Abstract
In Kaplan and Winther’s recent article (Biol Theory. doi:10.1007/s13752-012-0048-0, 2012) they argue for three bold theses: first, that “it is illegitimate to read any ontology about ‘race’ off of biological theory or data”; second, that “using biological theory to ground race is a pernicious reification”; and, third, that “race is fundamentally a social rather than a biological category.” While Kaplan and Winther’s theses are thoughtful, I show that the arguments that their theses rest on are unconvincing. In order to be constructive, I go on to show exactly how one can use biological theory and data to legitimately infer an ontological view of race, to infer a biological view of race that is not a reification, and to argue that race is both socially constructed and biologically real.
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Notes
It should be noted that Mills does not equate these tenets with biological racial realism; rather he equates them with biological racial realism “in the stronger, more interesting sense” (Mills 1998, p. 46). What Mills (pp. 45–46) calls “the most minimal sense” of biological racial realism is merely the claim that “it is objectively the case—independent of human belief—that there are natural human races.”
According to KW, genetic diversity is “a measure of how heterogenous a system is [genetically]” and is exemplified by counting the number of different alleles a population has at a particular locus (p. 404); In contrast, genetic differentiation is “a measure of how different two things are [genetically],” and is exemplified by genetic distance calculations, such as Fst genetic distance (p. 404). Finally, genetic heterozygosity is “a measure of the fraction of heterozygotes (as opposed to homozygotes) in a population,” and is exemplified by Wright’s Fst (p. 405).
By a “reasonable” set of auxiliary assumptions or premises, I do not just mean a set of assumptions that are arguably true; I also mean that the conjunction of all of the assumptions in the set is logically consistent and that no assumption in the set commits its associated argument to circular reasoning. So, for example, neither ‘P, ~P, so Q’; ‘P & ~P, so Q’; nor ‘P, so P’ would be arguments with “reasonable” premises. By a “justified” abduction or induction I just mean an abduction or induction that coheres to the currently accepted standards in probability theory and statistics of good abductive or inductive reasoning, respectively (e.g., having a representative sample, controlling for confounding, reporting standard error, etc.).
Specifically, in order to infer the existence of universal gravity, Newton needed all three of his laws of motion, proposition 40 of Book 1 of Euclid’s Elements, propositions 12 and 13 of Book 2 of Euclid’s Elements, definitions 1–2 and 4–8 in his Principia, the binomial theorem, four assumptions concerning lunar orbital motion, one assumption about earth’s circumference, one assumption about terrestrial gravity, and four rules of inductive reasoning (Spencer 2009, pp. 72–85).
Some notable examples of race theorists besides Glasgow who use biological theory or data together with a reasonable set of auxiliary assumptions to infer an ontological view about race are Andreasen (2005), Appiah (1996), Blum (2002), Haslanger (2008), and Zack (2002). Note that Andreasen’s earlier work (e.g., 1998) did not have the right semantic assumptions to make her inference to biological racial realism legitimate, at least not in the philosophical race debate. So I agree with KW’s (p. 411) criticism of Andreasen’s earlier work that “a population’s being a clade [does not] make that population into a race.”
If I am right about the logical relationship between (6) and (7), then not only is (6)–(14) an unconvincing argument, its premises are not even reasonable (see footnote 3).
See, e.g., Kitcher (1999).
Andreasen (2005, p. 102) says that her cladistic theory of race can be used to “support” a purely referential ordinary meaning of race, but she stops short of committing herself to a purely referential ordinary meaning of race.
Although I suspect that (6) is true and (7) is false, it could be the case that both (6) and (7) are false. In other words, one could reject that if race is real, then biological realism, constructivism, relativism, or subjectivism are true. For example, race could be a congenital psychological kind that supervenes on biological reality, but does not reduce to a biological kind. In other words, race could be a classification of humans that humans fall into in virtue of possessing properties or relations that humans recognize simply because of the way their minds were constructed at birth. Examples of congenital psychological kinds are the various colors that (most) humans recognize at birth. This is not to say that race is a congenital psychological kind, but just that congenital psychological racial realism is another ontological possibility.
The Danish botanist Wilhelm Johannsen coined the term “gene” in 1909.
Keep in mind that in (O6)–(O11), I am only talking about race as understood among contemporary, ordinary Americans. For evidence of (O6) and (O7), see Rosenberg et al. (2002, 2005). For evidence of (O9) and (O10), see Burchard et al. (2003) and Tang et al. (2005), respectively. For evidence of (O11), see Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994). I will assume that (O8) is obvious.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Joshua Glasgow, Manuel Vargas, and Rasmus Winther for helpful discussions that led to the creation and revision of this article. I would also like to thank the Bay Area Philosophy of Race (BAPR) reading group for organizing the talk by Rasmus Winther that generated the idea to write this paper. This research was funded by a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, and a University of San Francisco Fellowship Matching Stipend.
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Spencer, Q. Biological Theory and the Metaphysics of Race: A Reply to Kaplan and Winther. Biol Theory 8, 114–120 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-013-0095-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-013-0095-1