Abstract
In his recent monograph, (Re-)defining Racism: A Philosophical Analysis (2020), Alberto G. Urquidez invites the reader to take a fresh look at the confused and complicated concept of racism. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, Urquidez argues that debates over racism are not about discovering what racism really refers to in the world but the appropriate rule of representation— the standard of the correct use of the term (p. 25–26). Discovering racism is a normative endeavor and, he argues, a prescriptive one (Urquidez, p. 26). My comments here are not intended as a critique of Urquidez’ account so much as an opportunity to reflect on where he might go from here in developing his account. In particular, I focus on lingering questions over the relationship between the critique of structures and practices licensed by political morality and that of individual behaviors. I explore how Urquidez grounds claims of individual moral responsibility for racism.
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Notes
Hereafter, racism is italicized whenever I refer to the concept.
In stating his positive proposal, Urquidez writes, “…racial ills that rise to the level of racism are worthy of severe condemnation because they have historically contributed to racial oppression” (p. 294). If I understand his point correctly, there are two levels to his argument for a distinction between racial ills and racism, which both invoke a connection to racial oppression. The first establishes the moral valence of the concept itself: in virtue of an historical link to the horrors of racial oppression, “racism” is a term of severe condemnation. The second draws a distinction between those phenomena to which the concept properly applies and those it doesn’t: for any given racial ill x, x rises to the level of racism only if it produces/sustains racial oppression. Naturally, these aren’t entirely unrelated since it is often a history of racial oppression in a particular sociopolitical context that makes it the case that some act is more likely to sustain/produce racial oppression than a similar act directed against another group or in another context.
At this point, Urquidez might object that in countenancing these criticisms as a general problem for a structuralist view (rather than a particular problem for Haslanger’s view), I’m unfairly restricting the resources of the political approach. He writes, “[A] caricature is that the political approach is not in the business of generating criteria for holding agents personally responsible, and that it is consequently antithetical to the concept of personal responsibility…If a political theorist concludes that racial profiling is racially unjust, this may entail that agents who participate in racial profiling should be punished and their behavior condemned” (Urquidez, p. 303). I agree with Urquidez that political theorists can engage in generating claims of individual responsibility for justice (and I will outline one such proposal here). The puzzle is just that how they will answer those questions is anyone’s guess.
For more on this point, see Haslanger (2017a), especially sections IV-VI.
References
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Acknowledgements
This paper was presented as part of an “author meets critics” session at American Philosophical Association meeting, Eastern Division, January 2021. I’d like to thank José Jorge Mendoza for organizing the event, the Radical Philosophy Association for hosting, my fellow presenters, Naomi Zack and César Cabezas, and Alberto Urquidez for writing the book that inspired the session and for his thoughtful response to my comments. Additionally, thanks to Mark Wells for helpful discussion of an earlier draft.
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This paper was presented as part of an “author meets critics” session at American Philosophical Association meeting, Eastern Division, January 2021.
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Mitchell, M. Moral Responsibility for Racial Oppression. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 24, 641–650 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-021-10189-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-021-10189-1