1 INTRODUCTION

The concept of rape has evolved significantly over the past few decades both in law and common usage.^{1 1} The paper does not aim to provide a new or modified understanding of the concept of rape, but rather seeks to raise attention to the problems that distorted concepts can bring and to suggest philosophical strategies to remedy these problems. On the concept of rape in particular, see Hänel (2018a).
But, despite decades of work to dispel rape myths, they persist and interfere with the proper application of the concept both in social and legal interactions. For example, jurors who accept rape myths are more likely to find the defendant not guilty in rape case trials, and police officers are more likely to stop investigations into rape cases where they accept rape myths as well. In 2013, the BPP School of Health and Professional Development issued an investigation into whether jurors on rape cases are influenced by rape myths, and more than half of the studies conducted fully supported the hypothesis that juror judgments are affected by rape myths (Burrowes 2013, 3–4). Hence, jurors likely judge a case on the basis of prior schemas instead of evidence or testimony; schemas such as rape myths.^{2 2} See also Quilter (2011) for an insightful analysis of rape myths as schemas that have problematic effects on jury decisions and the law in general.
Similar results were found with respect to police officers. Research conducted by Amy Dellinger Page (2011) found that 22.7% of police officers agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “Any victim can resist a rapist if he or she really wants to.” Police officers who accept this myth are unlikely to proceed with the investigation or process rape charges. Furthermore, Schwartz (2010) found that many police officers thought a high percentage of rape reports are false, leading them to not investigate at all. 27.3% of officers reported that their gut estimate is that between 0% and 10% of rape reports were false; a similar number of police officers, 28.8%, said that up to 50% of rape reports are false, and some police officers even believed 95%–100% of reports to be false.^{3 3} According to the FBI (1997), the actual number of unfounded reports is said to be 8%. A report is unfounded if it is “determined through investigation to be false or baseless.” (Lonsway et al. 2009). But, according to other research, “many law enforcement officers are skipping over the ‘determined through investigation’ part and basing their official statements that no crime occurred on either a gut feeling that the victim is lying of the (probably accurate) sense that prosecution will be futile.” (Harding 2015, 63) More accurate studies find that 2%-8% of rape reports are actually unfounded. (Lisak et al. 2010) Furthermore, two out of three cases of sexual assault go unreported to police. (RAINN 2016).
In other words, many officers are either committed to the view that rape victims must have on some subconscious level agreed with being raped because otherwise they could have resisted and succeeded or that reports of rape are outright false to begin with. Amy Dellinger Page and Schwartz's studies are in line with a 2010 investigation of FBI data in the Baltimore Sun that found that more than 30% of investigated cases over the last 40 years were deemed unfounded and 40% of emergency calls about rape in Baltimore were not investigated at all (Fenton 2010; Harding 2015). And even when an investigation takes place, there is still only a 40% chance that the accused rapist is actually convicted.^{4 4} According to RAINN (2016), out of every 1000 rapes, 994 perpetrators will not go to jail or prison. About 310 out of every 1000 cases of rape are reported to police. About 57 of those reported lead to arrest; 11 cases get referred to prosecutors and 7 cases will lead to a felony conviction. Out of the 1000 rapes of which 310 are reported, only 6 rapists will be incarcerated.

The law, both in the courtroom and at the hands of police officers, is composed from the interaction between legal definitions and the practical interpretations of those definitions by individuals who work in the criminal justice system. Thus, biases, false conceptions, and distorted background schemas (like rape myths) can sneak into legal outcomes. Legal outcomes are at least partly determined by the interpretation of individuals. Clearly, this is a problem for cases of rape. And, considering the statistics of the prevalence of rape and the devastating high number of acquittals, it is a seriously harmful problem that needs urgent attention.

In this paper, I use the example of rape myths to argue that certain real-life phenomena compel us to adjust our philosophical methods such that we explicitly endorse feminist commitments and strive for diverse democratic practices in our philosophical thinking. First, I consider three examples that show how rape myths and other problematic background schemas can distort our dominant working understanding of rape. All three examples are cases of grave and manifold injustices to the victims. I suggest that a revisionary project of conceptual amelioration can help counter injustices like these. In a second step, I argue that problematic schemas not only distort our working understanding or the accurate application of an existing concept, but can furthermore interfere with our philosophical analyses—even in cases of amelioration. As a solution, taking clues from theories of epistemologies of ignorance, I propose a more diverse and democratic method for engaging in conceptual amelioration. I proceed as follows: first, I illustrate how rape myths distort our dominant working understanding of rape with the help of Jenkins’ argument that rape myths constitute hermeneutical injustices (Section 2); next, I introduce three examples that illustrate how our dominant working understanding can be distorted by rape myths and that this has deeply problematic consequences for victims of rape (Section 3); third, I consider conceptual amelioration as a fruitful way of countering these problematic cases (Section 4); finally, I argue that rape myths also raise important questions for our philosophical analyses in general, and I propose specific democratic practices for our philosophical endeavor of conceptual amelioration (Section 5).

I should note further, that women are not the only victims of rape; rather, transgender persons, persons who live outside the binary gender categories, and persons who live outside the dominant gender norms are also targeted by sexual violence. The reason why I focus on rape myths that concern women is that more research is available for these myths and their impact on violence against women. It should be our future task to provide research and explication also for rape myths that concern transgender persons, persons who live outside the binary gender categories, and persons who live outside the dominant gender norms. At this particular moment, I feel not qualified enough to say anything specific about how rape myths affect other social groups than women; yet, I am convinced that most of what I say in the following can also be applied to the relation between rape myths and sexual violence against transgender persons, persons who live outside the binary gender categories, and persons who live outside the dominant gender norms.

中文翻译：

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概念改进的问题：强奸神话的问题

1 简介

在过去的几十年里，强奸的概念在法律和常用用法上都发生了重大变化。^{1 1} 本文的目的不是提供对强奸概念的新的或修正的理解，而是试图引起人们对扭曲概念可能带来的问题的关注，并提出解决这些问题的哲学策略。特别是关于强奸的概念，请参见 Hänel ( 2018a )。
但是，尽管为消除强奸神话进行了数十年的工作，但它们仍然存在并干扰了该概念在社会和法律互动中的正确应用。例如，接受强奸神话的陪审员更有可能在强奸案件审判中认定被告无罪，而警察也更有可能停止调查他们也接受强奸神话的强奸案件。2013 年，BPP 健康与职业发展学院发布了一项关于强奸案件陪审员是否受强奸神话影响的调查，超过一半的研究完全支持陪审员判断受强奸神话影响的假设（Burrowes 2013， 3-4）。因此，陪审员可能会根据先前的模式而不是证据或证词来判断案件；诸如强奸神话之类的图式。^{2 2} 另见 Quilter ( 2011 ) 对强奸神话作为对陪审团决定和一般法律产生问题影响的模式的深刻分析。
在警察身上也发现了类似的结果。Amy Dellinger Page ( 2011 ) 进行的研究发现，22.7% 的警官同意或强烈同意“任何受害者如果真的愿意，都可以抵抗强奸犯”的说法。接受这个神话的警察不太可能继续调查或处理强奸指控。此外，Schwartz（2010 年）发现，许多警察认为强奸报告的高比例是虚假的，导致他们根本不进行调查。27.3% 的官员报告说，他们的直觉估计是 0% 到 10% 的强奸报告是虚假的；类似数量的警察（28.8%）表示，高达 50% 的强奸报告是虚假的，一些警察甚至认为 95%–100% 的报告是虚假的。^{3 3} 根据联邦调查局（ 1997 年）的数据，据称没有根据的报告的实际数量为 8%。如果报告“通过调查确定为虚假或毫无根据”，则该报告是没有根据的。（Lonsway 等人， 2009 年）。但是，根据其他研究，“许多执法人员正在跳过‘通过调查确定’部分，并将他们关于没有犯罪发生的官方声明建立在受害者在说谎的直觉上（可能是准确的）认为起诉将是徒劳的。” (Harding 2015 , 63) 更准确的研究发现，2%-8% 的强奸报告实际上是没有根据的。（Lisak 等人， 2010) 此外，三分之二的性侵犯案件未向警方报案。（雨2016 年）。
换句话说，许多官员要么坚持认为强奸受害者必须在某种潜意识层面同意被强奸，否则他们本可以抵抗并成功，要么认为强奸报告一开始就是完全错误的。Amy Dellinger Page 和 Schwartz 的研究与 2010 年巴尔的摩太阳报对 FBI 数据的调查一致，该调查发现过去 40 年中超过 30% 的调查案件被认为是没有根据的，巴尔的摩 40% 的关于强奸的紧急呼叫没有完全调查（Fenton 2010；Harding 2015）。即使进行了调查，被指控的强奸犯实际上被定罪的可能性仍然只有 40%。^{4 4} 根据 RAINN（ 2016 年），在每 1000 起强奸案中，有 994 名施暴者不会入狱或入狱。每 1000 起强奸案中约有 310 起向警方报案。据报道，其中约有 57 人被捕；11 起案件被提交给检察官，7 起案件将被定罪。在报告的 310 起 1000 起强奸案中，只有 6 名强奸犯将被监禁。

无论是在法庭上还是在警察手中，法律都是由法律定义与在刑事司法系统中工作的个人对这些定义的实际解释之间的相互作用组成的。因此，偏见、错误概念和扭曲的背景图式（如强奸神话）可能会潜入法律结果。法律结果至少部分取决于个人的解释。显然，这是强奸案的一个问题。而且，考虑到强奸发生率的统计数据和毁灭性的大量无罪释放，这是一个需要紧急关注的严重危害问题。

在本文中，我以强奸神话的例子来论证某些现实生活中的现象迫使我们调整我们的哲学方法，以便我们明确支持女权主义承诺，并在我们的哲学思维中争取多样化的民主实践。首先，我考虑三个例子，说明强奸神话和其他有问题的背景图式如何扭曲我们对强奸的主要工作理解。这三个例子都是对受害者的严重和多方面不公正的案例。我建议对概念进行改进的修正项目可以帮助对抗此类不公正现象。第二步，我认为有问题的图式不仅会扭曲我们的工作理解或对现有概念的准确应用，而且还会干扰我们的哲学分析——即使在改进的情况下也是如此。作为解决方案，从无知认识论的理论中汲取线索，我提出了一种更加多样化和民主的方法来进行概念改进。我继续如下：首先，借助詹金斯关于强奸神话构成诠释学不公正的论点（第 2 节），我说明强奸神话如何扭曲了我们对强奸的主要工作理解；接下来，我将介绍三个例子，说明我们的主要工作理解如何被强奸神话扭曲，这对强奸受害者造成了严重的问题后果（第 3 节）；第三，我认为概念改进是应对这些问题案例的有效方式（第 4 节）；最后，我认为强奸神话也为我们的一般哲学分析提出了重要问题，

我应该进一步指出，女性并不是唯一的强奸受害者；相反，变性人、生活在二元性别类别之外的人以及生活在主流性别规范之外的人也成为性暴力的目标。我之所以关注与女性有关的强奸神话，是因为有更多的研究可用于这些神话及其对暴力侵害女性行为的影响。我们未来的任务应该是研究和解释涉及跨性别者、生活在二元性别类别之外的人以及生活在主流性别规范之外的人的强奸神话。在这个特殊的时刻，我觉得没有资格具体说明强奸神话如何影响除女性以外的其他社会群体；然而，