Talk:Objectification

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 January 2021 and 14 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nhasa040.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:46, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2021 and 12 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lucyspring2021, Nettie Natasha.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:32, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Origin
Does someone know the origin of this term? Two rather different concepts of "object" seem to be mixed up in its usage; I'd love to find out what was originally indicated, and by whom.

The simpler meaning seems to be "treating a living being as if it were an inanimate object"--particularly an object for which there is low regard, minimizing any sense of ethical responsibility. (Of course some people treat things better than they treat other people; with them, "objectification" might be a step upward!) The other, perhaps more subtle meaning seems to be "treating another person as a foil, a role-defined 'other' to whom we relate in terms of our agenda and desires," i.e. as the opposite of "subject". The latter definition has more of a psychological than an ethical emphasis. A person for whom we feel consuming passion may be someone we choose to treat rather well--at least as long as we have some hope of satisfaction. In the latter sense we might also say that newborns "objectify" their parents to some extent, and that good parents are happy to oblige (one hopes temporarily).

If the first meaning is the original one then objectification is always an ethical lapse--while if the second meaning is authentic, objectification is a facet of human life with inevitable risks and dangers, with the biggest risk of all being to deny how prevalent it is. Thus I'd really like to know whether one or the other definition (or both!) comes from some kind of revisionism. DSatz 19:10, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

It comes directly form Kant. In fact, it's Kant's, Lectures on Ethics, which is the basis for the concept of objectification, and it's derivative sexual objectification. Actually, objectification didn't mean treating a person as an object, it wasn't a normative act, but instead to place the same ethical value on a person as on matter. Objectification was a moral valuation. Of course this would eliminate the possibility of sexual objectification of say someone you love: it's just blatantly contradictory to simultaneously ascribe a great deal, and no, moral worth to a person. This is also one of the problems with the Kantian approach, and why it's all but universally abandoned for example. Moral valuation and worth can't be increasing why you're objectifying a person, but quite obviously this does happen as people do of course fall in love with someone they have been objectifying. The patron soliciting the prostitute can, of course, grow to love the prostitute. Any sort of underlying disjunct between objectifying and not objectifying just utterly collapses under any philosophical investigation. And, obviously, any sort of attempted continuum, or scale of objectification, renders the concept entirely useless. Then it would just be a valuation on how person A is judged for valuing and/or treating person B based against some moral calculus.

"treating a living being as if it were an inanimate object" - objectification does not nessicarily require inanimation. for instance you could treat a human as an animal which is clearly animated, and is definitly objectification. while you could treat a human as a rock, or a stirring bowl, there are infinitly more ways to treat them as animated objects. therefore i dont think that quote above is relevant to this query. objectification is not to elevate or demean, it is a natural process of human efficiency, if we could really treat all aquantiences as truley autonomous beings with no sense of using others as tools than we would not survive in this capitolist world. the elevation and demonation comes from different parties taking offense which relys too much on ego; treat objectificatino as it is: a survival tactic. Jamesym 06:55, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Jamesym, you need to define and justify your operative terms and concepts before presuming to deem Kant's notionings about objectification self-contradictory, useless, and that they collapse under 'any philosophical investigation'. Your 'philosophical investigation' is replete with grammatical and orthographical errors, non sequiturs, unwitting equivocations, and other conceptual and terminological misrelations - cf., your use of the terms 'love', 'matter', 'survival tactic', and your unregenerate material consequentialism. -- 108.18.198.61

Objective
What about the deciding on objectives. 87.194.35.230 05:54, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Omission
This article fails to account for the philosophical meaning of objectification, which carries no ethical or moral valences--objectification of labour in the production process, for example (especially as a general class under which alienation of labour falls as an historically-specific type). I objectify myself in producing a work of art, in the sense that a part of me becomes part of an object that isn't connected to me.

DionysosProteus 15:51, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Previously deleted "Objectivation is also the scientifical process of transforming something into an object of observation, carried on for example by disciplinary institutions or in human zoos. Michel Foucault showed how in disciplinary institutions such as the hospital or the prison the body was transformed into a subject of scientific knowledge, thus being objectified."

A brief search for foucault and discipline and punish came up with these:  and Both show there may be some validity to this deleted passage. But it would seem that the concept either originated in earlier work, or another's work, or the connection is just OR. Could use more research. My two coppers. Anarchangel (talk) 23:39, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Objectivation and objectification mean two different things but objectivation redirects here. Objectivation is about being objective; objectification is about turning something into a [solid] object. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucy-2011 (talk • contribs) 15:41, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Is anyone watching this?
Looking over how little attention this article gets (compared to it's Sexual counterpart) I'm quite amazed. So I'm just curious who if any have this on there wishlist.

I also want to try and turn this into a "start" but no idea where to start DerryAdama (talk) 01:02, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Yep. It's yet another example of how poorly Wikipedia is handled. You have one of the more out spoken critiques of the philosophical concept being used as a champion for said philosophical concept on the other page. There is a reason so many of us do not allow even our 100 and 200 level undergraduate students to use Wiki as a source any more. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.25.112.234 (talk) 17:41, 31 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The lack of traffic might have something to do with the lack of any images on this page. I mean, Sexual objectification at least has plenty of pics of hot babes to look at. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.33.29.104 (talk) 17:40, 18 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Do you perhaps mean pix of hot babez? Eric Pode lives (talk) 12:47, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Needs history section
This article needs a history section. When was the term first used, and by whom? In what order and contexts have different approaches been suggested? Etc. ✎ HannesP · talk 13:05, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Re.:Alan Soble's Criticism of Kant's Theory of Objectifiaction
Does Soble care that all practical ethics ultimately must presuppose some concept of personhood? He would also do well to consider that the private nature of subjectivity already demands that people other than oneself are, when (to use some quasi-Kantian terminology, intuited/sensed and thereafter put under concepts and cognized - i.e., understood), in a sense being objectified. Kant's metaphysics requires this to be the case.

In a way then, Soble is speaking past Kant - and certainly too, more liberal renderings of Kantian ethics. Soble seems to have a very different sense of the term 'object' and yet he neither acknowledges it nor defines it. And, anybody who denies the necessity of some concept of personhood and human dignity is ultimately, whether wittingly or otherwise, permitting some pretty bad stuff.

Does Soble merit mentioning here? Who put him here in the first place and why? -- With great skepticism of Mr. Soble's apparently very lazy thinking, 108.18.198.61 (the guy who earlier deleted Soble's entire section) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.18.198.61 (talk) 05:13, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Contradiction
'According to Martha Nussbaum, a person is objectified if one or more of the following properties are applied to them'

'Nussbaum argues that potentially not all forms of objectification are inherently negative acts and that objectification may not always be present when one of the seven properties is present.'

Which is it? Is it or is it not enough for one of the properties to be present for something to be objectification, according to her? If she has changed her mind on the subject, that should be stated. --178.249.169.67 (talk) 17:20, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Negative tone of section on transgender experiences of objectification
The final paragraph of section "Intersectionality and Transgender Experiences of Objectification" is rather odd. Its main thrust seems to be that transgender people experience objectification from both society and themselves, whichever gender they identify as. The paragraph is well-cited, but much of it seems irrelevant. For example:

''Transgender individuals may attempt to affirm their gender identity through illegal practices such as using silicone injections that eventually results in harmful health consequences. Furthermore, transgender individuals may seek gender affirmation through sex work, increasing the risk of sexually transmitted diseases.''

Ok...but transgender individuals also - and primarily - affirm their gender through harmless or medically accepted methods such as gendered fashion, make-up, hormone therapy, etc. Why make specific mention of illegal practices? And what kind of silicone injections are illegal? I don't have access to the cited sources, but I'm tempted to delete the sentences I've quoted. NorthPark420 (talk) 19:43, 12 April 2022 (UTC)