Silence Misinterpreted
In conversations that take place under conditions of oppression, an audience’s silence typically reflects many things other than acceptance. This chapter argues that this point can be accommodated by an account that postulates a prima facie entitlement to regard another’s silence as indicating acceptance. What is more, the postulation of a prima facie entitlement (as part of our conversational practices) can be defended in two ways. First, the entitlement itself is part of the best explanation of the pervasiveness of the oppression, as well as of the nature of the wrongs of silencing that such oppression brings in its wake. Second, the entitlement is part of the solution to the problem of silencing itself: though the costs of silencing are disproportionately (and unfairly) borne by those who are silenced, these costs affect all of us; and the best way to address the problem involves seeing its source in (a misapplication of) the normative features of our conversational practices themselves.