Racial and Ethnic Discrimination 265

17. Joel Feinberg attempts to defend the idea that the dead community memberships in the second chapter of my
can be harmed by arguing that posthumous harm does dissertation.
not involve physical or backward causation. Drawing on 20. See Jorge Gracia, Hispanic/Latino Identity (Malden,
George Pitcher, he contends that “the occurrence of the Mass.: Blackwell, 2000), p. 57.
harmful posthumous event, . . . , makes it true that the 21. Ibid, p. 58–9.
antemortem [the person before he died] is harmed. . . . 22. Ibid, p. 58.
It does not suddenly “become true” that the antemor- 23. The popular usage of the term may depart from official
tem [person] was harmed. Rather it becomes apparent or formal usage that includes people from South Asia
to us for the first time that it was true all along— . . . ” such as India and Pakistan.
(Feinberg, Harm to Others [New York: Oxford Univer- 24. For instance, Matteo Ricci, the sixteenth-century Jesuit mis-
sity Press, 1984], pp. 79–91, p. 91). In other words, the sionary, was confronted with questions about filial piety and
person was in a harmed condition before he died but ancestor worship, ideas that are quite alien to the West but
it only became true to us afterwards. See also George deeply ingrained in the traditional Chinese culture.
Pitcher, “The Misfortunes of the Dead,” American Philo- 25. Roger T. Ames for instance emphasizes the role-based
sophical Quarterly 21 (1984): 183–8. I don’t think this conception of the person in Confucianism whereas
kind of response answers adequately Ernest Partridge’s Joseph Chan believes that Confucian ethics is not syn-
challenge that in order for a person to be harmed, she onymous with role-based ethics. For Chan, the qualities
has to be a bearer of interests, and since a dead person of benevolence (ren) and justice (yi) rise above particular
can no longer be a subject of interests, it is beyond harm. roles. See Roger Ames, “Rites as Rights: The Confucian
(See Partridge, “Posthumous Interests,” Ethics 91 [1981]: Alternative,” in Human Rights and the World’s Religion,
243–64.) Although a person doesn’t have to know that edited by Leroy R. Rouner (Notre Dame: University of
a harm has been done in order to be harmed—which Notre Dame Press, 1988); and Joseph Chan, “A Confu-
is a epistemological issue, the way Feinberg (as well as cian Perspective on Human Rights for Contemporary
Pitcher) responds still leaves open the question of when China,” in The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights,
the person was put in a harmed state. Even if “it does not edited by Joanne R. Bauer and Daniel A. Bell (New York:
suddenly ‘become true’ that the antemortem [person] Cambridge University Press, 1999).
was harmed” from the standpoint of prepositional truth, 26. See, for example, Kenneth Inada, “A Buddhist Response
it still makes sense to ask in the natural order of events to the Nature of Human Rights,” in Asian Perspectives
whether she was harmed before or after she died. And on Human Rights, ed. Claude Welsh and Virginia Leary
what caused her to be in that harmed condition, to begin (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990), pp. 91–102.
with? Thus the same metaphysical issue of “backward 27. This is not to suggest that Confucians today subscribe to
causation” comes back in full circle. However much com- the traditional understanding of Confucianism.
mon sense tells us that a person can be harmed after her 28. I have dealt with this subject at length in the first chapter
death, metaphysical attempts to resolve this problem still of my dissertation.
get us nowhere. 29. Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the 1998
18. To deal with this problem, I have developed a theory of and 1999 meetings of the American Philosophical Asso-
deliberating intergenerational responsibility in the sec- ciation. I thank my commentators, Rebecca Kukla and
ond chapter of my dissertation. Jason Hill for their helpful suggestions. I also thank Larry
19. To make such norms of assessment more robust as May and Marilyn Friedman for their incisive comments.
criteria for assessment, I discuss the different ways of Credit also goes to Jill Delston for catching a couple of
how people share responsibility on account of their mindless blunders on subsequent drafts.

RACISMS
Kwame Anthony Appiah

Kwame Anthony Appiah is a professor of philosophy and law at New York University. Previously, he was
professor of philosophy and African-American studies at Harvard University and has also held appoint-
ments at Cambridge, Yale, Cornell, Duke, and Princeton. He is the author of several books, including Lines
of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity (2014), The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions
266 Racial and Ethnic Discrimination

Happen (2010), Experiments in Ethics (Mary Flexner Lecture Series of Bryn Mawr College) (2008), and Cos-
mopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (Issues of Our Time) (2006).
Appiah distinguishes various aspects of racism, including racialism, as well as intrinsic and extrinsic
racism. Racialism is the view that there are inherent traits and tendencies of each race that are not shared
with members of other races, and that allow us to divide people into distinct races. Extrinsic racism is the
view that the races inherently have different essences that entail different morally relevant traits. Intrinsic
racism is the view that moral differentiation between races is justified because each race has a different
moral status, irrespective of its racial essence. The disposition he calls “racial prejudice” is the tendency to
subscribe to false moral and theoretical propositions about races. Appiah asserts that racialism is false, and
that both kinds of racism are theoretically and morally wrong.
Excerpt from Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Racisms” in Anatomy of Racism,
edited by David Theo Goldberg, 1990, pp. 3–17. © 1990 University of Minnesota Press.
Reprinted by permission.

If the people I talk to and the newspapers I read tomato—none of these gets defined in the course of
are representative and reliable, there is a good deal our daily business. But the concept of racism is in
of racism about. People and policies in the United worse shape than these. For much of what we say
States, in Eastern and Western Europe, in Asia and about it is, on the face of it, inconsistent.
Africa and Latin America are regularly described as It is, for example, held by many to be racist to
“racist.” Australia had, until recently, a racist immi- refuse entry to a university to an otherwise qualified
gration policy; Britain still has one; racism is on the “Negro” candidate, but not to be so to refuse entry
rise in France; many Israelis support Meir Kahane, to an equally qualified “Caucasian” one. But “Negro”
an anti-Arab racist; many Arabs, according to a and “Caucasian” are both alleged to be names of
leading authority, are anti-Semitic racists;1 and the races, and invidious discrimination on the basis of
movement to establish English as the “official lan- race is usually held to be a paradigm case of racism.
guage” of the United States is motivated by racism. Or, to take another example, it is widely believed to
Or, at least, so many of the people I talk to and many be evidence of an unacceptable racism to exclude
of the journalists with the newspapers I read believe. people from clubs on the basis of race; yet most
But visitors from Mars—or from Malawi— people, even those who think of “Jewish” as a racial
unfamiliar with the Western concept of racism could term, seem to think that there is nothing wrong with
be excused if they had some difficulty in identify- Jewish clubs, whose members do not share any par-
ing what exactly racism was. We see it everywhere, ticular religious beliefs, or Afro-American societies,
but rarely does anyone stop to say what it is, or to whose members share the juridical characteristic of
explain what is wrong with it. Our visitors from American citizenship and the “racial” characteristic
Mars would soon grasp that it had become at least of being black.
conventional in recent years to express abhorrence I say that these are inconsistencies “on the face
for racism. They might even notice that those most of it,” because, for example, affirmative action in
often accused of it—members of the South African university admissions is importantly different from
Nationalist party, for example—may officially abhor the earlier refusal to admit blacks or Jews (or other
it also. But if they sought in the popular media of our “Others”) that it is meant, in part, to correct. Deep
day—in newspapers and magazines, on television or enough analysis may reveal it to be quite consistent
radio, in novels or films—for an explicit definition with the abhorrence of racism; even a shallow anal-
of this thing “we” all abhor, they would very likely be ysis suggests that it is intended to be so. Similarly,
disappointed. justifications can be offered for “racial” associa-
Now, of course, this would be true of many tions in a plural society that are not available for the
of our most familiar concepts. Sister, chair, racial exclusivism of the country club. But if we take
 Racial and Ethnic Discrimination 267

racism seriously we ought to be concerned about classifications. Racialism is at the heart of nineteenth-
the adequacy of these justifications. century Western attempts to develop a science
In this essay, then, I propose to take our of racial difference; but it appears to have been
ordinary ways of thinking about race and rac- believed by others—for example, Hegel, before
ism and point up some of their presuppositions. then, and many in other parts of the non-Western
And since popular concepts are, of course, usually world since—who have had no interest in develop-
fairly fuzzily and untheoretically conceived, much ing scientific theories.
of what I have to say will seem to be both more Racialism is not, in itself, a doctrine that must
theoretically and more precisely committed than be dangerous, even if the racial essence is thought
the talk of racism and racists in our newspapers to entail moral and intellectual dispositions. Pro-
and on television. My claim is that these theoreti- vided positive moral qualities are distributed
cal claims are required to make sense of racism as across the races, each can be respected, can have
the practice of reasoning human beings. If anyone its “separate but equal” place. Unlike most West-
were to suggest that much, perhaps most, of what ern-educated people, I believe—and I have argued
goes under the name “racism” in our world cannot elsewhere3—that racialism is false; but by itself, it
be given such a rationalized foundation, I should seems to be a cognitive rather than a moral prob-
not disagree; but to the extent that a practice can- lem. The issue is how the world is, not how we
not be rationally reconstructed it ought, surely, to would want it to be.
be given up by reasonable people. The right tac- Racialism is, however, a presupposition of other
tic with racism, if you really want to oppose it, is doctrines that have been called “racism,” and these
to object to it rationally in the form in which it other doctrines have been, in the last few centuries,
stands the best chance of meeting objections. The the basis of a great deal of human suffering and the
doctrines I want to discuss can be rationally artic- source of a great deal of moral error.
ulated: and they are worth articulating rationally One such doctrine we might call “extrinsic
in order that we can rationally say what we object racism”: extrinsic racists make moral distinctions
to in them. between members of different races because they
believe that the racial essence entails certain mor-
ally relevant qualities. The basis for the extrinsic
Racist Propositions
racists’ discrimination between people is their belief
There are at least three distinct doctrines that might that members of different races differ in respects
be held to express the theoretical content of what that warrant the differential treatment, respects—
we call “racism.” One is the view—which I shall call such as honesty or courage or intelligence—that are
racialism2—that there are heritable characteristics, uncontroversially held (at least in most contempo-
possessed by members of our species, that allow us rary cultures) to be acceptable as a basis for treating
to divide them into a small set of races, in such a people differently. Evidence that there are no such
way that all the members of these races share cer- differences in morally relevant characteristics—that
tain traits and tendencies with each other that they Negroes do not necessarily lack intellectual capaci-
do not share with members of any other race. These ties, that Jews are not especially avaricious—should
traits and tendencies characteristic of a race consti- thus lead people out of their racism if it is purely
tute, on the racialist view, a sort of racial essence; extrinsic. As we know, such evidence often fails to
and it is part of the content of racialism that the change an extrinsic racist’s attitudes substantially,
essential heritable characteristics of what the nine- for some of the extrinsic racist’s best friends have
teenth century called the “Races of Man” account always been Jewish. But at this point—if the racist is
for more than the visible morphological charac- sincere—what we have is no longer a false doctrine
teristics—skin color, hair type, facial features— but a cognitive incapacity, one whose significance I
on the basis of which we make our informal shall discuss later in this essay.
268 Racial and Ethnic Discrimination

I say that the sincere extrinsic racist may suffer crucial to the character of the psychological and
from a cognitive incapacity. But some who espouse sociological reality of racism, something I touched
extrinsic racist doctrines are simply insincere intrin- on when I mentioned that extrinsic racist utter-
sic racists. For intrinsic racists, on my definition, are ances are often made by people who suffer from
people who differentiate morally between members what I called a “cognitive incapacity.” Part of the
of different races because they believe that each race standard force of accusations of racism is that their
has a different moral status, quite independent of objects are in some way irrational. The objection to
the moral characteristics entailed by its racial Professor Shockley’s claims about the intelligence
essence. Just as, for example, many people assume of blacks is not just that they are false; it is rather
that the fact that they are biologically related to that Professor Shockley seems, like many people we
another person—a brother, an aunt, a cousin—gives call “racist,” to be unable to see that the evidence
them a moral interest in that person,4 so an intrinsic does not support his factual claims and that the
racist holds that the bare fact of being of the same connection between his factual claims and his pol-
race is a reason for preferring one person to another. icy prescriptions involves a series of nonsequiturs.
(I shall return to this parallel later as well.) What makes these cognitive incapacities espe-
For an intrinsic racist, no amount of evidence that cially troubling—something we should respond
a member of another race is capable of great moral, to with more than a recommendation that the
intellectual, or cultural achievements, or has charac- individual, Professor Shockley, be offered psycho-
teristics that, in members of one’s own race, would therapy—is that they conform to a certain pattern:
make them admirable or attractive, offers any ground namely, that it is especially where beliefs and poli-
for treating that person as he or she would treat simi- cies are to the disadvantage of nonwhite people that
larly endowed members of his or her own race. Just he shows the sorts of disturbing failure that have
so, some sexists are “intrinsic sexists,” holding that the made his views both notorious and notoriously
bare fact that someone is a woman (or man) is a reason unreliable. Indeed, Professor Shockley’s reasoning
for treating her (or him) in certain ways. works extremely well in some other areas: that he
There are interesting possibilities for compli- is a Nobel Laureate in physics is part of what makes
cating these distinctions: some racists, for example, him so interesting an example.
claim, as the Mormons once did, that they discrimi- This cognitive incapacity is not, of course, a
nate between people because they believe that God rare one. Many of us are unable to give up beliefs
requires them to do so. Is this an extrinsic racism, that play a part in justifying the special advantages
predicated on the combination of God’s being an we gain (or hope to gain) from our positions in the
intrinsic racist and the belief that it is right to do what social order—in particular, beliefs about the posi-
God wills? Or is it intrinsic racism because it is based tive characters of the class of people who share that
on the belief that God requires these discriminations position. Many people who express extrinsic racist
because they are right? (Is an act pious because the beliefs—many white South Africans, for example—
gods love it, or do they love it because it is pious?) are beneficiaries of social orders that deliver advan-
Nevertheless, the distinctions between racialism and tages to them by virtue of their “race,” so that their
racism and between two potentially overlapping kinds disinclination to accept evidence that would deprive
of racism provide us with the skeleton of an anatomy them of a justification for those advantages is just an
of the propositional contents of racial attitudes. instance of this general phenomenon.
So, too, evidence that access to higher educa-
tion is as largely determined by the quality of our
Racist Dispositions
earlier educations as by our own innate talents, does
Most people will want to object already that this dis- not, on the whole, undermine the confidence of col-
cussion of the propositional content of racist moral lege entrants from private schools in England or the
and factual beliefs misses something absolutely United States or Ghana. Many of them continue
 Racial and Ethnic Discrimination 269

to believe in the face of this evidence that their doubt, can be impartial about everything—even
acceptance at “good” universities shows them to about everything to which the notion of partiality
be intellectually better endowed (and not just bet- applies; but there is no subject matter about which
ter prepared) than those who are rejected. It is facts most sane people cannot, in the end, be persuaded
such as these that give sense to the notion of false to avoid partiality in judgment. And it may help to
consciousness, the idea that an ideology can prevent shake the convictions of those whose incapacity
us from acknowledging facts that would threaten derives from this sort of ideological defense if we
our position. show them how their reaction fits into this general
The most interesting cases of this sort of ideo- pattern. It is, indeed, because it generally does fit
logical resistance to the truth are not, perhaps, the this pattern that we call such views “racism”—the
ones I have just mentioned. On the whole, it is less suffix “-ism” indicating that what we have in mind
surprising, once we accept the admittedly problem- is not simply a theory but an ideology. It would be
atic notion of self-deception, that people who think odd to call someone brought up in a remote cor-
that certain attitudes or beliefs advantage them ner of the world with false and demeaning views
or those they care about should be able, as we say, about white people a “racist” if that person gave up
to “persuade” themselves to ignore evidence that these beliefs quite easily in the face of appropriate
undermines those beliefs or attitudes. What is more evidence.
interesting is the existence of people who resist the Real live racists, then, exhibit a systemati-
truth of a proposition while thinking that its wider cally distorted rationality, the kind of systemati-
acceptance would in no way disadvantage them cally distorted rationality that we are likely to call
or those individuals about whom they care—this “ideological.” And it is a distortion that is especially
might be thought to describe Professor Shockley; striking in the cognitive domain: Extrinsic racists, as
or who resist the truth when they recognize that its I said earlier, however intelligent or otherwise well
acceptance would actually advantage them—this informed, often fail to treat evidence against the
might be the case with some black people who have theoretical propositions of extrinsic racism dispas-
internalized negative racist stereotypes; or who fail, sionately. Like extrinsic racism, intrinsic racism can
by virtue of their ideological attachments, to recog- also often be seen as ideological; but since scientific
nize what is in their own best interests at all. evidence is not going to settle the issue, a failure to
My business here is not with the psychological see that it is wrong represents a cognitive incapacity
or social processes by which these forms of ideologi- only on controversially realist views about morality.
cal resistance operate, but it is important, I think, to What makes intrinsic racism similarly ideological
see the refusal on the part of some extrinsic racists is not so much the failure of inductive or deduc-
to accept evidence against the beliefs as an instance tive rationality that is so striking in someone like
of a widespread phenomenon in human affairs. It Professor Shockley but rather the connection that
is a plain fact, to which theories of ideology must it, like extrinsic racism, has with the interests—real
address themselves, that our species is prone both or perceived—of the dominant group.6 Shockley’s
morally and intellectually to such distortions of racism is in a certain sense directed against non-
judgment, in particular to distortions of judgment white people: many believe that his views would, if
that reflect partiality. An inability to change your accepted, operate against their objective interests,
mind in the face of appropriate5 evidence is a cogni- and he certainly presents the black “race” in a less
tive incapacity; but it is one that all of us surely suf- than flattering light.
fer from in some areas of belief; especially in areas I propose to use the old-fashioned term “racial
where our own interests or self-images are (or seem prejudice” in the rest of this essay to refer to the
to be) at stake. deformation of rationality in judgment that charac-
It is not, however, as some have held, a ten- terizes those whose racism is more than a theoreti-
dency that we are powerless to resist. No one, no cal attachment to certain propositions about race.
270 Racial and Ethnic Discrimination

Racial Prejudice can be held responsible for not subjecting judg-

ments that are within that domain to an especially
It is hardly necessary to raise objections to what I
extended scrutiny; and this is a fortiori true if the
am calling “racial prejudice”; someone who exhibits
policies one is recommending are plainly of enor-
such deformations of rationality is plainly in trouble.
mous consequence.
But it is important to remember that propositional
If it is clear that racial prejudice is regrettable,
racists in a racist culture have false moral beliefs
it is also clear in the nature of the case that provid-
but may not suffer from racial prejudice. Once we
ing even a superabundance of reasons and evidence
show them how society has enforced extrinsic racist
will often not be a successful way of removing it.
stereotypes; once we ask them whether they really
Nevertheless, the racist’s prejudice will be articu-
believe that race in itself, independently of those
lated through the sorts of theoretical propositions
extrinsic racist beliefs, justifies differential treat-
I dubbed extrinsic and intrinsic racism. And we
ment, many will come to give up racist propositions,
should certainly be able to say something reasonable
although we must remember how powerful a weight
about why these theoretical propositions should be
of authority our arguments have to overcome. Rea-
rejected.
sonable people may insist on substantial evidence
Part of the reason that this is worth doing is
if they are to give up beliefs that are central to their
precisely the fact that many of those who assent to
cultures.
the propositional content of racism do not suffer
Still, in the end, many will resist such reasoning;
from racial prejudice. In a country like the United
and to the extent that their prejudices are really not
States, where racist propositions were once part of
subject to any kind of rational control, we may won-
the national ideology, there will be many who assent
der whether it is right to treat such people as mor-
to racist propositions simply because they were
ally responsible for the acts their racial prejudice
raised to do so. Rational objection to racist propo-
motivates, or morally reprehensible for holding the
sitions has a fair chance of changing such people’s
views to which their prejudice leads them. It is a bad
beliefs.
thing that such people exist; they are, in a certain
sense, bad people. But it is not clear to me that they
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Racism
are responsible for the fact that they are bad. Racial
prejudice, like prejudice generally, may threaten an It is not always clear whether someone’s theoretical
agent’s autonomy, making it appropriate to treat or racism is intrinsic or extrinsic, and there is certainly
train rather than to reason with them. no reason why we should expect to be able to settle
But once someone has been offered evidence the question. Since the issue probably never occurs
both (1) that their reasoning in a certain domain is to most people in these terms, we cannot suppose
distorted by prejudice, and (2) that the distortions that they must have an answer. In fact, given the
conform to a pattern that suggests a lack of impar- definition of the terms I offered, there is nothing
tiality, they ought to take special care in articulat- barring someone from being both an intrinsic and
ing views and proposing policies in that domain. an extrinsic racist, holding both that the bare fact of
They ought to do so because, as I have already said, race provides a basis for treating members of his or
the phenomenon of partiality in judgment is well her own race differently from others and that there
attested in human affairs. Even if you are not imme- are morally relevant characteristics that are differ-
diately persuaded that you are yourself a victim of entially distributed among the races. Indeed, for
such a distorted rationality in a certain domain, you reasons I shall discuss in a moment, most intrinsic
should keep in mind always that this is the usual racists are likely to express extrinsic racist beliefs, so
position of those who suffer from such prejudices. that we should not be surprised that many people
To the extent that this line of thought is not one seem, in fact, to be committed to both forms of
that itself falls within the domain in question, one racism.
 Racial and Ethnic Discrimination 271

The Holocaust made unreservedly clear the fact of being of the same race. There are varieties
threat that racism poses to human decency. But it of each form of “nationalism” that make the basis
also blurred our thinking because in focusing our lie in shared traditions; but however plausible this
attention on the racist character of the Nazi atroci- may be in the case of Zionism, which has in Juda-
ties, it obscured their character as atrocities. What is ism, the religion, a realistic candidate for a common
appalling about Nazi racism is not just that it pre- and nonracial focus for nationality, the peoples of
supposes, as all racism does, false (racialist) beliefs— Africa have a good deal less in common culturally
not simply that it involves a moral incapacity (the than is usually assumed. I discuss this issue at length
inability to extend our moral sentiments to all our in In My Father’s House: Essays in the Philosophy of
fellow creatures) and a moral failing (the making of African Culture, but let me say here that I believe the
moral distinctions without moral differences)—but central fact is this: what blacks in the West, like secu-
that it leads, first, to oppression and then to mass larized Jews, have mostly in common is that they are
slaughter. In recent years, South African racism has perceived—both by themselves and by others—as
had a similar distorting effect. For although South belonging to the same race, and that this common
African racism has not led to killings on the scale of race is used by others as the basis for discriminat-
the Holocaust—even if it has both left South Africa ing against them. “If you ever forget you’re a Jew,
judicially executing more (mostly black) people per a goy will remind you.” The Black Nationalists, like
head of population than most other countries and some Zionists, responded to their experience of
led to massive differences between the life chances racial discrimination by accepting the racialism it
of white and nonwhite South Africans—it has led presupposed.7
to the systematic oppression and economic exploi- Although race is indeed at the heart of Black
tation of people who are not classified as “white,” Nationalism, however, it seems that it is the fact of
and to the infliction of suffering on citizens of all a shared race, not the fact of a shared racial charac-
racial classifications, not least by the police state ter, that provides the basis for solidarity. Where rac-
that is required to maintain that exploitation and ism is implicated in the basis for national solidarity,
oppression. it is intrinsic, not (or not only) extrinsic. It is this
Part of our resistance, therefore, to calling the that makes the idea of fraternity one that is natu-
racial ideas of those, such as the Black National- rally applied in nationalist discourse. For, as I have
ists of the 1960s, who advocate racial solidarity, already observed, the moral status of close family
by the same term that we use to describe the atti- members is not normally thought of in most cul-
tudes of Nazis or of members of the South African tures as depending on qualities of character; we are
Nationalist party, surely resides in the fact that they supposed to love our brothers and sisters in spite of
largely did not contemplate using race as a basis for their faults and not because of their virtues. Alexan-
inflicting harm. Indeed, it seems to me that there der Crummell, one of the founding fathers of Black
is a significant pattern in the modern rhetoric of Nationalism, literalizes the metaphor of family in
race, such that the discourse of racial solidarity is these startling words:
usually expressed through the language of intrinsic
racism, while those who have used race as the basis Races, like families, are the organisms and ordi-
for oppression and hatred have appealed to extrinsic nances of God; and race feeling, like family feel-
racist ideas. This point is important for understand- ing, is of divine origin. The extinction of race
ing the character of contemporary racial attitudes. feeling is just as possible as the extinction of
The two major uses of race as a basis for moral family feeling. Indeed, a race is a family.8
solidarity that are most familiar in the West are
varieties of Pan-Africanism and Zionism. In each It is the assimilation of “race feeling” to “family
case it is presupposed that a “people,” Negroes or feeling” that makes intrinsic racism seem so much
Jews, has the basis for shared political life in the less objectionable than extrinsic racism. For this
272 Racial and Ethnic Discrimination

metaphorical identification reflects the fact that, in relevant distinction strikes most of us as obviously
the modern world (unlike the nineteenth century), arbitrary. Without associated moral characteris-
intrinsic racism is acknowledged almost exclusively tics, why should race provide a better basis than
as the basis of feelings of community. We can surely, hair color or height or timbre of voice? And if two
then, share a sense of what Crummell’s friend and people share all the properties morally relevant to
co-worker Edward Blyden called “the poetry of some action we ought to do, it will be an error—a
politics,” that is, “the feeling of race,” the feeling of failure to apply the Kantian injunction to universal-
“people with whom we are connected.”9 The racism ize our moral judgments—to use the bare facts of
here is the basis of acts of supererogation, the treat- race as the basis for treating them differently. No
ment of others better than we otherwise might, bet- one should deny that a common ancestry might, in
ter than moral duty demands of us. particular cases, account for similarities in moral
This is a contingent fact. There is no logical character. But then it would be the moral similari-
impossibility in the idea of racialists whose moral ties that justified the different treatment.
beliefs lead them to feelings of hatred for other It is presumably because most people—outside
races while leaving no room for love of members of the South African Nationalist party and the Ku Klux
their own. Nevertheless most racial hatred is in fact Klan—share the sense that intrinsic racism requires
expressed through extrinsic racism: Most people arbitrary distinctions that they are largely unwilling
who have used race as the basis for causing harm to to express it in situations that invite moral criticism.
others, have felt the need to see the others as inde- But I do not know how I would argue with someone
pendently morally flawed. It is one thing to espouse who was willing to announce an intrinsic racism as
fraternity without claiming that your brothers and a basic moral idea; the best one can do, perhaps, is to
sisters have any special qualities that deserve recog- provide objections to possible lines of defense of it.
nition, and another to espouse hatred of others who
have done nothing to deserve it.10
De Gustibus
Many Afrikaners—like many in the American
South until recently—have a long list of extrinsic It might be thought that intrinsic racism should be
racist answers to the question why blacks should regarded not so much as an adherence to a (moral)
not have full civil rights. Extrinsic racism has usu- proposition as the expression of a taste, analogous,
ally been the basis for treating people worse than say, to the food prejudice that makes most Eng-
we otherwise might, for giving them less than their lish people unwilling to eat horse meat, and most
humanity entitles them to. But this too is a contin- Westerners unwilling to eat the insect grubs that the
gent fact. Indeed, Crummell’s guarded respect for Kung people find so appetizing. The analogy does at
white people derived from a belief in the superior least this much for us, namely, to provide a model
moral qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race. of the way that extrinsic racist propositions can be a
Intrinsic racism is, in my view, a moral error. reflection of an underlying prejudice. For, of course,
Even if racialism were correct, the bare fact that in most cultures food prejudices are rationalized:
someone was of another race would be no reason we say insects are unhygienic and cats taste horrible.
to treat them worse—or better—than someone of Yet a cooked insect is no more health-threatening
my race. In our public lives, people are owed treat- than a cooked carrot, and the unpleasant taste of
ment independently of their biological characters: if cat meat, far from justifying our prejudice against it,
they are to be differently treated there must be some probably derives from that prejudice.
morally relevant difference between them. In our But there the usefulness of the analogy ends.
private lives, we are morally free to have aesthetic For intrinsic racism, as I have defined it, is not sim-
preferences between people, but once our treatment ply a taste for the company of one’s “own kind,” but
of people raises moral issues, we may not make arbi- a moral doctrine, one that is supposed to underlie
trary distinctions. Using race in itself as a morally differences in the treatment of people in contexts
 Racial and Ethnic Discrimination 273

where moral evaluation is appropriate. And for runs against the mainstream of the history of West-
moral distinctions we cannot accept that “de gusti- ern moral theory.11
bus non est disputandum.” We do not need the full The importance of drawing attention to the
apparatus of Kantian ethics to require that public similarities between the defense of the family and
morality be constrained by reason. the defense of the race, then, is not merely that the
A proper analogy would be with someone who metaphor of family is often invoked by racism; it is
thought that we could continue to kill cattle for beef, that each of them offers the same general challenge
even if cattle exercised all the complex cultural skills to the Kantian stream of our moral thought. And
of human beings. I think it is obvious that creatures the parallel with the defense of the family should
that shared our capacity for understanding as well be especially appealing to an intrinsic racist, since
as our capacity for pain should not be treated the many of us who have little time for racism would
way we actually treat cattle—that “intrinsic specie- hope that the family is susceptible to some such
sism” would be as wrong as racism. And the fact that defense.
most people think it is worse to be cruel to chim- The problem in generalizing the defense of
panzees than to frogs suggests that they may agree the family, however, is that such defenses stan-
with me. The distinction in attitudes surely reflects dardly begin at a point that makes the argument
a belief in the greater richness of the mental life for intrinsic racism immediately implausible:
of chimps. Still, I do not know how I would argue namely, with the family as the unit through which
against someone who could not see this; someone we live what is most intimate, as the center of pri-
who continued to act on the contrary belief might, vate life. If we distinguish, with Bernard Williams,
in the end, simply have to be locked up. between ethical thought, which takes seriously “the
demands, needs, claims, desires, and generally, the
lives of other people,”12 and morality, which focuses
The Family Model
more narrowly on obligation, it may well be that
I have suggested that intrinsic racism is, at least private life matters to us precisely because it is alto-
sometimes, a metaphorical extension of the moral gether unsuited to the universalizing tendencies of
priority of one’s family; it might, therefore, be sug- morality.
gested that a defense of intrinsic racism could pro- The functioning family unit has contracted
ceed along the same lines as a defense of the family substantially with industrialization, the disappear-
as a center of moral interest. The possibility of a ance of the family as the unit of production, and
defense of family relations as morally relevant—or, the increasing mobility of labor, but there remains
more precisely, of the claim that one may be mor- that irreducible minimum: the parent or parents
ally entitled (or even obliged) to make distinctions with the child or children. In this “nuclear” fam-
between two otherwise morally indistinguish- ily, there is, of course, a substantial body of shared
able people because one is related to one and not experience, shared attitudes, shared knowledge and
to the other—is theoretically important for the beliefs; and the mutual psychological investment
prospects of a philosophical defense of intrinsic that exists within this group is, for most of us, one
racism. This is because such a defense of the fam- of the things that gives meaning to our lives. It is
ily involves—like intrinsic racism—a denial of the a natural enough confusion—which we find again
basic claim, expressed so clearly by Kant, that from and again in discussions of adoption in the popu-
the perspective of morality, it is as rational agents lar media—that identifies the relevant group with
simpliciter that we are to assess and be assessed. For the biological unit of genitor, genetrix, and offspring
anyone who follows Kant in this, what matters, as rather than with the social unit of those who share a
we might say, is not who you are but how you try to common domestic life.
live. Intrinsic racism denies this fundamental claim The relations of parent and their biological
also. And, in so doing, as I have argued elsewhere, it children are of moral importance, of course, in
274 Racial and Ethnic Discrimination

part because children are standardly the product of defenses to consider, I can only offer these general
behavior voluntarily undertaken by their biologi- reasons for doubting that they can succeed: The gen-
cal parents. But the moral relations between bio- erally Kantian tenor of much of our moral thought
logical siblings and half-siblings cannot, as I have threatens the project from the start; and the essen-
already pointed out, be accounted for in such terms. tially unintimate nature of relations within “races”
A rational defense of the family ought to appeal to suggests that there is little prospect that the defense
the causal responsibility of the biological parent and of the family—which seems an attractive and plau-
the common life of the domestic unit, and not to the sible project that extends ethical life beyond the
brute fact of biological relatedness, even if the for- narrow range of a universalizing morality—can be
mer pair of considerations defines groups that are applied to a defense of races.
often coextensive with the groups generated by the
latter. For brute biological relatedness bears no nec-
Conclusions
essary connection to the sorts of human purposes
that seem likely to be relevant at the most basic level I have suggested that what we call “racism” involves
of ethical thought. both propositions and dispositions.
An argument that such a central group is The propositions were, first, that there are races
bound to be crucially important in the lives of (this was racialism) and, second, that these races are
most human beings in societies like ours is not, of morally significant either (a) because they are con-
course, an argument for any specific mode of orga- tingently correlated with morally relevant proper-
nization of the “family:” feminism and the gay lib- ties (this was extrinsic racism) or (b) because they
eration movement have offered candidate groups are intrinsically morally significant (this was intrin-
that could (and sometimes do) occupy the same sic racism).
sort of role in the lives of those whose sexualities The disposition was a tendency to assent to
or whose dispositions otherwise make the nuclear false propositions, both moral and theoretical,
family uncongenial; and these candidates have been about races—propositions that support policies or
offered specifically in the course of defenses of a beliefs that are to the disadvantage of some race (or
move toward societies that are agreeably beyond races) as opposed to others, and to do so even in the
patriarchy and homophobia. The central thought of face of evidence and argument that should appro-
these feminist and gay critiques of the nuclear fam- priately lead to giving those propositions up. This
ily is that we cannot continue to view any one orga- disposition I called “racial prejudice.”
nization of private life as “natural,” once we have I suggested that intrinsic racism had tended in
seen even the broadest outlines of the archaeology our own time to be the natural expression of feel-
of the family concept. ings of community, and this is, of course, one of the
If that is right, then the argument for the reasons why we are not inclined to call it racist. For,
family must be an argument for a mode of orga- to the extent that a theoretical position is not asso-
nization of life and feeling that subserves certain ciated with irrationally held beliefs that tend to the
positive functions; and however the details of such disadvantage of some group, it fails to display the
an argument would proceed it is highly unlikely directedness of the distortions of rationality charac-
that the same functions could be served by groups teristic of racial prejudice. Intrinsic racism may be
on the scale of races, simply because, as I say, the as irrationally held as any other view, but it does not
family is attractive in part exactly for reasons of its have to be directed against anyone.
personal scale. So far as theory is concerned I believe racialism
I need hardly say that rational defenses of to be false: since theoretical racism of both kinds
intrinsic racism along the lines I have been consid- presupposes racialism, I could not logically sup-
ering are not easily found. In the absence of detailed port racism of either variety. But even if racialism