METAPHILOSOPHY Vol. 17, No. 4, October 1986 0026-1068 $2.00

A GRIM DILEMMA ABOUT RACIST REFERRING EXPRESSIONS

DAVID GOLDBERG

A language lacking referring expressions is virtually impossible to imagine. I t is unsurprising then that philosophers through the ages have attended so closely to questions of reference. Indeed, we can safely say that reference is of key philosophical concern. Only recently though has the moral status of certain forms of reference been queried. It has been pointed out , for instance, that racist or sexist referring expressions are morally unacceptable. This insistence has prompted the metaphilo- sophical question whether moral considerations in some circumstances govern the ‘natural facility’ of such terms to refer.

Patrick Grim points out (Grim 1981, pp. 290, 293) that if claims involving racist terms like ‘nigger’, ‘kike’, etc. have truth-value, such terms can be included in claims necessarily true on the basis of their logical form. ’ If

(1) A nigger will benefit from preferential treatment.

is either true or false then

(2) It is either true or false that a nigger will benefit from preferential treatment.

is necessarily true. Grim concludes that a theory of truth ‘committing’ us to the truth or falsity of claims involving the use of racist terms thereby ‘commits’ us to racist claims. This entails ‘commitments’ also to necessarily true racist claims. To avoid racist claims, a theory of truth with these ‘commitments’ must be avoided. Grim thinks these consider- ations sufficiently urgent to justify employing ethical grounds in our choice of appropriate theories of truth and reference. He favors the neo- Strawsonian view that claims involving the use of such abhorrent terms are neither true nor false. The implication is that these terms fail to refer.

Clearly, Grim’s attack is directed primarily against Russell’s theory of descriptions. On Grim’s reading of Russell, racist terms are to be treated as definite descriptions. Truth-values for racist claims are to be assigned along the lines of the standard ‘King of France’ case. Truth or

’ Grim and his respondents analyse sexist terms in the same vein as racist ones. I restrict my remarks here to racist terms. For an interesting discussion of the relevance of an analysis of sexist terms to a study of formal semantics in general, see (Hintikka and Hintikka 1983, pp. 139-148).

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falsity of a racist claim is a function of the truth-values of its conjoined components. Accordingly, we are to analyse

(3) A nigger is silly and lazy. as a conjunction of (4), ( 5 ) and (6):

(4) There is at least one nigger. (5) There is nothing which is a nigger and not silly. (6) There is nothing which is a nigger and not lazy.

The falsity of (4) renders the conjunction false, and so also (3). Accepting this much is tantamount to admitting necessarily true racist claims. Hence Grim’s dilemma.

A. J. Stenner (Stenner 1981, pp. 290-302) thinks that this dilemma can be resolved without subjecting what he considers a viable theory of truth and reference to the dictates of ethical theory. He argues that the Grim dilemma can be undermined along Russellian lines. All that is required is to explicate the hidden nuances of any racist claim purporting to be necessarily true. So, (2) above resolves into a conjunction of (2a) and (2b):

(2a) It is either true or false that a Black will benefit from preferential treatment. (2b) It is appropriate to speak of Blacks as niggers.

(2a) is necessarily true and includes no reprehensible expression. (2b) is a contingent claim. If this reading of (2) is acceptable and (2b) is false, then (2) is false. Stenner implies that all racist claims of the kind in question turn out similarly to be false.

Stenner recognizes that his analysis is not problem-free. One who utters (2) may be suggesting but not asserting (2b). Truth-values cannot be assigned to suggestions, only to assertions (Stenner 1981, p. 304). Stenner attempts to circumvent this difficulty by adding a belief conjunct (2c):

(2c) I believe that it is appropriate to speak of Blacks as niggers.

He admits though that the resultant conjunct of (2a), (2b) and (2c) is cumbersome as an analysis of ( 2 ) . In any case, use of the term ‘appropriate’ in cases like (2b) and (2c) leaves a vagueness in certain contexts that Stenner trades on. Use of the term is designed to accommodate Stenner’s underlying expectation that racist claims always turn out false. Nothing in the analysis guarantees falsity. The theoretical requirement is to add a contingent conjunct to the likes of (2a). If the conjunct really is contingent, only the facts of the matter can determine its truth or falsity. Now expectation may be a function of past

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experience, but it can prove misleading too. Indeed, the conjunct properly representative of an utterance in a given context may turn out to be true. Consider:

(7) A Jew is a Jew.

As such, this is necessarily true. Given the proper context, though, assertion of (7) will be racist. The claimant, for example, responds to the high interest he is charged by a Jewish banker by uttering (7). He is understood to mean that all Jews are usurious money-lenders. It is possible, perhaps, to analyse this contextual claim into its component conjuncts, including a contingently false assertion. Given a slightly altered background context, the possibility of paraphrase - a paraphrase yielding falsity, no less - fades. Someone asserting (7) may intend that he has experienced many Jewish bankers who are usurious and so he is unsurprised that this one has overcharged.

This brings out the deeper theoretical difficulties. A general require- ment of Stenner’s analysis is to add contingent conjuncts properly reflecting the sense of the original claim. It cannot be that any contingent claim somehow related to the original will do, nor just any employing the racist term in question. It is virtually impossible to formulate, as a general principle of the theories of truth and reference, a rule that will guide us here. There is a point at which examples must cease to hide theoretical gaps. Stenner needs to assign a truth-value to a judgement of appropriateness in order to ground the moral judgements of (2b) and (2c). In fact, Stenner falls back on a judgement of appropriateness to furnish truth-values for the likes of (2b) and (2c).

Grim’s dilemma thus remains unresolved. To rehearse Grim’s solution: Assertions involving ‘nigger’, ‘kike’, etc. are neither true nor false because there are no such things as niggers or kikes in the world. There is nothing to which such racist terms refer. .We are left still with the obvious fact that ‘Blacks’ and ‘Jews’ do refer, that there are such things as Blacks and Jews in the world. Many racist claims include these referring expressions.

It may be objected that (7) is not a claim. It provides no new information about the world. It is an identity expression. The point about (7 ) , however, is that in certain contexts it embodies a set of contingent claims. It is possible that these contingent claims may turn out to be true, and the inference drawn from them valid. The truth of the claim, and the validity of the inference, cannot alone preclude their belng racist, given the proper context.* It is the use of expressions to make claims in given contexts, and the manner in which the claims are made, which determine that the expressions and claims are racist.

* I have argued elsewhere that though a racist claim may turn out to be true, or a racist inference formally valid, they are nonetheless immoral (Goldberg 1984, pp. 166 ff.).

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This raises the question of the power to refer of those terms almost universally racist in their use.3 As Kriste Taylor argues, terms like ‘nigger’ and ‘kike’ would fail to refer only if there were some ‘linguistic rule’ or ’linguistic convention’ which prevented these kinds of expres- sion from ‘securing reference’. There is no formulated linguistic rule which prohibits reference being secured by such terms. And were some such rule readily available, there would be no way of judging whether the use of a particular term transgresses the given rule (Taylor 1981, p. 313).

Taylor thinks, nevertheless, that we have a linguistic convention - a social practice in speaking - which proscribes the use of racist expressions by debarring them from securing reference. Racist terms fail to secure reference because there are no such things in the world as niggers or kikes to which the terms could refer. Claims involving such terms fail to have truth-values because we adopt conventions of referring according to ethical criteria. Moral imperatives do not force upon us choices of a particular theory of truth and reference. Ethical considerations determine rather a class (or classes) of cases to which the theories of truth and reference we ordinarily adopt do not apply (Taylor 1981, pp. 314-5).

Taylor is right that there are strong ethical considerations not to refer to Blacks as niggers and Jews as kikes. But ethical considerations can tell us only that Blacks and Jews ought not to be referred to thus. They cannot determine that these groups are not so called. Many do refer by the use of such terms, and reference is secured. Donellan’s distinction between uses of expressions which ascribe properties of, and those which refer to, individuals highlights this point (Donellan 1971, pp. 198-200). The ‘attributive’ use of definite descriptions ascribes pro- perties to, asserts something properly of, that which is being spoken about. The ‘referential’ use of a definite description facilitates identific- ation by the audience of that which the speaker speaks. For example, in using the expression “The Jewish man in the corner”, I refer still to a particular person even though he is not in fact Jewish. The property of being Jewish however cannot be attributed to him, for he fails to possess it.

Racist referring expressions, as the name suggests, function for the most part referentially, not attributively. Most racist referring expres- sions of the type under discussion here refer under false descriptions, though i t is clear that references under true descriptiuns can be racist too. Those using racist referring terms publicly, those to whom they refer and observer-hearers commonly understand what is being said of whom. Grim and Taylor are mistaken in thinking that a racist

’ Here, morality mirrors reference: use of racist terms like ‘nigger’, for morality as for reference, must be distinguished from their mere mention.

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expression must refer to a unique object. This kind of linguistic nominalism is hopelessly inadequate. Different terms often refer to the same object, while the same term may refer sometimes to different objects. In this respect, the terms and objects in question here are no exception.

Grim and Taylor are confused similarly in supposing that ethical considerations prevent racist terms from referring (or securing reference) by circumscribing the ‘‘legitimate’’ objects that populate our world. ‘Nigger’, ‘kike’, etc. do refer when used in the appropriate contexts - to Blacks and Jews respectively. And they refer in precisely the same way as other referring expressions. This does not commit us to the existence of niggers and kikes, only to Blacks and Jews. Besides the ordinary referential commitments of such terms, they carry with them pernicious judgements. In this, use of such terms is not unlike calling someone ‘idiot’. We are not committed thus to the existence of idiots, only to persons and judgements about them. Ethical attention is directed accordingly to its proper place: not directly to the referring relation but to the accompanying judgement of the referent. It is not the reference to a person or group as such that we condemn as immoral. Rather, it is the reference to the person or group as fulling under the pernicious judgement.

Grim’s dilemma is ill-conceived. Necessary truths like (2) are necessary by virtue of their abstract logical form. If racist referring expressions are substituted for the relevant place-holders in this abstract logical form, as in (2), we get necessarily true racist expressions. This does not render them any less necessary, true, or racist. And it certainly does not make them any less immoral. A theory of reference must reveal how these racist terms refer when used. A theory of truth tells us how such terms, like any referring expressions, acquire truth-value. Ethical theory provides the grounds for judging the use of such terms, on the basis of the judgements they make or the beliefs they express, as wrong or unjust. It is ethical theory, not a theory of reference or truth, which proscribes their use.

This fact underlines an interesting feature of the relation between linguistic practices and moral proscriptions. Once acknowledged, ethical considerations may alter the way we refer to and speak about others. They may change our conventions for referring. Witness, for example, the shift from “on-European’ and ‘Negro’ to ‘Black’. Changes in the mode of referring to, speaking about, representing and acting towards others are likely to follow from altering prevailing social relations. It is very difficult to change the way others are spoken of absent wider social changes. Ethical analysis and condemnation must be aimed primarily at the context of use, at the conditions which render plausible or acceptable the use of such terms. Of course, improving the way we speak of racial others aids general social relations. Success in

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purging ways wt speak of racist expressions, however, depends ultimately upon our wider social commitments and not on theories of reference or t r ~ t h . ~

Hunter College of CUNY New York, NY 10021 USA

References

Donellan, Keith (1971) “Reference and Definite Descriptions” in Readings in the Philosophy of Language. Edited by Jay F. Rosenberg and Charles Travis. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, pp. 195-211.

Goldberg, David (1984) “The Philosophical Foundations of Racism”. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York.

Grim, Patrick (1981) “A Note on the Ethics of Theories of Truth” in Sexist Language. Edited by Mary Vetterling-Braggin. New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield.

Hintikka, Merrill and Hintikka, Jaakko (1983) “How Can Language Be Sexist? in Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistem- ology, Metaphysics, Methodology and Philosophy of Science. Edited by Sandra Harding and Merrill Hintikka. Holland: Reidel, pp. 139-48.

Stenner, A. J . (1981) “A Note on Logical Truth and Non-Sexist Semantics” in Sexist Language. Edited by Mary Vetterling-Braggin. New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield.

Taylor, Kriste (1981) “Reference and Truth: The Case of Sexist and Racist Utterances” in Sexist Language. Edited by Mary Vetterling- Braggin. New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield.

I am grateful to Michael Edwards for his very helpful comments on an earlier draft.