When, if ever, is it morally permissible to utter the word “joker”? (NB: The word “joker” is a placeholder for another word, the mere utterance of which certain people find unsettling or offensive. See the prolegomenon of this article for an explanation.) After drawing some relevant distinctions (such as that between use and mention), I provide counterexamples to two extreme theses: first, that it is always wrong (i.e., never morally permissible) to utter the word; and second, that it is never wrong (i.e., always morally permissible) to utter the word. It follows that it is sometimes right and sometimes wrong to utter the word. I then examine three plausible principles for distinguishing between those utterances of the word that are right and those that are wrong. Each principle, I maintain, succumbs to counterexamples. I therefore advocate (i) abandonment of a principled (monistic) approach to the matter and (ii) adoption, instead, of a non-principled (pluralistic) approach. The pluralistic approach that I develop is inspired by the work of William David Ross (1877–1971).
Just as one can talk about a hammer without using it (e.g., “This hammer, which I purchased at Home Depot in 2012, cost $23”), one can talk about a word without using it (e.g., “The word ‘hammer’ has six letters”). But how does one talk about a word without
The word that I wish to talk about in this article is a six-letter English word that begins with the letter “n.” It is sometimes referred to as “the n-word,” or typed with certain of its letters blotted out: “n-----” or “n----r.” I am sure you know which word I have in mind.
I share the view of certain scholars, such as UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, that it is legitimate (i.e., permissible or defensible, morally) to talk about this word, especially (but not exclusively) in professional, scholarly, or pedagogical contexts. There is much to say about it, after all. I may wish to ask and answer certain questions, such as: What is the origin of the word? (Etymological.) What does the word mean? (Semantic.) How, if at all, has the meaning of the word changed over time? (Lexicographical.) How is the word used? (Linguistic.) When and why did the word become unsettling or offensive? (Historical.) To whom, precisely, is the word unsettling or offensive, and why? Are there variants of the word that are more (or less) unsettling or offensive? If so, what are those variants and why are they more (or less) unsettling or offensive? (Sociological.) Is the word Is it permissible for some people but not others to use the word? If so, who may (or may not) use it and why? (Moral.) What is the legal status of the word or its utterance (in a particular jurisdiction)? (Legal.) Are those who utter the word in the United States of America deemed to have engaged in constitutionally protected speech? If not, under what heading of
Given the negative reactions that some people have to the mere sight or sound of the word (i.e., to encountering the word in written or oral form),
Just to be clear, my decision to eschew mention of the word (i.e., to refrain from uttering it) is practical rather than prudential or moral. It is not prudential because I do not do it out of self-interest. I am not afraid of controversy, and I am certainly not afraid of self-righteous (but misguided) mobs whose members are bent on “cancellation” of those they deem politically incorrect or insufficiently “woke.” It is not moral because, as I said in the previous paragraph, there is nothing wrong (in my judgment) with talking about a word, especially in scholarly contexts such as this. My decision, rather, is practical (perhaps “instrumental” is the better word); it is to avoid needless distraction, of which controversy is but one type.
In the remainder of this article, since I need some way to talk about the offensive word without uttering it, I will use “joker” as a placeholder. Whenever you see the word “joker” (or a variant), you should mentally substitute the offensive word for it.
If we adopt illocutionary point as the basic notion on which to classify uses of language, then there are a rather limited number of basic things we do with language: we tell people how things are, we try to get them to do things, we commit ourselves to doing things, we express our feelings and attitudes[,] and we bring about changes through our utterances. Often, we do more than one of these at once in the same utterance.
Before discussing—and illustrating—the all-important philosophical distinction between using a word and mentioning it, we would do well to reflect on the purpose of words, sentences, and other units of discourse. Words are tools, no different in principle from hammers, knives, and can openers. Like some tools, such as claw hammers, they have more than one use. (A claw hammer can be used to pound nails, pull nails, open paint cans, hold paper down [on a windy day], and kill people.) Let us discuss five of the main uses of words. My discussion is indebted to John Searle, who is one of the pioneers in the field of speech acts.
Searle distinguishes between the (oral or written) utter a sentence (formed of words in the English language); refer to Sam; predicate the expression “smokes habitually” of Sam; and make an assertion (namely, that Sam smokes habitually).
What the examples show is that “the same reference and predication [namely, Sam + smokes habitually] can occur in the performance of different complete speech acts.”
According to Searle, “there are five general ways of using language, five general categories of illocutionary acts.”
Assertives
Telling people how things are
Word to world
Belief
Truth (or interlocutor’s acceptance)
1. “It’s raining.”
Directives
Trying to get people to do things
World to word
Desire
Interlocutor’s compliance
1. “I command you to stand at attention.”
Commissives
Committing ourselves to doing things
World to word
Intention
Utterer’s compliance
1. “I promise to pay you the money.”
Expressives
Expressing our feelings and attitudes
None
Whatever psychological state is being expressed
Emotional release (by utterer) or evocation of the expressed emotion (in interlocutor)
1. “Congratulations on winning the race.” (expresses delight or joy)
Declarations
Bringing about changes in the world through our utterances
Both world to word and word to world
None
Appropriate institutional authority (of utterer)
1. “I resign.”
Each type of illocutionary act has a “point or purpose,”
The direction of fit of an illocutionary act has to do with whether the utterer (i.e., the speaker or writer) is trying to get his or her words to match the world (“word to world”) or to get the world to match his or her words (“world to word”). Directives and commissives have the same direction of fit: world to word. They differ with regard to who—utterer or interlocutor—is to bring about the change. Expressives have no direction of fit. Declarations have both directions of fit. As Searle explains, “declarations do attempt to get language to match the world. But they do not attempt to do it either by describing an existing state of affairs (as do assertives) nor [
The sincerity condition of an illocutionary act is the psychological state that is characteristically associated with it. In an assertive, for example, I am sincere when I
The felicity (“happiness”) condition of an illocutionary act is the condition in which the act succeeds in doing what the utterer intends for it to do. In an assertive, for example, I succeed when my assertion is
As Searle points out in the epigraph of this section, we often perform more than one illocutionary act in the same utterance. Suppose I utter the words “You’re standing on my foot” while occupying a crowded bus. I am simultaneously (i)
[
The word “joker” can be used to perform any of the aforementioned illocutionary acts—or even more than one of them (on a given occasion). To show this, I will use an actual example.
In August 2014, Michael McCargo, a parking enforcement officer for the town of New Canaan, Connecticut, issued a parking ticket to David Liebenguth, whose car was improperly parked in a courthouse parking lot. Having placed the ticket on Liebenguth’s vehicle, McCargo was in the process of writing a ticket for another vehicle when Liebenguth approached him. According to the Connecticut Supreme Court,
The defendant [Liebenguth] said to McCargo, "not only did you give me a ticket, but you blocked me in." Initially believing that the defendant was calm, McCargo jokingly responded that he didn’t want the defendant getting away. When the defendant then attempted to explain why he had parked in the lot, McCargo responded that his vehicle was in a metered space for which payment was required, not in one of the lot’s free parking spaces. McCargo testified [at Liebenguth’s trial for breach of the peace in the second degree] that the defendant’s demeanor then "escalated," with the defendant [having said] that the parking authority was "[fucking] [un]believable" and [having told] McCargo that he had given him a parking ticket "because my car is white. . . . [N]o, [you gave] me a ticket because I’m white." As the defendant, who is white, spoke with McCargo, who is African-American, he "flared" his hands and added special emphasis to the profanity he uttered. Even so, according to McCargo, the defendant always remained a "respectable" distance from him. Finally, as the defendant was walking away from McCargo toward his own vehicle, he spoke the words, "remember Ferguson."
The Court continued:
McCargo also testified that, “[a]fter both men had returned to and reentered their vehicles, McCargo, whose window was rolled down . . . thought he heard the defendant say the words, "fucking [jokers]." This caused him to believe that the defendant’s prior comment about Ferguson had been made in reference to the then recent [and highly publicized] shooting of an African-American man by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri [on 9 August 2014, approximately three weeks earlier]. [McCargo] thus believed that the [defendant’s reference to Ferguson was a "threat"] meant to imply that what had happened in Ferguson "was going to happen" to him. McCargo also believed that, by uttering the racial slur and making reference to Ferguson, the defendant was trying to rile him up and [to] escalate the situation [by "taking it to a whole other level"].
The Court concluded its recitation of the facts as follows:
McCargo further testified ... that, “[s]hortly thereafter ... as [McCargo] was driving away, the defendant [cut through the parking lot in his vehicle, approached McCargo, and then] drove past him.” As the defendant was driving past McCargo, “the defendant turned toward him, looked directly at him with an angry expression on his face, and repeated the slur, "fucking [jokers]." McCargo [also] noted in his testimony that the defendant said the slur louder the second time than he had the first time.
In uttering the words “fucking jokers,” Liebenguth performed a number of distinct illocutionary acts. First, he asserted (indirectly) that McCargo is “a black or dark-skinned person.”
Let us discuss these illocutionary acts in turn, using the Liebenguth case as an illustration.
When people use the word “joker” as an epithet or slur, as Liebenguth did, they are predicating something of someone. They are saying,
If, in uttering the words “fucking jokers,” Liebenguth had been attempting to start a fight with McCargo (and only he would know whether this is the case), his utterance had directive force: he was trying to get McCargo to do something (namely, fight). Fighting is not the only possibility, however. Liebenguth may have been trying to
Although it might be a stretch to say this, Liebenguth’s utterance of the words “fucking jokers” may have been a way of committing himself to taking action against McCargo for issuing him a parking ticket. It may have been a way of saying, “I’ll get you for this!” The words can be construed as a vow of revenge, retribution, or retaliation, directed either to McCargo in particular or to blacks in general. A vow is a particular type of commissive, but there are others, such as resolutions, threats, and warnings. What is important, for present purposes, is not so much the
Liebenguth, like any utterer in any context, was in a particular psychological state when he uttered the words “fucking jokers.” Among the possible states he was in are frustration, disappointment, disgust (at being ticketed), anger, rage, resentment, contempt, and hatred. The words he chose expressed whatever emotion (or cluster of emotions) he was feeling at the time of utterance. It is well known that the word “joker” is used to display contempt for one’s interlocutor (indeed, this is part of its literal meaning), so it is likely that Liebenguth used the word to express that powerful emotion (especially since he used the intensifier “fucking” as well). Some people consider “joker” the consummate form of “hate speech,” which one dictionary defines as “speech expressing hatred of a particular group of people.”
Let us assume, for the sake of analysis, that there is such a thing as “white privilege.”
We might go further than this and say that, by using the epithet, Liebenguth
It may seem odd that a single white person, such as Liebenguth, who possesses no legal or other formal authority, can
We have now discussed various uses of the word “joker”: assertive, directive, commissive, expressive, and declaratory. There are others (as Searle acknowledges). The word is versatile. I have not myself
I began this article with a discussion of a hammer. Everyone knows what it means to use a hammer (i.e., what is involved in using a hammer). This morning, for example, I used one of my hammers (a claw hammer) to straighten some metal stakes that hold fencing together. Later today, I may use the same hammer to open a paint can. Yet later in the day, I may use the hammer to pull a nail from a board. Tonight, while seated at a picnic table outdoors, I may use the hammer to hold down a stack of papers so that the sheets don’t blow away. (I have not, to date, used it to kill anyone.) Suppose, having used the hammer in these ways, that I wish to talk about it. Here are some things I might say: I purchased it [the hammer] at Home Depot in 2012, for $23. A friend borrowed it, but has yet to return it. It has many uses. It weighs 20 ounces. It served me well as a paperweight.
As should be obvious (by now), there is all the difference in the world between using an object (such as a hammer) and talking about it. Since words, whatever else they may be, are objects, they too can be both used and talked about. For example, just as I can The word “joker” has six letters. (This is false, obviously, but I might say it nonetheless.) “The word [ Many people find the word “joker” offensive. Professor Jones was fired for using the word “joker” in her classroom. Professor Jones was fired for uttering the word “joker” in her classroom. “The word [‘joker’] occurs in the text of the novel [
The telltale sign that the word “joker” is being talked about, rather than used, is that it is enclosed in quotation marks (either single or double).
When philosophers distinguish between using a word and talking about it, they employ the words “use” and “mention” rather than “use” and “talk about.” Here are some illustrative quotations: Sometimes we want to talk about language itself.... In order to mention an entity—even if that entity is itself a linguistic object such as a word—we must make a name by means of which to refer to it. The standard practice is to enclose it in quotation marks; the word along with the surrounding quotation marks constitute a name for the word.... The following two statements are both correct: The following sentence is nonsense: It is ungrammatical, for it confuses use and mention of a word; it violates the general principle that to
Suppose I quote someone who uses or mentions the word “joker.” When I do so, I both
Apparently the doggerel which is the favourite among American children to-day is the senseless jingle:—
Eeny, meeny, miny, mo,
Catch a [joker] by the toe!
If he hollers let him go!
Eeny, meeny, miny, mo.
Those who utter the doggerel—American children—are
In indirect speech acts the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer.
Before examining the ethics (rights and wrongs) of uttering the word “joker,” we should take note of an interesting phenomenon. Many acts can be performed either directly or indirectly. If I wish to travel from my house in Arlington, Texas, to Denton, Texas, I can take the most direct route or, if I have errands to run or simply want to do some sightseeing, I can go first to Dallas and then northwestward to Denton (on I-35E) or first to Fort Worth and then northeastward to Denton (on I-35W). Speech acts are no different. If I wish to assert that you are a joker, I can do so directly, by saying, “Joker,” “You joker,” or “You’re a joker,” or I can do so indirectly. There are many forms of indirection. Here are some of them: “If you’re not a joker, then I’m the Pope.” “The word ‘joker’ applies to you.” “You fall within the denotation (reference class) of the word ‘joker’.” “When Jones said to you, ‘You’re a joker,’ he spoke the truth.” “Are you seriously trying to deny that you’re a joker?”
In the first example, I am
Henceforth, when I speak of “using” a word, I mean to include both direct and indirect uses.
[G]iven our racial situation and the situation that we should attain, we should be wary of indulging in racial presumptions unless we are forced to do so by compelling reasons. There is no compelling justification for presuming that black usage of [joker] is permissible while white usage is objectionable. The most fervent opponents of [joker] agree with this point. They then go on to contend that public opinion should make [joker] out of bounds to
Having distinguished between using an expression and mentioning it (the latter of which includes quoting someone who uses or mentions it), and having observed that use can be either direct or indirect, we are now in a position to ask—and attempt to answer—certain evaluative or normative (hereafter “moral”) questions regarding utterance of the word “joker.”
There are three possible positions that one might take on the moral permissibility (i.e., rightness) It is always wrong (i.e., it is never right or permissible) to utter the word “joker.” It is never wrong (i.e., it is always right or permissible—perhaps, in some cases, It is sometimes wrong (impermissible) and sometimes right (permissible) to utter the word “joker.”
My argumentative strategy is as follows. First, I provide a counterexample to the first position by describing a case in which it is
Suppose you are persuaded to accept (or happen already to accept) the third position. It’s not enough merely to
The third part of my argumentative strategy (having reduced, by counterexample, the number of positions to one) is to explore various principles for distinguishing between those utterances of the word “joker” that are wrong and those that are right. I consider three such principles, each of which has, I believe, some initial plausibility.
The first principle, which may have occurred to you in light of our discussion of the difference between using a word and mentioning it, is that it is always wrong (i.e., never right or permissible) to
The second principle is that it is always wrong (i.e., never right) for a
The third principle, which is a hybrid of the first two principles, is that it is always wrong (i.e., never right) for a
If all three of these principles are incorrect, as I believe they are, then the situation is considerably more complicated (or, to use the currently fashionable term,
In developing this suggestion (of plurality), I draw upon the work of William David Ross, who famously held that there is no single characteristic (such as being optimific
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an air-tight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking, “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “[joker],” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
A few paragraphs later, King pays tribute to some of the white individuals who sympathized with, chronicled, publicized, and assisted his movement:
I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need [for “creative extremists”]. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some—such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, and James McBride Dabbs—have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the south. They have languished in filthy, roach-infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as “dirty [joker] lovers.” Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful “action” antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.
These are the only two occurrences of the word “joker” in King’s letter. If it is always wrong to utter the word “joker,” as the first position maintains, then King acted wrongly on both occasions. This would be the case even though (i) King is mentioning the word rather than using it (specifically, King is
I shall assume, for purposes of going forward, that you agree with me in rejecting the first and second positions on the moral permissibility of uttering the word “joker.” I have not, strictly speaking,
Earlier in the article, I suggested the following principle: It is always wrong (i.e., never right) to
[A] black student in one of his classes said the fighting-words doctrine [according to which fighting words are constitutionally unprotected speech] might be outdated. To make a point, a white student in the class then said, “That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard, you stupid [N-word].” [T]he black student immediately lunged at the white student, illustrating that the doctrine was indeed still relevant.
When Stone told this story to his students, he uttered the word “joker,” but he did not
Is there anything wrong with Stone’s utterance of the word? I think there is. If he had been quoting someone who used or mentioned the word, or if he had simply referred to the word in the course of a discussion of a legal case (for example, “The defendant called the officer ‘joker’”), I would say that he did nothing wrong. But in the context of the
They were racist because [Stone], as a white man, repeated a word used by white people to perpetuate the subjugation of black Americans for hundreds of years. He trivialized the word’s history and the lived experience of black students. He employed the word to highlight a white student’s reprehensible treatment of a black student. He lent credence to the false stereotype that black men are prone to violence. He primed black students through stereotype threat to learn less and perform worse.
The part that makes Stone’s utterance of the word morally objectionable, in my judgment, is recounting or reenacting a (hypothetical?) confrontation between a white student and a black student. This would obviously unsettle or offend some of the students (perhaps not all) in Stone’s class, and apparently it did. It’s one thing dispassionately to
Just to be clear: Stone has every right to eschew utterance of the word “joker” in his law-school classes. According to the news report
Our discussion of the first principle (of three) is complete. We have seen, first, that it is not always wrong to
The second of the three principles concerns race. It says that it is always wrong (i.e., never right) for a
Volokh’s use of the word “ought” in this quotation is instructive. He is not arguing (merely) that the word “joker” (or other potentially offensive words)
I happen to share Volokh’s view about the obligatoriness of full and accurate quotation in scholarly contexts (keep in mind that my decision to use “joker” throughout this article is practical or instrumental rather than moral), but that is neither here nor there. I am not concerned (in this article, at least) to defend the stronger view. For present purposes, we can ignore Volokh’s claims of obligation or requirement. We can even ignore his claim that professors
I submit that it would be as wrong for Obama to use the word in a disparaging way as it was for Liebenguth to use it in that way. In both cases, the intention is to belittle or degrade the hearer, McCargo. Why should it matter that the utterer is black? As for
Our discussion of the second principle (of three) is complete. We have seen, first, that it is not always
The third of the three principles is a hybrid of the first two. It says that it is always wrong (i.e., never right) for a
We saw earlier that it would be morally permissible for Obama, a black man, to use “joker” in an endearing way, to greet a long-time friend. May Ayers do the same? Before you answer this question, let me provide some context. Imagine that Ayers and Obama meet in a private setting after not seeing one another for several years. Ayers, smiling broadly, says, “Hey, joker; how ya doin’?” Obama smiles and embraces him. My intuition is that this use of “joker” is morally permissible. The only difference in the two cases—Good Obama and Ayers—is that Obama (the first utterer) is black and Ayers (the second utterer) white; but why should this be dispositive? What matters, it seems to me, is not the race of the speaker but the bond between the two men. In both cases, the word is being used endearingly rather than disparagingly. It is being used to promote solidarity between the two men, each of whom, we may presume, implicitly trusts the other. If I am right about this, then it is not always wrong for a white person (or, more generally, a non-black person) to use the word “joker.”
I fully understand that some readers of this article may have a contrary intuition. Some of you may intuit that it is wrong for
Our discussion of the third principle (of three) is complete. We have seen, first, that it is not always
The following chart summarizes our conclusions (assuming that you have gone along with me to this point):
Non-Black Utterer
Right
Wrong
Black Utterer
Right
Wrong
For what it’s worth, my intuitions are strongest in the cases of Liebenguth and King. They are somewhat less strong in the cases of Bad Obama and Volokh. They are weakest (though not
Although I have not examined
That completes my catalog of morally relevant considerations. If this article were not already overly long, I would bring each of the five morally relevant considerations to bear on each of the eight examples discussed earlier. I believe that when this is done (I leave it as an exercise for the reader), the pluralistic approach will be shown to coincide with, and therefore to provide rational support for, the reader’s intuitions about the examples.
I have argued that, when it comes to determining whether a given utterance of the word “joker” is morally permissible, there are several (specifically, five) relevant considerations. Suppose someone objects to my analysis by saying the following: “Why is Good Obama allowed to use the word ‘joker,’ but Liebenguth not? In other words, why is it morally
The answer is that, morally speaking, the cases are not on a par with one another. Though both cases involve
In order to reason validly from one case to another, the cases must be alike in all morally relevant respects, i.e., there must be There is no morally relevant difference between object O1 and object O2 (i.e., objects O1 and O2 are alike in Object O1 has moral property P. Therefore, Object O2 has moral property P (from 1 and 2).
Because this argument form is valid (meaning truth-preserving), there are only three rational responses to it (or to an instance of it): (i) reject the first premise (by showing that there is, in fact, a morally relevant difference between the two objects); (ii) reject the second premise; and (iii) accept the conclusion. If we instantiate this argument form by filling it out with the facts of the two cases under consideration (Good Obama and Liebenguth), we get the following argument (which is also valid, since any argument that has a valid form is a valid argument): There is no morally relevant difference between Good Obama’s utterance of “joker” and Liebenguth’s utterance of “joker” (i.e., Good Obama’s utterance and Liebenguth’s utterance are alike in Good Obama’s utterance of “joker” is morally permissible. Therefore, Liebenguth’s utterance of “joker” is morally permissible (from 1 and 2).
The second premise of this argument is true (or so I have been assuming since we first discussed it), but the first premise is, as we have seen, false, since (i) the races of the two utterers differ and (ii) race (I have argued, or more properly suggested) is a morally relevant consideration. The argument is therefore unsound. Acceptance of its second premise does not, therefore, logically commit one to accepting its conclusion.
Now consider a second example. We saw earlier that it is morally permissible for Volokh to mention the word “joker” in his law-school classroom. Let us replace Volokh with another white law-school professor, say, Geoffrey Stone, and call the resulting example “Stone*” to distinguish it from the original example called “Stone.” If we hold everything else constant, then we may infer, validly, that it is morally permissible for Stone* to mention the word “joker” in There is no morally relevant difference between Volokh’s utterance of “joker” and Stone*’s utterance of “joker” (i.e., Volokh’s utterance and Stone*’s utterance are alike in Volokh’s utterance of “joker” is morally permissible. Therefore, Stone*’s utterance of “joker” is morally permissible (from 1 and 2).
This argument, like the previous one, is valid, but, unlike the previous one, it is sound. Both of its premises are true. Acceptance of its premises therefore commits one to accepting its conclusion.
Now consider a third example. Let us replace Volokh with a
The point of these examples is to show Given a presumption (even a weak one) Given a presumption (even a weak one)
We are well aware that racism is a powerful force in American life that appears in many guises, some lethal. We believe that opposing racism is imperative, and that vigilance is essential. We also believe, however, that developing a capacity for making important distinctions is a valuable skill and a fundamental goal of education. That is why we insist on recognizing the gulf that separates using slurs as insults from quoting or mentioning them as part of an educational venture.
The philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson once said, while discussing abortion, that “there are cases and cases, and the details make a difference.”
I have identified (and clarified) five morally relevant considerations. I have also explained (albeit briefly)
As is often the case in philosophy (as well as in life generally), things are not as simple as they appear with regard to the word “joker.” It is sometimes said that the word is so offensive—so “filthy, dirty, and nasty,” as Christopher Darden might have put it (see footnote 1 and accompanying text)—that it
The solution to the problem of unacceptable utterance of the word “joker” is not banishment of the word (how would that even work?) but education of those who deploy it. People need to be taught to think clearly and carefully about (i) the difference between use and mention (the latter of which includes, but is not limited to, quotation), (ii) the difference between a black person using or mentioning the word and a non-black person using or mentioning the word, (iii) the relevance of context to moral judgment, and (iv) the moral importance of intention or motivation. There is all the difference in the world (or so I have argued) between using a word and talking about it, between using a word and quoting someone who uses or mentions it, between using the word “joker” endearingly and using it disparagingly, between using the word “joker” to uplift or consolidate and using it to diminish or dispirit. I hope this article goes some way toward making the world a better place for all. If it does so, then it will, incidentally, show the practical value of philosophy.
[I]t is no part of the professional business of moral philosophers to tell people what they ought or ought not to do or to exhort them to do their duty. Moral philosophers, as such, have no special information, not available to the general public, about what is right and what is wrong; nor have they any call to undertake those hortatory functions which are so adequately performed by clergymen, politicians, leader-writers, and wireless loudspeakers. But it
I make a number of moral judgments in this article. Most of them express intuitions that I have about particular cases—about the rightness or wrongness of particular utterances of the word “joker.” The reader may wonder what weight, if any, to give to these judgments. In particular, the reader may wonder whether the fact that I am a credentialed philosopher (PhD, 1989, The University of Arizona) makes me any kind of expert (or authority) on moral matters, someone to whom he or she,
I hate to be a killjoy, but I am not an expert on moral matters. (That is to say, I have no “moral expertise.”) Yes, I am a philosopher (by training and profession), and yes, I specialize in ethics (understood as the philosophical study of morality); but while these facts about me may confer technical (i.e., analytical or conceptual) expertise on me, they do not, either separately or together, certify my opinions or judgments on substantive moral matters as correct, or even as presumptively correct. My own view, which I will not argue for here, is that
I share the view of Peter Winch, who, half a century ago, said that “philosophy can no more show a man what he should attach importance to than geometry can show a man where he should stand.” The first premise of the argument (the value judgment) is true. The second premise of the argument (the factual claim) is true. The conclusion of the argument (a value judgment) is false.
If the arguer is correct that these propositions are logically inconsistent (i.e., if the arguer is correct that the argument is valid), then every rational person,
A philosopher’s expertise is technical rather than substantive. It consists in showing that
Let me pose a question (a serious one) for those who believe that philosophers,
Throughout this article, I have appealed to the presumed values, beliefs, judgments, and intuitions of my readers (you!) to try to persuade you (or remind you) that certain utterances of the word “joker” are right and others wrong. If you do not share my intuitions, then you will not be persuaded to reject the principles to which they are put forward as counterexamples.
This is not cause for regret. No argument can convince everyone, for the simple reason that no argument (at least none of which I am aware) has premises that everyone accepts. If you do not accept my premises, then my argument gets no grip on you; and if my argument gets no grip on you, then it cannot possibly persuade you. You may, of course, continue reading my article in order to see what else I have to say, or where I go from there, but,
There were two anonymous referees for this article. (They were the first two people to read it, or hear it read.) One referee recommended publication “as is”; the other provided a list of 10 “points [that] need to be addressed.” I am indebted to both referees, though in different ways. The first bolstered my ego; the second helped me improve the article. I alone am responsible for what remains.
Christopher Darden, quoted in Kenneth B. Noble, “Issue of Racism Erupts in Simpson Trial,”
Dictionary.com, accessed 26 February 2022,
The word “utterance,” as commonly used, means “an uninterrupted chain of spoken or written language.” Angus Stevenson and Christine A. Lindberg, eds.,
An anonymous referee for this journal worries that “[not] everyone knows what the N-word refers to.” The referee recommends “mentioning it [the six-letter English word that begins with the letter ‘n’] once in the paper so as not to presuppose [‘unfairly’] that everyone across the globe is up to date about North American taboos.” I admit that this is a problem, but it is easily solved without my having to utter the word (which I am determined not to do, for reasons explained in the text). If you don’t know which word I’m discussing in this article, then you should—
The English word “epithet” (noun) has two uses, or senses. It is used as “an adjective or descriptive phrase expressing a quality characteristic of the person or thing mentioned,” as in “old men are often unfairly awarded the epithet ‘dirty’.”
For a compilation of negative reactions, see Randall Kennedy and Eugene Volokh, “The New Taboo: Quoting Epithets in the Classroom and Beyond,”
See, e.g., the controversy that erupted after publication of Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, “After-Birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby Live?”
I chose this word not because of any similarity of meaning (obviously), but because, like the word in question, it has two syllables and ends with “er.” In other words, it has the same “shape” as the word that forms the subject matter of this article. I considered using the neologism “reggin,” which is the offensive word spelled backward, but decided against it for various reasons, among which is that it doesn’t have the “er” ending. When the offensive word appears within a quotation, I replace it with a bracketed “joker,” like this: “[joker].”
“The doctrine of assumption of risk, also known as volenti non fit injuria, means legally that a plaintiff may not recover for an injury to which he assents,
This is the most theoretical section of the article. Readers who wish to get to the normative sections more quickly may skip it, perhaps coming back to it later (after reading to the end). I thank an anonymous referee (for this journal) for pointing out that some readers may be reluctant to wade through material on speech-act theory. The referee recommended “cut[ting] some of this part,” but I believe that it is of interest to readers who have little or no familiarity with speech-act theory, so I have left it in. Here, as elsewhere in philosophy, theory informs practice.
John R. Searle,
John R. Searle,
Searle,
Ibid., 12.
Ibid., 3.
Ibid., 12.
Ibid., 13.
Ibid., viii.
Ibid., 19.
Ibid., 690–91 (all brackets except those around “jokers” in original).
Ibid., 691 (first ellipsis added; citation omitted; all brackets except those around “jokers” in original).
This is the literal meaning of “joker”; see
“Incite” (verb) means “To arouse; urge; provoke; encourage; spur on; goad; stir up; instigate; set in motion; as, to ‘incite’ a riot. Also, generally, in criminal law to instigate, persuade, or move another to commit a crime; in this sense nearly synonymous with ‘abet’.”
“Provoke” (verb) means “To excite; to stimulate; to arouse. To irritate, or enrage.”
Compare “You’re a joker” (second-person singular), “You’re jokers” (second-person plural), “He or she is a joker” (third-person singular), and “They’re jokers” (third-person plural). All are assertive uses.
Ibid.
“Intimidate” (verb) means “frighten or overawe (someone), esp. in order to make them [
For a seminal account of the concept, see Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,”
One might wonder how whites, who constitute either 60% or 76% of the United States population (depending on whether one counts Hispanics/Latinos as white), could be privileged, for, according to philosopher Alan R. White, the concept of privilege implies that “There can be a privileged few, but not a privileged many.” Alan R. White, “Privilege,”
Liebenguth was charged with, and convicted of, breach of the peace in the second degree. One wonders whether he would have been charged with that crime (or any other) had he said “fucking pigs” or “fucking assholes” rather than “fucking jokers.” If he
Simon Blackburn,
David E. E. Sloane, “The N-Word in
According to Simon Blackburn, quotation is “[t]he primary device indicating that words are being mentioned rather than used.” Blackburn,
An example is Christopher M. Fairman, “Fuck,”
Boruch [
Robert M. Martin,
Wesley C. Salmon,
Henry Carrington Bolton,
According to lexicographer Bryan Garner, one should “[r]eserve quotation marks for five situations: (1) when you’re quoting someone; (2) when you’re referring to a word as a word <the word ‘that’>, unless you’re using italics for that purpose; (3) when you mean so-called-but-not-really <if he’s a ‘champion,’ he certainly doesn’t act like one>; (4) when you’re creating a new word for something—and then only on its first appearance <I’d call him a ‘mirb,’ by which I mean ...>; and (5) when you’re marking titles of TV and radio programs, magazine articles, book chapters, poems, short stories, and songs <having been put on the spot, she sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ as best she could>.” Garner,
Searle,
Imagine someone replying to the claim of use by saying, “I’m not
“A rhetorical question is one that is asked when no answer is expected, or when the answer is obvious.” Martin,
Randall L. Kennedy, “Who Can Say ‘[Joker]’? ... and Other Considerations,”
See the Appendix of this article for a discussion of moral expertise. I thank an anonymous referee for this journal for questioning the placement of this discussion in the text (at roughly the point where this footnote occurs). The referee recommended deleting the material, but I worry that doing so will leave certain readers wondering what weight, if any, to give to my moral judgments. As the reader can see by reading the Appendix, I disclaim moral expertise, not merely on the topic of this article but
Two points. First, "x is permissible" means the same as "x is right," and "x is impermissible" means the same as "x is wrong." "Right" means "not wrong," and "wrong" means "not right." Every concrete act, so understood, is either right (permissible) or wrong (impermissible), and no concrete act is both right and wrong. (A concrete act, such as
The word “optimific” means “[p]roductive of the best outcome.” Blackburn,
W. D. Ross,
Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,”
Ibid., 771 (first bracketed item added; all brackets added).
Among those who hold this view is University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson. According to Levinson, it is not merely permissible, but obligatory (a matter of duty), to utter (specifically, to
An anonymous referee asks what I would say to “someone who does not share [my] intuition[s].” As I explain in the Appendix, the answer is “nothing.” I have tried to come up with examples about which most people, though perhaps not
According to John McWhorter, “Obama qualifies as black” not “simply because of the color of his skin,” but “because he has embraced facets of being human that constitute black American culture.” John McWhorter, “Obama Is Culturally Black Because He Wants to Be,”
Colleen Flaherty, “First Amendment Scholar Geoffrey Stone, Who’s Previously Defended the Use of the N-Word in the Classroom, Has a Change of Mind,”
The reporter, Colleen Flaherty, uses the word “use” repeatedly, when obviously she means “utter.” This is not a criticism. Philosophers often use the word “use” in a narrow or technical way, as I do in this article.
Flaherty, “First Amendment Scholar” (brackets added).
Quoted in ibid., (brackets added).
Ibid.
It’s not clear from the report how Stone will manage this. According to the reporter, “Stone isn’t sure how he’ll talk about slurs in his class going forward, when necessary. He doesn’t like to say ‘N-word’ when it’s clear the relevant content pertains to the actual word, he said. But he’s confident he’ll figure it out.” Ibid. It occurs to me that Stone is both overgeneralizing and overreacting (to a particular incident). Uttering the word “joker” in the context of an offensive story is not the same as mentioning the word as part of a discussion of a legal case. After all, many legal opinions, including United States Supreme Court opinions, utter the word “joker.” If the students are seeing the word on the printed page as they prepare for their lectures, what could be their objection to hearing it spoken (by the professor) in the classroom? From the fact that it is
Stone is reported as saying, “I’ve decided not to use this example in class.” Flaherty, “First Amendment Scholar.” That leaves open the possibility that he will continue to
If I may be permitted a further comment, what would an absolute ban on utterance of the word “joker” (in or out of a classroom) signify? In other words, what would be implied by acceptance of the proposition that “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for any one” (W. K. Clifford, “The Ethics of Belief,”
I realize that not everyone will share my intuitions about the examples I discuss. Kennedy and Volokh, for example, endorse (“urge”) the following “categorical principle”: “any word can [i.e., may, morally] be quoted in a good-faith academic discussion of the facts.” Kennedy and Volokh, “The New Taboo,” 61. If by “quoted” Kennedy and Volokh mean “mentioned” (which includes, but is not limited to, quoting), then they would disagree with me that Stone’s utterance is wrong, for clearly he (Stone)
“Professors certainly shouldn’t use epithets, racial or otherwise, to themselves insult people.” Eugene Volokh, “UCLA Law Dean Apologizes for My Having Accurately Quoted the Word ‘[Joker]’ in Discussing a Case,”
Ibid. (bracketed items added).
Ibid.
Volokh’s dean “issued a public apology to the UCLA Law community” (ibid.) for his having uttered the word “joker” in his (Volokh’s) classroom. Volokh has not himself apologized, for that would imply that he believes that he did something wrong. He denies that he did anything wrong. That Volokh is unrepentant is shown by the fact that he uttered the word “joker” 15 times in the article we have been discussing.
Ibid.
An anonymous referee asks whether a word other than “joker,” such as “joker” with the letter “i” replaced by the letter “u,” would suffice, in a classroom situation, to “capture much of the emotional content of the n-word.” Perhaps it would. As I explain in the text, however, my concern in this article is with what is morally
It will not do to say that Obama, who has a white mother, isn’t “really” black. See McWhorter, “Obama Is Culturally Black Because He Wants to Be,” for a discussion of why Obama is (i.e., counts as) black.
Stanley Kurtz, “Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism on Schools,”
Ibid. (bracketed items added).
Ibid. (bracketed item added).
Ibid.
Randall Kennedy,
This term is Latin for “other things being equal.” According to philosopher and lexicographer Robert M. Martin, it “is used in comparing two things while assuming they differ only in the one characteristic under consideration. For example, it could be said that,
This is as good a place as any to explain something that may strike certain readers as odd. Throughout my article, I provide definitions (usually in footnotes) of basic philosophical terms. I am well aware that my philosophical colleagues understand what these terms mean. The reason I provide the definitions is that I am writing not just for my philosophical colleagues (i.e., those with philosophical credentials), but for (i) graduate students, (ii) undergraduates, and (iii) intelligent, literate laypeople. What is the point of writing exclusively for a narrow audience of one’s peers? Just as judicial opinions can be written in plain English, with a minimum of jargon, so too can philosophical essays. I share the view of former federal appellate judge Richard A. Posner, who wrote:
What one is seeing in [Harvard law professor Richard] Fallon’s article [on theories of statutory interpretation], and in much other elite legal scholarship as well, is academic law becoming esoteric. We’ve seen this in other fields, such as literary criticism and philosophy. These were fields once inhabited by academics and nonacademics, such as F. R. Leavis and T. S. Eliot in literary criticism and William James and John Stuart Mill in philosophy, the first of each pair being the academic and the second the nonacademic. Moreover, whether academic or nonacademic, most literary criticism and most philosophical writing were accessible to and widely read by persons in other fields and indeed by many members of the general public.... At present, literary criticism and especially philosophy are for the most part jargon-ridden, technical, and inaccessible to persons in other fields.
Richard A. Posner,
Kennedy, “Who Can Say ‘[Joker]’?,” 92 (bracketed item added). Kennedy’s view is stated more fully in the epigraph to this section of the article. His justification for rejecting a race-based presumption is as follows: “We ought to reject racial distinction-making ... in order to inculcate a habit for seeing people more carefully as distinctive, particular, sovereign individuals as opposed to predetermined agents or subjects of this or that racial group.” Ibid., 92 (ellipsis added).
An anonymous referee for this journal asks me to explain why the race of the utterer is morally relevant. Doing so would require an article of its own, so the most I can do here is
The same referee asked several probing questions about individuals who are neither white nor black. (I am thinking particularly of Hispanics and Asians.) For example: (i) “If there is a particular racial group that never used the n-word as a slur for black people, is it also more problematic for its members to use it than it is for a black person to do so? (assuming all else to be equal).” (ii) “Relatedly, would the use of the n-word by members of this group be less problematic than its use by white people, assuming all else to be equal?” My (tentative) answer to the first question is yes, for the reason that the members of the racial group in question have not, themselves, been demeaned by the word, as blacks have. My (tentative) answer to the second question is also yes, for the reason that whites, and not Hispanics or Asians, have been the primary users of the word to demean. The referee asks, finally, whether “the justificatory threshold for using the n-word [is] lower the darker the color of one’s [skin].” In other words, are the dark(er)-skinned more likely to be justified in using the word than the light(er)-skinned? Here I think the answer is no. The emphasis should be placed on what John McWhorter calls “cultural blackness,” not on skin color. See note 58. I wish I could say more about these matters, and will, perhaps, in future essays. My focus in the present essay has been the use of the word “joker” by whites and blacks. These are the central cases. Peripheral cases need further attention.
Ibid., 692.
Law professors Randall Kennedy and Eugene Volokh explain: “We think that the way that courts routinely handle the epithets [such as “joker”] is correct and that law schools should deal with the facts of life with at least an equivalent level of directness. We should certainly reject a rule that words that are routinely mentioned in courtrooms, opinions, and briefs are taboo in legal academic settings. Promulgating such a norm would be wrongfully repressive regardless of its professional consequences for students. But promulgating such a norm would also misprepare law students for the profession that they will shortly enter.” Kennedy and Volokh, “The New Taboo,” 33 (bracketed item added).
In other words, the approach and the intuitions (i.e., the considered judgments) are in reflective equilibrium—“[a] state in which all one’s thoughts about a topic fit together; in which there are no loose ends or recalcitrant elements that do not cohere with an overall position.” Blackburn,
An inductive analogical argument has the following form: There are relevant similarities between object O1 and object O2 (relevant, that is, to possession of property P). Object O1 has property P.
Therefore, Object O2 has property P (from 1 and 2).
The strength of an inductive analogical argument (strength is a matter of degree) depends on (i) how many relevant similarities there are between object O1 and object O2 and (ii) how many relevant dissimilarities there are between object O1 and object O2. The greater the number of relevant similarities, the stronger the argument. The greater the number of relevant dissimilarities, the weaker the argument.
This term is Latin for “from the stronger.” It is a “[p]hrase used for ‘all the more’ or ‘even more so’: if all donkeys bray, then
Randall Kennedy and Eugene Volokh, “The Case for Quoting the N-Word in University Classrooms,”
Judith Jarvis Thomson, “A Defense of Abortion,”
“Non-principled” does not mean “unprincipled,” which is a synonym for “unscrupulous,” which means lacking moral integrity.
Those who are familiar with Ross’s work know that he listed six (not seven) prima facie duties. But the first of his six duties resolves itself into two kinds, which makes for a total of seven. The duties, in order, are fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice, beneficence, self-improvement, and non-maleficence. (These are Ross’s names.) See Ross,
Ibid.
Jennifer Speake glosses this proverb as “Beware of losing something valuable in your haste to get rid of things that are not wanted.” Jennifer Speake, ed.,
C. D. Broad, “Conscience and Conscientious Action,”
Peter Winch,
See, e.g., Blackburn,
Hans Halvorson,
Consistency is reducible to entailment. To say that proposition p is
Peter Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,”