Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: Francisco Gil-White argues that the ubiquity of racialism—the view that so-called races have biological essences—can be explained as a by-product of a shared mental module dedicated to ethnic cognition. Gil-White’s theory has been endorsed, with some revisions, by Edouard Machery and Luc Faucher. In this skeptical response I argue that our developmental environments contain a wealth, rather than a poverty of racialist stimulus, rendering a nativist explanation of racialism redundant. I also argue that we should not theorize racialism in isolation from racism, as value judgments may play a role in essentialist thinking about the ‘other’.
Source: Philosophy of Science
DOI: 10.1086/673896
Author: Adam Hochman
Institution: The University of Sydney
Language: English
Topic: Race, Genetics, and Society
Subfield: Genetics
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Australian Research Council
OpenAlex ID: W2175555049