On Stalking: Objectification and Self-Concealment

This talk sets out to answer two questions: 1. What is the bare wrong of stalking? By bare wrong I mean the wrongness of stalking as such rather than the wrongs that often accompany it such as assault or intimidation. And 2. Why or what about stalking makes it hard to see it for what it is? This talk argues that the bare wrong of stalking is objectification. The stalker who merely watches their victim, the stalker who contacts their victim, the stalker who intimidates and threatens their victim, and the stalker who escalates to violence all objectify their victim. Recognizing the bare wrong as objectification maintains the conceptual unity of stalking and also makes sense of why stalking escalates, often to violence and sometimes murder.

My talk also explains an important but underexamined feature of stalking: its tendency to be self-concealing. By this I mean that stalking can obscure its own wrongness from the victim and from third parties even when the stalker's conduct occurs openly.

Maggie O'Brien
https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/mjobrien/
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
York University

About the Speaker:

I research and teach in feminist, legal, and political philosophy. I am particularly interested in the questions that come up at the intersection of these areas. My current work is on standing — both legal standing and moral and political standing. Standing (to a first approximation) means the right to perform certain sorts of speech-acts. I am developing a feminist case for a sceptical view about the value of standing norms according to which they are pernicious, especially to women and other marginalized groups.

I am the recipient of a SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2026-2028) for my project Standing, Politics, and Disagreement. Before starting at York, I taught at the University of Edinburgh in both the Law School and Philosophy Department. I received my PhD in philosophy from McMaster University in 2016 and completed a Masters in Studies in Law from the University of Toronto in 2017.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This is a talk with audience Q&A presented by the University of Toronto's Centre for Ethics that is free to attend and open to the public. Free refreshments will be provided at the event. The talk will also be streamed online with live chat here [to be posted].

About the Centre for Ethics (http://ethics.utoronto.ca):

The Centre for Ethics is an interdisciplinary centre aimed at advancing research and teaching in the field of ethics, broadly defined. The Centre seeks to bring together the theoretical and practical knowledge of diverse scholars, students, public servants and social leaders in order to increase understanding of the ethical dimensions of individual, social, and political life.

In pursuit of its interdisciplinary mission, the Centre fosters lines of inquiry such as (1) foundations of ethics, which encompasses the history of ethics and core concepts in the philosophical study of ethics; (2) ethics in action, which relates theory to practice in key domains of social life, including bioethics, business ethics, and ethics in the public sphere; and (3) ethics in translation, which draws upon the rich multiculturalism of the City of Toronto and addresses the ethics of multicultural societies, ethical discourse across religious and cultural boundaries, and the ethics of international society.

The Ethics of A.I. Lab at the Centre For Ethics recently appeared on a list of 10 organizations leading the way in ethical A.I.: https://ocean.sagepub.com/blog/10-organizations-leading-the-way-in-ethical-ai