Is culture essential to race?

Michael O. Hardimon

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2025, vol. 24, issue 3, 249-263

Abstract: I argue that culture is not essential to race by considering the strongest and most persuasive contemporary articulation of the view that culture is essential to race—that provided by Chike Jeffers I then argue for the possibility of conceiving of race without adverting to culture by presenting the minimalist conception of race I developed in Rethinking Race as an example of a conception of race that makes no reference to culture. I next show how the ancestry-related features of culture that might be thought to be racial but fall outside of the minimalist race can be captured in a minimalist conception of ethnicity. I finally explain why we are better off conceiving of race in a way that does not advert to culture and conclude.

Keywords: race; culture; ethnicity; Jeffers; minimalist conception of race; minimalist conception of ethnicity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:pophec:v:24:y:2025:i:3:p:249-263

DOI: 10.1177/1470594X241247765

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