acts , something which she claims is impossible. The argument goes as follows; The
performance of an illocutionary act requires an individual to exercise a normative
power, “powers to create or rescind practical requirements at will” (Watson, 2009
pp.155, as cited in McDonald, 2020, pp. 13-14). This means that the unintentional
exercise of normative powers would accompany the performance of an unintentional
illocutionary act. However, McDonald (2020, pp. 13) claims that “Normative powers
cannot be exercised unintentionally”. Therefore, it is impossible for an individual to
perform an unintended illocutionary act, and so any theory which suggests otherwise
should be questioned.
To perform a normative power is to create an obligation to fulfil. An example of
this can be seen in making a promise. When an individual makes the illocutionary act
of promising they enter a commitment to the truth of whatever they are promising
about. It is this commitment, to tell the truth, which is the normative power resulting
from the illocutionary act of promising. This shows that “ To performance an
illocutionary act is also to exercise a normative power ” (McDonald, 2020, pp. 13).
If an individual unintentionally performs an illocutionary act, they can be said to have
exercised a normative power unintentionally. For example, suppose an individual has
‘musical powers’ and can exercise such powers in a variety of ways to play different
pieces on the piano. They choose to play song x and yet the hearer interprets them as
playing song y. In this scenario (McDonald, 2020, pp. 16) despite the individual
intending to perform x with its illocutionary acts and normative powers attached, they
have instead performed a different illocutionary act, playing y, as well as exercised the
normative powers attached to it. I hope at this point it is becoming clear how it is
nonsensical for an individual to be able to perform unintentional illocutionary acts and
exercise different normative powers. This is exactly what McDonald (2020) is trying
to show. She stresses that normative powers cannot be exercised unintentionally as the
performance of normative powers must be “an act of will ” (McDonald, 2020, pp.17)
and driven by the speaker’s intention. The constitutional theory of uptake suggests that
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