The aim of this article is to develop an understanding-based argument for an explicitly political specification of the concept of race. It is argued that a specification of race in terms of hierarchical social positions is best equipped to guide causal reasoning about racial inequality in the public sphere. Furthermore, the article provides evidence that biological and cultural specifications of race mislead public reasoning by encouraging confusions between correlates and causes of racial inequality. The article concludes with a more general case for incorporating empirical evidence about public reasoning into philosophical debates about competing specifications of the concept of race.

中文翻译：

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理解种族：公共话语中的政治建构主义案例

本文的目的是为种族概念的明确政治规范发展基于理解的论据。有人认为，根据等级社会地位来说明种族最适合指导公共领域中种族不平等的因果推理。此外，该文章提供的证据表明，种族的生物学和文化规范通过鼓励种族不平等的相关因素和原因之间的混淆来误导公众推理。文章最后以一个更一般的案例结束，将关于公共推理的经验证据纳入关于种族概念的竞争规范的哲学辩论。