Abstract

This thesis addresses the racial ontology debate in the philosophy of race. The positions in this debate can be summarized along realist and antirealist dimensions as shown below: Realist: racial naturalism, racial constructionism Antirealist: racial skepticism I argue for racial constructionism. In particular, I argue for a Du Boisian-inspired cultural theory of race, whereby races are cultural groups. There is also a normative dimension to the racial ontology debate. There are three positions in this normative debate: conservationism, reconstructionism, and elminativism. Conservationism holds that our race talk should be conserved, reconstructionism holds that it should be reconstructed to treat race as something other than what it actually is, and eliminativism holds that it should be eliminated, either entirely or in certain respects. I argue for the cultural excellence thesis, a conservationist thesis which holds that we should conserve race talk based on the cultural value of races.