Philosophy of Biology

BIOLOGICAL CONCEPTIONS OF RACE

Robin O. Andreasen

1 INTRODUCTION

Do human races exist or are human racial categories biologically meaningless?^1

Questions such as this one are part of a series of more general philosophical ques-

tions such as those that concern realism and classification in the natural sciences.

What is the basis of an objective classification scheme within systematic biology?

In what ways, if any, do systematists’s conceptions of biological kinds deviate from

traditional philosophical conceptions of natural kinds? To what extent, if any, is

everyday language about biological kind terms characterized by the practice of

semantic deference to science? To what extent should it be?

Questions about the biological reality, or lack thereof, of race are also thought

to carry important social implications. Part of the reason is that belief in the

biological reality of race has been (and sometimes still is) used in an effort to jus-

tify sociopolitical inequalities. Though the connection between biological realism

and racism is a contingent one, it is generally assumed that the nonexistence of

biological races is an important first step in arguments against racism.

There are at least two ways to approach questions about the biological reality, or

lack thereof, of race. One way is to examine conceptions of race within systematic

biology and to ask whether any can be applied, successfully, to humans. Another

way is to examine common sense conceptions of race and to ask whether biology

provides support for any such conceptions.^2 For the most part, this chapter takes

the first approach. Yet it is important to note that these two approaches are

not entirely distinct. Throughout the history of the term, common sense and

biological conceptions of ‘race’ have developed side by side — each reinforcing and

influencing the other [Banton and Harwood, 1975; Smedley, 1993; Gould, 1981;

Appiah, 1996]. In addition it is generally agreed that scientific conceptions of race

must overlap reasonably with common sense conceptions; otherwise, we are no

longer talking about ‘race’ [Zack, 2002; Glasgow, 2003].

Historically, few scholars doubted the biological reality of race. There have

been at least two prominent race concepts in systematic biology — namely, the

(^1) In this paper, I will use the expressions ‘biologically objective’, ‘biologically real’, and ‘bio-
logically significant’ interchangeably. Though there are important differences in the meanings of
these expressions, such differences will not be important for our purpose.
(^2) For critical discussions of this type of approach see Mallon [forthcoming] and Haslanger
[2005]. Both reject this semantic strategy in favor of pragmatic and normative approaches to
understanding ‘race’.
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