Holt, Elizabeth Lillian; (2023) Sex, Objectification, and Structural Injustice. Masters thesis (M.Phil.Stud), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis aims to clarify and explore a collection of ethical questions arising from an acknowledgment of the pervasive force of structural injustice within human sexual relations. Its primary focus, within this domain, surrounds philosophical explorations of objectification. In the first chapter, taking inspiration from Barbara Herman, Immanuel Kant, and Catharine MacKinnon, I propose a framework through which we may philosophise about the problem of objectification. Objectification, under this framework, is understood as: (i) pervasive within sexual relations, (ii) incompatible with certain (equal) relations among persons, and (iii) irresolvable at the level of individuals. An important upshot of this framework, I argue, is understanding the significance of individually wrongful acts within our philosophising about objectification. In Chapter Two, I consider this issue in more detail. Contra the philosophical literature’s tendency to analyse objectification as a matter of impermissible acts of object-like use, I argue that we should rethink the problem of objectification as a social-structural phenomenon. This rethinking, furthermore, finds insight and support within overlooked aspects of MacKinnon’s work on the topic. In Chapter Three, I return to another concern arising from discussion so far. I explore the question of how we are to understand the permissibility of individual sexual acts, insofar as we acknowledge the pervasive force of problematic social structures within our sexual relations more broadly. This worry is often framed in terms of consent: if our sexual relations are embedded within and shaped by problematic social structures, does this commit us to denying the consensuality of sexual intercourse under nonideal conditions? I argue that attending to the complexity within the relationship between structural injustice and our individual sexual relations both presents conceptual space for understanding the consensuality of nonideal sex, whilst also motivating a move away from an overly consent-centric ethics of sex.

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