Accommodating Hatred

In her chapter “Beyond Belief: Pragmatics in Hate Speech and Pornography”, Rae Langton proposes a development of David Lewis’ scorekeeping model, according to which speakers can not only presuppose certain beliefs on the part of the hearers but also certain desires and feelings. This should then explain how speech, and in particular hate speech, can change the hearers’ desires and feelings about the group targeted for hate using presupposition accommodation. Against Langton’s proposal, I will object that, although we have a good understanding of what it means for an utterance to presuppose certain beliefs on the part of the hearers, we basically have no understanding of what it means to presuppose certain desires or feelings. What is even more problematic is that Langton does not provide any concrete examples of utterances presupposing a desire or feeling. This leads to the question of whether there is such a thing as presupposed desires and feelings. Although I will answer this question affirmatively, contrary to Langton’s explanation, this will not require that, in addition to common beliefs, conversational score also includes common desires or feelings. Rather, presupposed desires and feelings will be reduced to presupposed beliefs. Thus, to adjust their beliefs, hearers may sometimes be forced to adjust their desires and feelings. This will provide an explanation of the fact that, in addition to the hearers’ beliefs, hate speech also changes their desires and feelings.