“You can’t say that”

Abstract

Why does our moral intuition tend to differ when a person uses deprecating speech towards her own affiliation group as opposed to an outer affiliation group? This paper offers a descriptive mapping of moral intuitions behind group self-deprecation (GSD) as stemming from two theoretical fields: pragmatics and standing. The first possible explanation to our moral intuition focuses on the moral flaw in the utterance of condemned (i.e., the person using GSD). Here, I argue our moral intuition suggests the group affiliation of the condemned affects the utterance’s pragmatic interpretation, thus affecting its offensiveness. An alternative explanation focuses on the critic. Here, I argue practices of standing lay behind the offhand rejection of critiques from outer-group members, regardless of their validity.