Whiteley, E. (2022) Harmful salience perspectives. In: Archer, S., (ed.) Salience: A Philosophical Inquiry. Routledge , pp. 193-212. ISBN 9780815385196
Abstract
Consider a terrible situation that too many women find themselves in: 85,000 women are raped in England and Wales alone every year. Many of these women do not bring their cases to trial. There are multiple reasons that they might not want to testify in the courts. The incredibly low conviction rate is one. Another reason, however, might be that these women do not want the fact that they were raped to become the most salient thing about them. More specifically, they do not want it to be the thing that others attend to the most—that others find most noticeable and memorable. In this paper, I introduce the notion of ‘harmful salience perspectives’ to help to explain this and related phenomena. This refers either to attention on things that should not be salient, or not enough attention on things that deserve to be made salient. Following ideas within the feminist literature on objectification, I argue that we can be harmed when aspects of our identity that do not reflect our personhood—our agency, rationality, personality, and so on—are more prominent in the minds of others than aspects that do reflect our personhood. Crucially, these ways of attending do not need to implicate false beliefs and harmful ideologies to be harmful, but can be harmful in their own right.
Metadata
Item Type: | Book Section |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Editors: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Author. This is an author-produced version of a book chapter subsequently published in Salience: A Philosophical Inquiry. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Attention |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Sheffield Methods Institute |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 13 Sep 2023 11:45 |
Last Modified: | 16 Sep 2023 00:13 |
Published Version: | https://www.routledge.com/Salience-A-Philosophical... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Routledge |
Refereed: | Yes |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:203185 |