Race: Biological reality or social construct?

Philosophy of Science 67 (3):666 (2000)
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Abstract

Race was once thought to be a real biological kind. Today the dominant view is that objective biological races don't exist. I challenge the trend to reject the biological reality of race by arguing that cladism (a school of classification that individuates taxa by appeal to common ancestry) provides a new way to define race biologically. I also reconcile the proposed biological conception with constructivist theories about race. Most constructivists assume that biological realism and social constructivism are incompatible views about race; I argue that the two conceptions can be compatible

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Citations of this work

What good are our intuitions: Philosophical analysis and social kinds.Sally Haslanger - 2006 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 80 (1):89-118.
Against Arguments from Reference.Ron Mallon, Edouard Machery, Shaun Nichols & Stephen Stich - 2009 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (2):332 - 356.
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Racism and Bioethics: The Myth of Color Blindness.Clarence H. Braddock - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (2):28-32.

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References found in this work

A matter of individuality.David L. Hull - 1978 - Philosophy of Science 45 (3):335-360.
Philosophy of Biology.Elliott Sober & Pénel Jean-Dominique - 1995 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 185 (3):382-383.
Phylogenetic Systematics.Willi Hennig, D. Dwight Davis & Rainer Zangerl - 1980 - Philosophy of Science 47 (3):499-502.
A new perspective on the race debate.Robin O. Andreasen - 1998 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (2):199-225.

View all 8 references / Add more references