities: The Online and Offline World of Incels","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"October 16, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Introduction Discussions around incels \u2013 involuntary celibates \u2013 have become prevalent across popular social media platforms such as X\/Twitter. However, it is not always clear who exactly is behind the incel identity. Are incels just people who can\u2019t find love, or is there more to it? Can anyone fall into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2023\/10\/man_computers.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2023\/10\/man_computers.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2023\/10\/man_computers.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1064,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/is-jk-rowling-transphobic\/","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":4},"title":"Is JK Rowling transphobic?","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"November 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Is JK Rowling transphobic? 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The LGBTQ+ organisation GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) has said that the author \u201ccontinues to align herself with an ideology which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/BWTrans_Women_are_Real_Women_39819062561-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1369,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/on-choosing-reality-how-public-discussions-of-gender-recognition-go-wrong-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-part-1-arguing-about-what-gender-really-is\/","url_meta":{"origin":646,"position":5},"title":"On \u201cChoosing Reality\u201d: How Public Discussions of Gender Recognition Go Wrong, and What We Can Do About It: Part 1 Arguing About What Gender Really Is","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"February 7, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Content advice: transphobia. On 10th October 2018, a full page-advert ran in the Metro, London\u2019s free commuter newspaper. The topic of the advert was an imminently closing government consultation on the Gender Recognition Act 2004, the legislation governing changes of legal gender for trans people in England and Wales. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2019\/03\/aleksandar-radovanovic-10295-unsplash-1-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions\/660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}