This talk is an apologetic for what many would take to be unsavory features of our present political discourse and practice. In it, I do two things. First, I establish that we, the public, may justifiably impose asymmetric and highly demanding normative standards on public figures \u2013 even in light of plausible charges of unfairness and hypocrisy. Second, I argue that where those standards are breached, we may be justified in cancelling public figures \u2013 in engaging in the public expression of outrage with the goal of the public figure\u2019s removal from their position as a public figure. In making my case, I offer an ameliorative account of cancel culture. Addressed as a response to norm violations by public figures, I argue that cancelling has a legitimate, even admirable, social function in a democratic context. It is a function, moreover, that need not connote blame or punition \u2013 it need not be understood as a penalty, and need not be scrutinized in moral terms. There is no right to public status \u2013 public figures are there at the gift and on the terms of the public, which is equally empowered to instate and remove them.<\/p>\n
Speaker:\u00a0Simone Gubler<\/a> (University of Nevada, Reno)<\/strong><\/p>\n