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research-article2015

POSXXX10.1177/0048393115571250Philosophy of the Social SciencesLobo

Discussion

A Critique of Hindriks
Restructuring Searles
Making the Social World

Philosophy of the Social Sciences

2015, Vol. 45(3) 356362
The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0048393115571250
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Gregory J. Lobo1

Abstract
This article is a response to Frank Hindriks Restructuring Searles Making
the Social World.
Keywords
John Searle, status functions, status function declarations, collective
acceptance, human rights
This essay is an attempt to respond to Frank Hindriks review of John Searles
Making the Social World (2010), of which he makes several important criticisms. These are that the notion of a Status Function Declaration raises more
questions than it answers and that Searle would be better off without it; that
the term function in status function does not serve a clear and useful purpose either; that Searle overestimates the role that language plays in institutions when he claims that language is constitutive of institutions; that
Searles account of collective acceptance is too weak to account for the normative structure of institutions that takes center stage in his own account of
them; and that Searles account of human rights as status functions is
flawed because it cannot adequately account for the existence of human
rights that are not recognized (Hindriks 2011, 387). Hindriks (2011, 387)
Received 11 November 2014
1Universidad

de los Andes, Bogot, Colombia

Corresponding Author:
Gregory J. Lobo, Edificio Franco G504, Universidad de los Andes, Carrera 1 No. 18A-10,
Piso 5, Bogot, Colombia.
Email: gregorylobo@gmail.com

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also points out that Searle fails to appreciate that the distinction between
constitutive and regulative rules is primarily a linguistic one, but I do not
address this because it has been recognized by Searle since as far back as
1964, and I do not believe it to be a grave impediment to his arguments. The
other criticisms, however, do indeed pose grave challenges to Searles project; I will take them in order.

1. Status Function Declarations (SFDs)

The puzzlement regarding Searles notion of a SFD would seem to stem from
the fact that in referring to something as a declaration, Searle appears to be
saying that something specific is being said at some specific time. We could
read him as arguing that actual declarations are made in an explicit way. But
Searle is clear that an SFD is not meant to refer to an explicit speech act of
Declaration (Searle 2010, 13). He is talking about representations (Searle
2010, 13) that, though they are not strictly speaking Declarations because
there is no Declarational speech act (Searle 2010, 13), have the same logical form as SFDs (Searle 2010, 13). This logical form looks like this:
We make it the case by Declaration that the Y status function exists in context
C. (Searle 2010, 99)

Such a formal statement is rarely ever made (although a declaration of

independence, for instance, would seem to be an empirical example of an
actual SFD). But the logical form opens up, to my mind, all kinds of avenues
for analysis. Let us think of babies or of fetuses. Often someone, at a certain
point, exclaims, Its a girl! or Its a boy! In either case, this would seem
to many to be a simple statement of fact. I want to suggest that it is not. What
is being said, in a certain sense, is
We declare this body or child or baby to be a girl/boy in our context.

This is a declaration of a status function, of a label whose function or purpose is to ground a deontology, a relation or regime of rights and obligations,
duties, and powers, however informal or merely cultural these might be. In
the past, it should be noted, and perhaps even to this day in some cases, a version of this SFD was actually empirically and explicitly made: in the case of
ambiguous genitalia doctors (and sometimes parents) consulted as to how to
declare the new bornboy or girl?keenly but perhaps not completely consciously aware that distinct deontologies would be established in each case.
The SFD, then, need not refer to an historical, explicit declaration; rather it is
a way to get a sense of the logical form of social reality.

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2. Status Functions
In addressing the confusion regarding SFDs, I have already begun to address
the perplexity regarding the term function in status function. A status
function is a label that implies a purpose or more widely a deontology. To call
a new born human body a girl is not, I repeat, a simple statement of fact. In
many groups, even today, being a girl means something, implies something:
girls have a purpose, a function; there are deontological consequences to
being declared to be girl (and indeed, a boy). The girl in question is expected
to, indeed sometimes must, behave in a certain way, or face dire sanctions.
Her expectations for herself are often preestablished. (And the same can be
said for boys.) National identities, to give another example, are supposed to
mean something. They are not merely taxonomic labels. They are what Searle
calls status functions: labels that imply a purpose, a deontology, that carry, as
he puts it, deontic powers (Searle 2010, 8). If we were to drop the term function we would then be left with statuses. I would argue that this would be
misleadingly idealist. It suggests that being a boy or a girl is socially insignificant, that there are no real social implications to being one or the other.
One day humans might construct this kind of society, where the difference
between being a boy or being a girl is about as significant as the difference
between being 181 cm tall and 181.1 cm tall. But all societies that I know of
have established different deontologies for boys and girls, and are quite concerned to know which are boys and which are girls. Status implies function,
hence the utility of the term status function.

3. Language
Regarding the overestimation of the role of language, I suggest that it is
important to note that language as such is not fundamental. Rather, it is the
ability to use symbolic systemsof which natural languages are instances
that is fundamental. The confusion here stems, I think, from Searles tendency to use the word linguistic as a synonym for symbolic, and to use the
former word much more often than the latter. So he will say things like all
human institutions are essentially linguistic (Searle 2010, 63)and I would
argue that when it comes to formal institutions this is in large part true, but
that it is not always the case when it comes to what might be thought of as
uncodified, more cultural institutional facts and forms. Searle observes, in
this regard, that [y]ou do not always need actual words of existing languages, but you need some sorts of symbolic representation for the institutional fact to exist (Searle 2010, 14). A frown, thento take an example of
Hindriks (2011, 383)can be a speech act, as can a dagger stuck in my door

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in the middle of the night, to take an example from Searles (1995) earlier
work. Indeed, in the example of institutionalization1 discussed in detail by
Hindriks (2011, 383), Searle argues that this case, like all institutional facts,
necessarily involves language, or at least some form of symbolism (Searle
2010, 95, emphasis added). So, while I think it is fair to say that Searle overestimates the role that language plays in institutions when he claims that language is constitutive of institutions (Hindriks 2011, 387), I also think that, to
be fair, we have to acknowledge that Searle at various points allows that
non- or perhaps pre-linguistic symbolic representation is the more fundamental terrain upon which institutions develop.

4. Collective commitment
Searles account of collective acceptance is quite capacious. Hindriks (2011,
386) closes his review by pointing out that Searle needs to recognize a stronger kind of collective acceptance or recognition than he has so far, specifically, collective commitment. What Searle argues is that for institutions to
work there must be collective acceptance or recognition (Searle 2010, 8).
He is wary, however, of this way of putting it, because several commentators have argued that this language might imply approval and that he did
not mean it to imply approval (Searle 2010, 8). Therefore, he goes on to
define his use of acceptance in a way that I clarify as capacious: Acceptance
. . . goes all the way from enthusiastic endorsement to grudging acknowledgment (Searle 2010, 8). I think then that the notion of collective commitment
(enthusiastic endorsement) is implicit in his notion of collective acceptance, as one point on the continuum. It is true, nonetheless, that he does not
develop the implications of differences further.

5. Human Rights
Regarding Hindriks criticism of Searles discussion of human rights, I think
there are two things going on. Hindriks (2011, 387) concludes that it is
flawed because it cannot adequately account for the existence of human
rights that are not recognized. I agree with Hindriks on the second count,
that Searle does not adequately account for the existence of human rights that
are not recognized. Searle does try give an adequate account, but like

1 Wherein

a physical barrier that cannot be crossed decays and yet is still treated as a
boundary that should not be crossed.

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Hindriks, I am not convinced by it. However, I do not think that this failure
signifies a fatal flaw in his overall account of human rights. Rather than try to
formulate metaphysical truths about the existence of human rights even in the
absence of their recognition, the analysis of social ontology requires that we
foreground the precariousness of any particular social ontology, and the status functions and the deontic powers which constitute it. Human rights, like
any other rights, are indeed deontic powers. They derive from the recognition
of a certain status function, so long as the status functions function, so to
speak, to authorize said powers. With regard to this, Searle makes an unexpected move, arguing that to understand human rights we must treat being
human as a status [function] (Searle 2010, 181). He goes on: if you qualify
as a human being, you are automatically guaranteed human rights (Searle
2010, 181). Unfortunately, in his attempt to account for unrecognized but
existing rights, he argues that when someone is denied his human rights he
is typically not denied his humanity (Searle 2010, 182), and therefore he still
has rights, though they are not recognized. But in such a case, I would argue,
it is exactly his humanity that is denied. No one ever denies a human being
her human rights. Rather, cockroaches, savages, welfare queens,
addicts, rats, criminals, traitors, running dogs, slaves, illegalsthese are the organismsnot really human organismsthat are
denied human rights. These epithets are in fact status functions, labels that in
this case have the function of relegating the so-named entity to the realm of
the sub- or non-human.
Searle actually offers a way to understand all this when he observes that,
regarding human rights, there is no preexisting institution that defines the
rights (Searle 2010, 182). Human rights are, in other words, wonderful
examples of Searles ad hoc cases, what he calls institutional facts that do
not seem to require an institution (Searle 2010, 19). For while all kinds of
people are trying to build global institutions that could guarantee the human
rights of all humans, as yet that institution does not exist. The institutions that
do exist are more local, constrained (albeit inter- or transnational) institutions, often literally issuing SFDs to the effect that this or that organism is in
fact a human and not just a cop killer, is in fact a human even though she is
gay, is in fact a human even though he is a political critic, is in fact a human
even though she is an immigrant, and so on, and thus should enjoy certain
deontic powers (human rights). But there is no global institution, which is to
say there is no global collective intentionality (recognition), that recognizes
the declared status function, which leaves the more proximal or local institutions that are, as they say, violating a certain subjects human rights to impose
their own status functions, of the sort previously mentioned. The violated
subject is in a very real sense simply not human and thus does not enjoy

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human rights in the particular social ontological situation in which she is situated. Status functions are always provisional and always embattled, and thus
might fail to carry the deontic powers we assume to be associated with them.
And these deontic powers are themselves subject to challenge and change
and truncation (She is a woman, but can she have a legal abortion? She is the
president, but can she order wire-taps or indefinitely detain without a hearing? He is a Black man, so can he really enjoy presidential power?). Status
functions depend on collective recognition, but who is this collective that
does the recognizing? In which social ontological situation is the status function recognizable and thus apt to carry deontic powers? We may be declaring
this person to be a human being (and not execrable scum)but our declaration might not be working, might not be effective, might only be relevant to
our situation, and not that one over there. In light of this, it may well be that
the only way to account for the existence of human rights that are not recognized is when a court at a later date finds in favor of the abused human and
against the abusive institution for having violated those rights. In any other
context, we certainly can say or declare that human rights exist even if they
are not recognizedbut I believe we would just be saying it. It is an enunciation that Searles framework should actually inhibit us from saying; or perhaps a failed SFD, that Searles framework should enable us to identify.

6. Conclusion
I hope, in the foregoing, to have constructively engaged with Frank Hindriks
thoughtful reading of Searles Making the Social World, and given some at
least minimally satisfactory responses to his criticisms of that book. In short,
I think it is important that we understand SFD in terms of their logical properties rather than their empirical ones; that the term function in status function
is useful insofar as it helps us see that labels (statuses) in human social reality
are never innocent or inert, that they always function to implicate the bearer
or the entity in a certain contextually specific way; that language is a particular form of symbolic action and that it is the latter that is truly fundamental
for human institutions, formal and not; that collective commitment is present
although not developed in Searles notion of collective acceptance; and that
Searles account of human rights, while possibly flawed, is nonetheless worth
pondering further in light of his innovative claim that human is a status
function.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References
Hindriks, F. 2011. Restructuring Searles Making the Social World. Philosophy of
the Social Sciences 43 (3): 373-89.
Searle, J. 1964. How to Derive Ought from Is. The Philosophical Review 73
(1): 43-48.
Searle, J. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. New York, NY: Free Press.
Searle, J. 2010. Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization. New
York: Oxford University Press.

Author Biography
Gregory J. Lobo is an associate professor in the Departamento de Lenguajes y
Estudios Socioculturales of the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia. His
research seeks to explicate specific instances of the nexus of language, culture, and
power, with a focus on Latin America and Colombia specifically. He has published
papers in journals such as International Journal of Cultural Studies, Cultural Studies,
Revista Iberoamericana, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, Revista de
Estudios Colombianos, and Revista de Estudios Sociales.

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