Hornsby on Slurs [Alberto Torrigiotti]

I agree with Hornsby that one can refer to someone through the use of a derogatory word D without necessarily being committed to condemning that particular person for embodying all the characteristics of D. The example of 'Boche' is used to bring out the point that in applying a derogatory word D to a person, she need not believe that that person manifests every bit of ideology that informs D. (Hornsby 2001, 9) Hornsby argues, I think correctly, that users of derogatory words often acquire these words in their social language "quite easily", and that the acquisition and use of derogatory words are not necessarily a reflection of endorsing the ideological underpinnings of the word's history,

I am not very much convinced by anything said in the paragraph subtitled "Useless Words", so I find it difficult to take this assumption as a starting point. For instance, I see no reason why one cannot accept a claim that uses a derogatory word in the same way that he can accept a claim that uses a slang (even if the slang word is not one he endorses). (Hornsby 2001, 2-3) Now, of course, I understand what Hornsby means when she says this, and in many cases, an upstanding moral person will have no engagement with claims which use derogatory words as constituents. In these cases, the words are "useless" only in the sense that it would be "useless" to try to climb over an infinitely high wall. In other words, and I think Hornsby must agree, they are not useless if by "useless" we mean serving no function or inconsequential. I think it would have been helpful if Hornsby spent more time defining "useless" instead of taking the assumption that it is unproblematic and virtually universally accepted that derogatory words are useless.

What does Hornsby have to say about people who include derogatory words in their vocabulary? Are these people so morally reprehensible if they so much as "endorse" a claim that uses a derogatory word? Does she believe that claims including a derogatory word can only be entertained or engaged with seriously by neglecting some morally obvious truth, say a failure to recognize the ethical ramifications of prescribing to derogatory vocabulary? What separates the derogatory content of a word like 'bitch' from a word like 'buffoon' except for its severity?