基本的种族现实主义、社会建构主义和普通的种族概念

IF 1.1 3区 哲学 Q3 ETHICS
Aaron M. Griffith
{"title":"基本的种族现实主义、社会建构主义和普通的种族概念","authors":"Aaron M. Griffith","doi":"10.1111/josp.12470","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Joshua Glasgow and Jonathan M. Woodward (<span>2015</span>) have proposed a new account of the metaphysics of race, which they call “basic racial realism.” According to the view, races are kinds whose members are united by sharing similarities, for example, visible traits like skin color, that are not directly relevant to science. They argue that basic racial realism has certain dialectical advantages over the other parties to the debate over race, viz. racial antirealism, biological racial realism, and racial social constructionism.</p><p>Glasgow and Woodward should be commended for introducing basic racial realism to the debate over the reality of race. It offers a novel account of race that promises to track the ordinary concept of race without undermining the social and political significance of race. For all those benefits, however, basic racial realism faces certain troubles. I argue, first, that basic racial realism is not as consistent with the ordinary concept of race as Glasgow and Woodward make it out to be. Second, I argue that basic racial realism does not enjoy the dialectical advantages over social constructionism that they suggest it does. In the third section, I defend social constructionism about race against their charge that it violates the ordinary concept of race. I conclude with general reflections about the comparative surprises that basic racial realism and constructionism give us regarding race.</p><p>The three familiar positions in the debate are racial antirealism, biological racial realism, and racial social constructionism. Basic racial realism says that race is real (pace the antirealist) but is neither a natural kind nor a social kind (pace the biological realist and the social constructionist, respectively). On Glasgow and Woodward's view race is a “basic kind,” that is, a kind whose members are united merely by sharing a similarity, but a similarity that is not directly relevant to science (<span>2015</span>, p. 451). (Basic kinds as such, they claim, lack causal powers and so their essential properties sometimes fail to overlap with properties that are useful to science.) Basic kinds are not gerrymandered or arbitrary sets, then, but objective, mind-independent kinds that do not rise to the scientific importance of natural or social kinds. Races are basic kinds in that they are “groups of people who are distinguished from other groups by having certain visible features (like skin color) to a significantly disproportionate degree” (<span>2015</span>, p. 452).<sup>1</sup></p><p>According to Glasgow and Woodward, familiar parties to the race debate share a commitment to “elitism” about kinds. Such elitism has it that only kinds that are directly relevant to science, whether natural or social, are real. They find the elitist assumption implausible because basic kinds seem to qualify as real on a plausible conception of reality—objective and mind-independent similarity—without being the direct objects of scientific inquiry. Rejecting elitism undercuts the antirealist's argument that race is not real insofar as it is neither a natural nor social kind. For basic kind realism maintains that kinds need not be natural or social to be real.</p><p>Biological racial realism takes races to be suitably isolated breeding populations. Glasgow and Woodward note that a well-known concern for such a view is that the groups counted as races depart substantially from the groups we ordinarily count as races. For example, the Amish count as a distinct race on some versions of biological racial realism, though not for ordinary users of the concept of race.<sup>2</sup> In this way, there is a “mismatch” between our ordinary concept of race and the populations identified by the biological realist. Glasgow and Woodward argue that the source of this problem is the realist's attempt to identify races with biological or natural kinds. The mismatch problem can be altogether avoided if races are simply basic kinds distinguished by the visible traits the ordinary concept of race picks out.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Constructionists about race, on the other hand, hold that races are social kinds, that is, kinds unified by social factors such as classificatory practices. Glasgow and Woodward claim that the ordinary concept of race tells against thinking of race as a social kind. There are possible cases in which, intuitively, races still exist, yet the social factors that determine race (by the lights of the social constructionist) are absent (<span>2015</span>, p. 456). For instance, if classifying people as “white” or “black” or “Asian” is what determines the existence of those races, then in a situation where everyone is collectively struck with racial amnesia for an hour, races cease to exist. But intuitively, these races still exist even if their members are not classified as members of those races. Like biological racial realism, the constructionist view of race departs from our ordinary concept of race. To the extent that it identifies races with whatever kinds our ordinary concept of race picks out (so long as the mind-independent world can satisfy the demands our concept of race puts on it), basic racial realism's concept of race will never depart from the ordinary concept of race.</p><p>Constructionism about race is, moreover, supposed to have an advantage over other views of race because it is especially suited for explaining the social and political significance of race. Glasgow and Woodward argue that basic racial realism does just as well as social constructionism on this score. Even though basic racial realism denies that race is social itself, the view can still “license talk about the social significance and impact of race, and about social identities that are built upon race” (<span>2015</span>, p. 457). Basic racial realism separates the social practices involving race from race itself. In this respect, constructionism has no theoretical or explanatory advantage over basic racial realism. Since the latter identifies races with basic kinds, it is not committed to the more extravagant racial ontology of social kinds that the former is. In light of the weaknesses of its competitors and the strengths of basic racial realism, Glasgow and Woodward conclude that basic racial realism ought to be considered not only a fourth competitor in the debate about race but also the most promising of the pack.</p><p>If this constructionist response is successful, then it undermines the claim that social constructionism about race runs afoul of our ordinary concept of race. Nevertheless, one thing Glasgow and Woodward's paper helpfully reveals is that every metaphysics of race gives ordinary users of the concept a surprise. For their money, basic racial realism gives the smallest surprise, and one that does not force us to abandon the ordinary concept of race. They say that “[b]asic racial realism's surprise is akin to learning that you have a bunch of cousins you did not know about” (<span>2015</span>, p. 461). Of course, it is consistent with concept of cousins to find out that you have a bunch more than you thought you did. But as I argued above, Glasgow and Woodward do not give much of an argument for the claim that finding out that you belong to a bunch more races than you thought you did is consistent with the ordinary concept of race. “Constructionism's surprise,” they assert, “is akin to learning that your cousin can go from being your cousin to not being your cousin if we just forget that she's your cousin and become re-related to you again if we remember” (<span>2015</span>, p. 461). The analogy with cousins is suggestive, but overstates the case against constructionism. It may well be that thinking your cousin can go from being your cousin to not if you forget about them violates the concept of cousin. But not every version of constructionism makes the analogous claim about race. The racial amnesia thought experiment only targets constructionist views on which race is entirely determined by our racial classificatory practices.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Glasgow recognizes this (<span>2019</span>, p. 131) but argues that for any social factor the constructionist identified as grounding race, there will be situations in which that factor comes apart from facts about visible appearances, which he believes is at the core of the ordinary concept of race. Glasgow is certainly right that any social factor can come apart from distributions of visible traits. But it's important to recognize that the scenarios that Glasgow and Woodward imagine involve radical change to our social world, for example, re-structuring social arrangements, ending certain social practices, beginning others, and fundamentally altering the social meanings of human bodies (also see Glasgow <span>2009</span> and <span>2019</span>, p. 133). For once we acknowledge the radical social change that these thought experiments involve, the respective surprises of basic racial realism and constructionism look somewhat different than Glasgow and Woodward suggest. Basic racial realism gives us this surprise: you discover that you <i>actually</i> belong to many more races than you thought, even ones you have never conceived of and some races you thought existed (e.g., Latinx and Arab) do not actually exist. Constructionism (of certain stripes) gives us this surprise: you discover that in some remote possible situation involving radical change in our social world that you are not of the race that you believe yourself to be in the actual world. Put differently, basic racial realism surprises us about what falls in the extension of our race talk; constructionism surprises us about the nature of the very same groups ordinary folks identify as races.</p><p>Glasgow and Woodward are correct that ordinary people might find it shocking to think races would disappear with social change. But the constructionist can interpret this shock as a response to the constructionist conception of race, to the constructionist's view of what unifies races. We need not see this shock as indicating that constructionist's have changed the subject or are using an entirely different concept. What I want to emphasize here is that basic racial realism also gives us quite a surprise. And if the arguments given above are correct, then it is doubtful that the surprise of basic racial realism is consistent with the ordinary concept of race.</p><p>In sum, the dialectical advantages that basic racial realism is supposed to have are less clear than Glasgow and Woodward suppose. Moreover, the constructionist conception of race may have a better claim to consistency with the ordinary concept of race than they acknowledge. Glasgow and Woodward deserve credit for expanding the scope of these debates, but I do not think the familiar positions in the debate should fear the newcomer.</p>","PeriodicalId":46756,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Social Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/josp.12470","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Basic racial realism, social constructionism, and the ordinary concept of race\",\"authors\":\"Aaron M. Griffith\",\"doi\":\"10.1111/josp.12470\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<p>Joshua Glasgow and Jonathan M. Woodward (<span>2015</span>) have proposed a new account of the metaphysics of race, which they call “basic racial realism.” According to the view, races are kinds whose members are united by sharing similarities, for example, visible traits like skin color, that are not directly relevant to science. They argue that basic racial realism has certain dialectical advantages over the other parties to the debate over race, viz. racial antirealism, biological racial realism, and racial social constructionism.</p><p>Glasgow and Woodward should be commended for introducing basic racial realism to the debate over the reality of race. It offers a novel account of race that promises to track the ordinary concept of race without undermining the social and political significance of race. For all those benefits, however, basic racial realism faces certain troubles. I argue, first, that basic racial realism is not as consistent with the ordinary concept of race as Glasgow and Woodward make it out to be. Second, I argue that basic racial realism does not enjoy the dialectical advantages over social constructionism that they suggest it does. In the third section, I defend social constructionism about race against their charge that it violates the ordinary concept of race. I conclude with general reflections about the comparative surprises that basic racial realism and constructionism give us regarding race.</p><p>The three familiar positions in the debate are racial antirealism, biological racial realism, and racial social constructionism. Basic racial realism says that race is real (pace the antirealist) but is neither a natural kind nor a social kind (pace the biological realist and the social constructionist, respectively). On Glasgow and Woodward's view race is a “basic kind,” that is, a kind whose members are united merely by sharing a similarity, but a similarity that is not directly relevant to science (<span>2015</span>, p. 451). (Basic kinds as such, they claim, lack causal powers and so their essential properties sometimes fail to overlap with properties that are useful to science.) Basic kinds are not gerrymandered or arbitrary sets, then, but objective, mind-independent kinds that do not rise to the scientific importance of natural or social kinds. Races are basic kinds in that they are “groups of people who are distinguished from other groups by having certain visible features (like skin color) to a significantly disproportionate degree” (<span>2015</span>, p. 452).<sup>1</sup></p><p>According to Glasgow and Woodward, familiar parties to the race debate share a commitment to “elitism” about kinds. Such elitism has it that only kinds that are directly relevant to science, whether natural or social, are real. They find the elitist assumption implausible because basic kinds seem to qualify as real on a plausible conception of reality—objective and mind-independent similarity—without being the direct objects of scientific inquiry. Rejecting elitism undercuts the antirealist's argument that race is not real insofar as it is neither a natural nor social kind. For basic kind realism maintains that kinds need not be natural or social to be real.</p><p>Biological racial realism takes races to be suitably isolated breeding populations. Glasgow and Woodward note that a well-known concern for such a view is that the groups counted as races depart substantially from the groups we ordinarily count as races. For example, the Amish count as a distinct race on some versions of biological racial realism, though not for ordinary users of the concept of race.<sup>2</sup> In this way, there is a “mismatch” between our ordinary concept of race and the populations identified by the biological realist. Glasgow and Woodward argue that the source of this problem is the realist's attempt to identify races with biological or natural kinds. The mismatch problem can be altogether avoided if races are simply basic kinds distinguished by the visible traits the ordinary concept of race picks out.<sup>3</sup></p><p>Constructionists about race, on the other hand, hold that races are social kinds, that is, kinds unified by social factors such as classificatory practices. Glasgow and Woodward claim that the ordinary concept of race tells against thinking of race as a social kind. There are possible cases in which, intuitively, races still exist, yet the social factors that determine race (by the lights of the social constructionist) are absent (<span>2015</span>, p. 456). For instance, if classifying people as “white” or “black” or “Asian” is what determines the existence of those races, then in a situation where everyone is collectively struck with racial amnesia for an hour, races cease to exist. But intuitively, these races still exist even if their members are not classified as members of those races. Like biological racial realism, the constructionist view of race departs from our ordinary concept of race. To the extent that it identifies races with whatever kinds our ordinary concept of race picks out (so long as the mind-independent world can satisfy the demands our concept of race puts on it), basic racial realism's concept of race will never depart from the ordinary concept of race.</p><p>Constructionism about race is, moreover, supposed to have an advantage over other views of race because it is especially suited for explaining the social and political significance of race. Glasgow and Woodward argue that basic racial realism does just as well as social constructionism on this score. Even though basic racial realism denies that race is social itself, the view can still “license talk about the social significance and impact of race, and about social identities that are built upon race” (<span>2015</span>, p. 457). Basic racial realism separates the social practices involving race from race itself. In this respect, constructionism has no theoretical or explanatory advantage over basic racial realism. Since the latter identifies races with basic kinds, it is not committed to the more extravagant racial ontology of social kinds that the former is. In light of the weaknesses of its competitors and the strengths of basic racial realism, Glasgow and Woodward conclude that basic racial realism ought to be considered not only a fourth competitor in the debate about race but also the most promising of the pack.</p><p>If this constructionist response is successful, then it undermines the claim that social constructionism about race runs afoul of our ordinary concept of race. Nevertheless, one thing Glasgow and Woodward's paper helpfully reveals is that every metaphysics of race gives ordinary users of the concept a surprise. For their money, basic racial realism gives the smallest surprise, and one that does not force us to abandon the ordinary concept of race. They say that “[b]asic racial realism's surprise is akin to learning that you have a bunch of cousins you did not know about” (<span>2015</span>, p. 461). Of course, it is consistent with concept of cousins to find out that you have a bunch more than you thought you did. But as I argued above, Glasgow and Woodward do not give much of an argument for the claim that finding out that you belong to a bunch more races than you thought you did is consistent with the ordinary concept of race. “Constructionism's surprise,” they assert, “is akin to learning that your cousin can go from being your cousin to not being your cousin if we just forget that she's your cousin and become re-related to you again if we remember” (<span>2015</span>, p. 461). The analogy with cousins is suggestive, but overstates the case against constructionism. It may well be that thinking your cousin can go from being your cousin to not if you forget about them violates the concept of cousin. But not every version of constructionism makes the analogous claim about race. The racial amnesia thought experiment only targets constructionist views on which race is entirely determined by our racial classificatory practices.<sup>15</sup></p><p>Glasgow recognizes this (<span>2019</span>, p. 131) but argues that for any social factor the constructionist identified as grounding race, there will be situations in which that factor comes apart from facts about visible appearances, which he believes is at the core of the ordinary concept of race. Glasgow is certainly right that any social factor can come apart from distributions of visible traits. But it's important to recognize that the scenarios that Glasgow and Woodward imagine involve radical change to our social world, for example, re-structuring social arrangements, ending certain social practices, beginning others, and fundamentally altering the social meanings of human bodies (also see Glasgow <span>2009</span> and <span>2019</span>, p. 133). For once we acknowledge the radical social change that these thought experiments involve, the respective surprises of basic racial realism and constructionism look somewhat different than Glasgow and Woodward suggest. Basic racial realism gives us this surprise: you discover that you <i>actually</i> belong to many more races than you thought, even ones you have never conceived of and some races you thought existed (e.g., Latinx and Arab) do not actually exist. Constructionism (of certain stripes) gives us this surprise: you discover that in some remote possible situation involving radical change in our social world that you are not of the race that you believe yourself to be in the actual world. Put differently, basic racial realism surprises us about what falls in the extension of our race talk; constructionism surprises us about the nature of the very same groups ordinary folks identify as races.</p><p>Glasgow and Woodward are correct that ordinary people might find it shocking to think races would disappear with social change. But the constructionist can interpret this shock as a response to the constructionist conception of race, to the constructionist's view of what unifies races. We need not see this shock as indicating that constructionist's have changed the subject or are using an entirely different concept. What I want to emphasize here is that basic racial realism also gives us quite a surprise. And if the arguments given above are correct, then it is doubtful that the surprise of basic racial realism is consistent with the ordinary concept of race.</p><p>In sum, the dialectical advantages that basic racial realism is supposed to have are less clear than Glasgow and Woodward suppose. Moreover, the constructionist conception of race may have a better claim to consistency with the ordinary concept of race than they acknowledge. Glasgow and Woodward deserve credit for expanding the scope of these debates, but I do not think the familiar positions in the debate should fear the newcomer.</p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":46756,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Journal of Social Philosophy\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.1000,\"publicationDate\":\"2022-05-31\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/josp.12470\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Journal of Social Philosophy\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"98\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josp.12470\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"哲学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q3\",\"JCRName\":\"ETHICS\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Social Philosophy","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josp.12470","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
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约书亚·格拉斯哥(Joshua Glasgow)和乔纳森·m·伍德沃德(Jonathan M. Woodward)(2015)提出了一种关于种族形而上学的新说法,他们称之为“基本种族现实主义”。根据这一观点,种族是一种其成员通过共享相似性而团结在一起的物种,例如,与科学没有直接关系的皮肤颜色等可见特征。他们认为,基本种族现实主义相对于种族反现实主义、生物种族现实主义和种族社会建构主义具有一定的辩证优势。格拉斯哥和伍德沃德应该受到赞扬,因为他们将基本的种族现实主义引入了关于种族现实的辩论。它提供了一种新颖的种族描述,承诺在不破坏种族的社会和政治意义的情况下,追踪普通的种族概念。然而,尽管有这些好处,基本的种族现实主义面临着某些麻烦。我认为,首先,基本的种族现实主义并不像格拉斯哥和伍德沃德所说的那样与普通的种族概念相一致。其次,我认为基本的种族现实主义并不像他们所认为的那样享有社会建构主义所具有的辩证优势。在第三部分,我为种族的社会建构主义辩护,反对他们的指控,认为它违反了普通的种族概念。最后,我对基本的种族现实主义和建构主义在种族问题上给我们带来的比较惊喜进行了一般性的反思。辩论中常见的三种立场是种族反现实主义、生物种族现实主义和种族社会建构主义。基本的种族现实主义认为种族是真实的(佩斯是反现实主义),但既不是自然的种族,也不是社会的种族(佩斯分别是生物现实主义和社会建构主义)。在格拉斯哥和伍德沃德看来,种族是一种“基本类型”,也就是说,这种类型的成员仅仅通过共享相似性而团结起来,但这种相似性与科学没有直接关系(2015年,第451页)。(他们声称,基本类型本身缺乏因果力,因此它们的基本属性有时无法与对科学有用的属性重叠。)因此,基本类型并不是不公正划分的或任意的集合,而是客观的、独立于思维的类型,它们不会上升到自然或社会类型的科学重要性。种族是基本种类,因为他们是“一群人,他们通过某些明显不成比例的可见特征(如肤色)与其他群体区别开来”(2015,p. 452)。根据格拉斯哥和伍德沃德的说法,种族辩论中熟悉的各方都致力于种族的“精英主义”。这种精英主义认为,只有与科学直接相关的物种,无论是自然的还是社会的,才是真实的。他们发现精英主义的假设是不可信的,因为基本种类似乎符合现实的合理概念-客观和心灵独立的相似性-而不是科学探究的直接对象。反对精英主义削弱了反现实主义的论点,即种族不是真实的,因为它既不是自然的,也不是社会的。因为基本的类实在论认为,类不需要是自然的或社会的才能是真实的。生物学上的种族现实主义认为种族是适当隔离的繁殖种群。格拉斯哥和伍德沃德指出,对这种观点的一个众所周知的担忧是,被算作种族的群体与我们通常算作种族的群体在本质上是不同的。例如,在某些版本的生物种族现实主义中,阿米什人被视为一个独特的种族,尽管对种族概念的普通用户来说不是这样这样,我们对种族的普通概念与生物学现实主义者所确定的人口之间就存在着一种“不匹配”。格拉斯哥和伍德沃德认为,这个问题的根源在于现实主义者试图将种族与生物或自然类型区分开来。如果种族仅仅是由普通种族概念挑选出的可见特征来区分的基本种类,那么不匹配问题就可以完全避免。3另一方面,关于种族的建构主义者认为种族是社会种类,即由分类实践等社会因素统一的种类。格拉斯哥和伍德沃德声称,普通的种族概念反对将种族视为一种社会类型。在某些可能的情况下,从直觉上看,种族仍然存在,但决定种族的社会因素(根据社会建构主义者的观点)却不存在(2015,第456页)。例如,如果将人们划分为“白人”、“黑人”或“亚洲人”决定了这些种族的存在,那么在每个人都集体患上种族失忆症一小时的情况下,种族就不复存在了。但直觉上,这些种族仍然存在,即使他们的成员不被归类为这些种族的成员。就像生物学上的种族现实主义一样,建构主义的种族观偏离了我们通常的种族概念。 只要独立于思维的世界能够满足我们的种族概念所提出的要求,基本的种族现实主义的种族概念就永远不会脱离我们的种族概念。此外,关于种族的建构主义被认为比其他种族观点有优势,因为它特别适合于解释种族的社会和政治意义。格拉斯哥和伍德沃德认为,在这一点上,基本的种族现实主义和社会建构主义做得一样好。即使基本的种族现实主义否认种族本身是社会的,这种观点仍然可以“允许谈论种族的社会意义和影响,以及建立在种族基础上的社会身份”(2015年,第457页)。基本的种族现实主义将涉及种族的社会实践与种族本身分开。在这方面,建构主义与基本的种族现实主义相比没有理论或解释上的优势。由于后者将种族与基本种类等同起来,它并不像前者那样致力于更为夸张的社会种类的种族本体论。鉴于竞争对手的弱点和基本种族现实主义的优势,格拉斯哥和伍德沃德得出结论,基本种族现实主义不仅应该被视为种族辩论中的第四竞争者,而且应该被视为最有希望的竞争者。如果这种建构主义的回应是成功的,那么它就会削弱关于种族的社会建构主义与我们通常的种族概念相冲突的说法。然而,格拉斯哥和伍德沃德的论文有用地揭示了一件事,那就是每一种种族形而上学都给这个概念的普通用户带来了惊喜。对他们来说,基本的种族现实主义给了我们最小的惊喜,也不会迫使我们放弃普通的种族概念。他们说,“基本的种族现实主义的惊喜类似于得知你有一群你不知道的表亲”(2015年,第461页)。当然,发现你比你想象的拥有更多的表亲,这与表亲的概念是一致的。但正如我上面所说的,格拉斯哥和伍德沃德并没有给出太多的论据来证明,发现你属于比你认为的更多的种族,这与普通的种族概念是一致的。“建构主义的惊喜,”他们断言,“就像我们知道你的表妹可以从你的表妹变成你的表妹,如果我们忘记了她是你的表妹,如果我们记得,她又和你重新联系起来了”(2015,第461页)。与表亲的类比是暗示性的,但夸大了反对建构主义的情况。很有可能,如果你忘记了你的堂兄,你的堂兄就会从你的堂兄变成你的堂兄,这违反了堂兄的概念。但并不是每个版本的建构主义都对种族提出类似的主张。种族健忘症思想实验只针对种族完全由我们的种族分类实践决定的建构主义观点。15格拉斯哥认识到这一点(2019年,第131页),但他认为,对于任何被建构主义者认定为基础种族的社会因素,在某些情况下,该因素会与可见表象的事实分开,他认为这是普通种族概念的核心。格拉斯哥当然是正确的,任何社会因素都可以从可见特征的分布中分离出来。但重要的是要认识到,格拉斯哥和伍德沃德想象的场景涉及对我们的社会世界的彻底改变,例如,重构社会安排,结束某些社会实践,开始其他社会实践,并从根本上改变人体的社会意义(另见格拉斯哥2009年和2019年,第133页)。一旦我们承认这些思想实验所涉及的激进的社会变革,基本的种族现实主义和建构主义各自的惊喜看起来与格拉斯哥和伍德沃德所暗示的有所不同。基本的种族现实主义给了我们这样的惊喜:你发现你实际上属于比你想象的更多的种族,甚至是你从未设想过的种族,一些你认为存在的种族(例如,拉丁裔和阿拉伯裔)实际上并不存在。建构主义(某些流派的)给了我们这样的惊喜:你发现,在一些遥远的可能的情况下,涉及到我们的社会世界的根本变化,你不是你认为自己在现实世界中的种族。换句话说,基本的种族现实主义让我们对种族话题的延伸感到惊讶;建构主义让我们惊讶于普通人认为是种族的群体的本质。格拉斯哥和伍德沃德是对的,普通人可能会对种族会随着社会变革而消失的想法感到震惊。但建构主义者可以将这种冲击解释为对建构主义者种族概念的回应,对建构主义者种族统一观点的回应。 我们不需要把这种震惊看作是表明建构主义者已经改变了主题或正在使用一个完全不同的概念。我想在这里强调的是,基本的种族现实主义也给我们带来了相当大的惊喜。如果上面给出的论点是正确的,那么基本的种族现实主义的惊喜是否与普通的种族概念一致就值得怀疑了。总之,基本种族现实主义所具有的辩证优势并不像格拉斯哥和伍德沃德设想的那么明显。此外,建构主义的种族概念可能比他们承认的更符合普通的种族概念。格拉斯哥和伍德沃德扩大了这些辩论的范围,值得赞扬,但我不认为辩论中熟悉的立场应该害怕新来的人。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
Basic racial realism, social constructionism, and the ordinary concept of race

Joshua Glasgow and Jonathan M. Woodward (2015) have proposed a new account of the metaphysics of race, which they call “basic racial realism.” According to the view, races are kinds whose members are united by sharing similarities, for example, visible traits like skin color, that are not directly relevant to science. They argue that basic racial realism has certain dialectical advantages over the other parties to the debate over race, viz. racial antirealism, biological racial realism, and racial social constructionism.

Glasgow and Woodward should be commended for introducing basic racial realism to the debate over the reality of race. It offers a novel account of race that promises to track the ordinary concept of race without undermining the social and political significance of race. For all those benefits, however, basic racial realism faces certain troubles. I argue, first, that basic racial realism is not as consistent with the ordinary concept of race as Glasgow and Woodward make it out to be. Second, I argue that basic racial realism does not enjoy the dialectical advantages over social constructionism that they suggest it does. In the third section, I defend social constructionism about race against their charge that it violates the ordinary concept of race. I conclude with general reflections about the comparative surprises that basic racial realism and constructionism give us regarding race.

The three familiar positions in the debate are racial antirealism, biological racial realism, and racial social constructionism. Basic racial realism says that race is real (pace the antirealist) but is neither a natural kind nor a social kind (pace the biological realist and the social constructionist, respectively). On Glasgow and Woodward's view race is a “basic kind,” that is, a kind whose members are united merely by sharing a similarity, but a similarity that is not directly relevant to science (2015, p. 451). (Basic kinds as such, they claim, lack causal powers and so their essential properties sometimes fail to overlap with properties that are useful to science.) Basic kinds are not gerrymandered or arbitrary sets, then, but objective, mind-independent kinds that do not rise to the scientific importance of natural or social kinds. Races are basic kinds in that they are “groups of people who are distinguished from other groups by having certain visible features (like skin color) to a significantly disproportionate degree” (2015, p. 452).1

According to Glasgow and Woodward, familiar parties to the race debate share a commitment to “elitism” about kinds. Such elitism has it that only kinds that are directly relevant to science, whether natural or social, are real. They find the elitist assumption implausible because basic kinds seem to qualify as real on a plausible conception of reality—objective and mind-independent similarity—without being the direct objects of scientific inquiry. Rejecting elitism undercuts the antirealist's argument that race is not real insofar as it is neither a natural nor social kind. For basic kind realism maintains that kinds need not be natural or social to be real.

Biological racial realism takes races to be suitably isolated breeding populations. Glasgow and Woodward note that a well-known concern for such a view is that the groups counted as races depart substantially from the groups we ordinarily count as races. For example, the Amish count as a distinct race on some versions of biological racial realism, though not for ordinary users of the concept of race.2 In this way, there is a “mismatch” between our ordinary concept of race and the populations identified by the biological realist. Glasgow and Woodward argue that the source of this problem is the realist's attempt to identify races with biological or natural kinds. The mismatch problem can be altogether avoided if races are simply basic kinds distinguished by the visible traits the ordinary concept of race picks out.3

Constructionists about race, on the other hand, hold that races are social kinds, that is, kinds unified by social factors such as classificatory practices. Glasgow and Woodward claim that the ordinary concept of race tells against thinking of race as a social kind. There are possible cases in which, intuitively, races still exist, yet the social factors that determine race (by the lights of the social constructionist) are absent (2015, p. 456). For instance, if classifying people as “white” or “black” or “Asian” is what determines the existence of those races, then in a situation where everyone is collectively struck with racial amnesia for an hour, races cease to exist. But intuitively, these races still exist even if their members are not classified as members of those races. Like biological racial realism, the constructionist view of race departs from our ordinary concept of race. To the extent that it identifies races with whatever kinds our ordinary concept of race picks out (so long as the mind-independent world can satisfy the demands our concept of race puts on it), basic racial realism's concept of race will never depart from the ordinary concept of race.

Constructionism about race is, moreover, supposed to have an advantage over other views of race because it is especially suited for explaining the social and political significance of race. Glasgow and Woodward argue that basic racial realism does just as well as social constructionism on this score. Even though basic racial realism denies that race is social itself, the view can still “license talk about the social significance and impact of race, and about social identities that are built upon race” (2015, p. 457). Basic racial realism separates the social practices involving race from race itself. In this respect, constructionism has no theoretical or explanatory advantage over basic racial realism. Since the latter identifies races with basic kinds, it is not committed to the more extravagant racial ontology of social kinds that the former is. In light of the weaknesses of its competitors and the strengths of basic racial realism, Glasgow and Woodward conclude that basic racial realism ought to be considered not only a fourth competitor in the debate about race but also the most promising of the pack.

If this constructionist response is successful, then it undermines the claim that social constructionism about race runs afoul of our ordinary concept of race. Nevertheless, one thing Glasgow and Woodward's paper helpfully reveals is that every metaphysics of race gives ordinary users of the concept a surprise. For their money, basic racial realism gives the smallest surprise, and one that does not force us to abandon the ordinary concept of race. They say that “[b]asic racial realism's surprise is akin to learning that you have a bunch of cousins you did not know about” (2015, p. 461). Of course, it is consistent with concept of cousins to find out that you have a bunch more than you thought you did. But as I argued above, Glasgow and Woodward do not give much of an argument for the claim that finding out that you belong to a bunch more races than you thought you did is consistent with the ordinary concept of race. “Constructionism's surprise,” they assert, “is akin to learning that your cousin can go from being your cousin to not being your cousin if we just forget that she's your cousin and become re-related to you again if we remember” (2015, p. 461). The analogy with cousins is suggestive, but overstates the case against constructionism. It may well be that thinking your cousin can go from being your cousin to not if you forget about them violates the concept of cousin. But not every version of constructionism makes the analogous claim about race. The racial amnesia thought experiment only targets constructionist views on which race is entirely determined by our racial classificatory practices.15

Glasgow recognizes this (2019, p. 131) but argues that for any social factor the constructionist identified as grounding race, there will be situations in which that factor comes apart from facts about visible appearances, which he believes is at the core of the ordinary concept of race. Glasgow is certainly right that any social factor can come apart from distributions of visible traits. But it's important to recognize that the scenarios that Glasgow and Woodward imagine involve radical change to our social world, for example, re-structuring social arrangements, ending certain social practices, beginning others, and fundamentally altering the social meanings of human bodies (also see Glasgow 2009 and 2019, p. 133). For once we acknowledge the radical social change that these thought experiments involve, the respective surprises of basic racial realism and constructionism look somewhat different than Glasgow and Woodward suggest. Basic racial realism gives us this surprise: you discover that you actually belong to many more races than you thought, even ones you have never conceived of and some races you thought existed (e.g., Latinx and Arab) do not actually exist. Constructionism (of certain stripes) gives us this surprise: you discover that in some remote possible situation involving radical change in our social world that you are not of the race that you believe yourself to be in the actual world. Put differently, basic racial realism surprises us about what falls in the extension of our race talk; constructionism surprises us about the nature of the very same groups ordinary folks identify as races.

Glasgow and Woodward are correct that ordinary people might find it shocking to think races would disappear with social change. But the constructionist can interpret this shock as a response to the constructionist conception of race, to the constructionist's view of what unifies races. We need not see this shock as indicating that constructionist's have changed the subject or are using an entirely different concept. What I want to emphasize here is that basic racial realism also gives us quite a surprise. And if the arguments given above are correct, then it is doubtful that the surprise of basic racial realism is consistent with the ordinary concept of race.

In sum, the dialectical advantages that basic racial realism is supposed to have are less clear than Glasgow and Woodward suppose. Moreover, the constructionist conception of race may have a better claim to consistency with the ordinary concept of race than they acknowledge. Glasgow and Woodward deserve credit for expanding the scope of these debates, but I do not think the familiar positions in the debate should fear the newcomer.

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