Hom and Camp [Alex Rowell]

Hom's account of slurs attempts to explain that slurs have partially hidden assertions within them that tend to have a negative context. Hom argues that slurs contain the non-pejorative counterpart as well as a series of traits and consequences that the members of the NPC should feel due to being the slur in question. Hom also highlights that the force of a slur is directly related to how strong the institutions that would back this slur are at a given point in time.

Camp's account of slurs argues for a perspective-based approach that is packaged in to each slur. Camp explains that slurs contain the perspective of a particular group in judging another group, and assign weight to specific attributes of the NPC group the slur points to, causing a hearer to focus in on these attributes and become complicit in the statements about this group which they may not consciously agree with. Camp focuses on the idea that this hidden bias is something that we intuitively reject, which explains the negative reaction non-bigoted listeners have to slurs.

I am not ready to give up on Hom's account, as it feels like it gives a clean and truth-evaluable way of dealing with slurs in general. However, Camp's account comes from a very intuitive and simple place that can explain the shifty and scalar nature of slurs just as well as Hom's account. I tend to lean toward Hom's account as it addresses how institutions influence slurs, and it also explains why slurs cannot be cancelled. However, Camp's account seems very strong and to me only falters in the area of truth evaluation.