Jeffers’s Reply to Glasgow, Haslanger, and Spencer

Chike Jeffers argues in this chapter that social constructionism about race is a preferable position to non-biological essentialism about race (such as the kind defended by Quayshawn Spencer in Chapters 3 and 7) and anti-realism about race (such as the kind Joshua Glasgow defends in Chapters 4 and 8). He then argues that we should distinguish between two kinds of social constructionism: political constructionism (such as the kind defended by Sally Haslanger in Chapters 1 and 5) and cultural constructionism, which he defends. While he shows why it is understandable that political constructionism is sometimes taken to be the default position among social constructionists, he argues that political constructionism misses the significance of the cultural aspect of race in the present and fails to recognize the possibility of races existing past the end of racism.

Tracing the Sociopolitical Reality of Race

The concept of race has a troublesome history. It has been used to divide societies and subordinate groups in unjust ways. It has also been a source of pride and strength for the subordinate (as well as, unfortunately, for the dominant). Historically it has also carried assumptions of naturalness: races are natural kinds that exist independent of human thought and activity. In recent years, however, the naturalness of race has been challenged and replaced with the idea that race is socially constructed. This raises many important philosophical questions: How should one inquire into the concept of race when there is such broad controversy over what race is? What are the relevant phenomena to be considered? How should such an inquiry take into account the social stakes (e.g. the potential impact of maintaining or rejecting the concept of race)? Is it possible for concepts to evolve, or is conceptual replacement the only option? In Chapter 1, the author takes up these methodological questions and positions herself as a critical theorist considering what role the concept of race has in the sociopolitical domain. She argues that there is a meaningful political conception of race that is important in order to address the history of racial injustice. This is compatible with there being different conceptions of race that are valuable in other contexts and for different purposes (e.g., for medical research, cultural empowerment).

Glasgow’s Reply to Haslanger, Jeffers, and Spencer

In Chapter 4, Joshua Glasgow argued that race in the ordinary sense is defined in such a way that race cannot be a social construction and is not a biological reality. That chapter concluded with the claim that either race is not real, or if it is, it is real in a very basic way that is not captured by social or biological facts. In this chapter, Glasgow develops his view by responding to Haslanger, Jeffers, and Spencer. After first clearing up some misconceptions about racial anti-realism, Glasgow explains how his argument against constructionism applies to Haslanger’s and Jeffers’s specific constructionist theories. He then explores how Spencer’s view is exposed to a mismatch objection and further argues that it faces additional problems of accounting for some central kinds of communication. This chapter also includes an Appendix that explores how a wide methodological ground is shared among the theories presented in this book.

Haslanger’s Reply to Glasgow, Jeffers, and Spencer

The concept of race has a troublesome history. It has been used to divide societies and subordinate groups in unjust ways. It has also been a source of pride and strength for the subordinate (as well as, unfortunately, for the dominant). Historically it has also carried assumptions of naturalness: races are natural kinds that exist independent of human thought and activity. In recent years, however, the naturalness of race has been challenged and replaced with the idea that race is socially constructed. This raises many important philosophical questions: How should one inquire into the concept of race when there is such broad controversy over what race is? What are the relevant phenomena to be considered? How should this inquiry take into account the social stakes, e.g. the potential impact of maintaining or rejecting the concept of race? Is it possible for concepts to evolve, or is conceptual replacement the only option? In Chapter 1, the author took up these methodological questions and positioned herself as a critical theorist considering what role the concept of race has in the social-political domain. Here she argues that there is a meaningful political conception of race that is important in order to address the history of racial injustice. This is compatible with there being different conceptions of race that are valuable in other contexts and for different purposes, e.g. for medical research, cultural empowerment. She argues that, although on this conception race is socially constructed, the resulting notion has a claim to being “our” concept of race.

Is Race an Illusion or a (Very) Basic Reality?

Joshua Glasgow argues in this chapter that ‘race’ in the ordinary sense is defined such that races are supposed to be large groups of humans organized according to certain visible traits, like skin color. Biology cannot validate the existence of such groups, even if it can identify other human populations. So Glasgow argues that race is not biologically real. And because the relevant traits do not change when social facts change, race is not a social construction. This suggests that race is not socially real, either. Consequently, it seems that race is not real. However, Glasgow also considers another possibility: that race is real, neither biologically nor socially, but in a more basic sense. According to this view, races are real by virtue of facts that find no home in any of the sciences, biological or social. Their only significance is that which people choose to give them. In the course of making his arguments, Glasgow explores how we should identify the meanings of our terms and how to proceed when scientific and ordinary meanings diverge. He concludes by leaving it open whether race is simply not real, or whether it is real in that basic sense.

How to Be a Biological Racial Realist

Quayshawn Spencer shows that there is a widely used race talk in American English where race is a biological division and biologically real. That race talk is the Office of Management and Budget’s since 1997. Spencer shows that what race is, in this race talk, is just a set of five biological populations in the human species. After defending this qualified biological racial realism, Spencer shows how his qualified biological racial realism is helpful in answering the question of whether any folk racial scheme has epistemic value in medical genetics.

Spencer’s Reply to Glasgow, Haslanger, and Jeffers

Quayshawn Spencer clarifies that his defense of biological racial realism in Chapter 3—which is called “OMB race theory”—is meant to be a part of a larger radically pluralist theory about the nature and reality of race in American English. Next, Spencer defends OMB race theory against the South Asian mismatch objection from Glasgow and Jeffers. Third, Spencer raises an empirical adequacy objection against Glasgow’s, Haslanger’s, and Jeffers’s race theories insofar as they are unable to predict how race and races are talked about in multiple national discussions, such as whether Rachel Dolezal is wrong to claim a Black racial identity and whether Harvard University has been unlawfully discriminating against Asian applicants in undergraduate admissions.

Introduction

Historically, efforts to make sense of human diversity led to classifying humans by where they live, by culture or custom (including language or religion), by family or ancestry, by appearance, by personality type or temperament, by physical and intellectual capacities, and, of course, by race. But what, if anything, is distinctive of ...

Cultural Constructionism

Chike Jeffers argues in this chapter that social constructionism about race is a preferable position to non-biological essentialism about race (such as the kind defended by Quayshawn Spencer in Chapters 3 and 7) and anti-realism about race (such as the kind Joshua Glasgow defends in Chapters 4 and 8). He then argues that one should distinguish between two kinds of social constructionism: political constructionism (such as the kind defended by Sally Haslanger in Chapters 1 and 5) and cultural constructionism, which he defends. While he shows why it is understandable that political constructionism is sometimes taken to be the default position among social constructionists, he argues that political constructionism misses the significance of the cultural aspect of race in the present and fails to recognize the possibility of races existing past the end of racism.