Is culture essential to race?

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.

Introduction

What is race? is the fundamental metaphysical question in the philosophy of race. Answering it is, in the first instance, a matter of specifying what it is to be a race. The question of what is it to be a race is prior to “Do races exist?” It is also prior to “What is the experience of being a member of a race?” and “How should I relate to my own racial identity?” One key point at issue in this question is whether culture (things such as language, customs, religion, and belief) plays an essential role in the constitution of race. I think not. I believe it is possible fully to specify what race is without referring to culture. Culture is not part of what race most fundamentally is.

To make the case for this contention, I start by considering the strongest and most persuasive contemporary articulation of the view that culture is essential to race—that provided by Chike Jeffers (Jeffers, 2019) in the “Cultural constructionism” section. ¹ I then argue for the possibility of conceiving of race without adverting to culture by using the minimalist conception of race I develop in Rethinking Race (Hardimon, 2017) in “The minimalist conception of race” section as an example of a conception of race that makes no reference to culture. In the “The minimalist conception of ethnicity” section, 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. In the “Why race is best conceived without adverting to culture” section, I explain why we are better off not conceiving of culture as essential to race. In the “Conclusion” section, I conclude the article.

Cultural constructionism

“Cultural constructionism” is the label Jeffers gives to his distinctive position in the metaphysics of race. He maintains that a race is a social group that has a distinctive developmental profile. Such a group

is distinguishable by appearance and ancestry

emerges out of political conditions that divided people into groups unequal in power

comes to exhibit distinctive ways of life, and

can persist as long as racial distinctions are socially recognized in some form.

• 1. Condition (i) states a requirement that must be met if a group is to be a race. To count as a race, a group must be distinguishable on the basis of visible physical features that correspond to its geographical ancestry. A group that failed to satisfy this condition would not be a race.

This condition reflects Jeffers’ view that “one cannot tell the story of racial distinction without biological diversity entering the picture” (p. 182). It says that the place at which such diversity enters the picture is at the beginning. Condition (i) is not, however, sufficient for the attainment of racehood in Jeffers’ view. A group that was distinguishable by appearance and ancestry but never subject to differential power relations or never came to exhibit a distinctive culture would not be a race as Jeffers understands the term.

Condition (i) makes Jeffers culturally constructionist conception of race a conception of race rather than a conception of ethnicity. It is not the case that Jeffers confuses the concept of ethnicity with the concept of race as Paul Taylor suggests (Taylor, 2013: 100–101). He clearly grasps that physical appearance plays a “key role in racial difference that it does not by necessity play in ethnic difference” (p. 61). It may be that he builds elements of the ethnicity concept into his conception of the race concept, but he recognizes that the two concepts are distinct.

Now Jeffers contends that race can become “merely cultural.” He says, “I see the potential for a transition from cultural difference being one component of a social reality to being the entirety of that reality” (58 my emphasis) and speaks of a world in which “races exist only as cultural groups” (Taylor, 2013). This might seem to suggest that he thinks that a racial group could remain a race after losing its distinctive biological features, provided it retained its distinctive cultural identity. But elsewhere he makes clear that he remains “attached to difference in appearance of some sort as a necessary component of racial difference” (p. 184). I suspect that what Jeffers means by “a transition from cultural difference being one component of a social reality to being the entirety of that reality” is a transition from cultural difference being one component of the social reality of race—the circumstance that obtains when a power differential is another component of the social reality of race—to the circumstance in which cultural difference becomes the entirety of the social reality of race. When he says that races could “exist only as cultural groups,” it appears that he means that there could be groups that exhibited distinctive visible physical features corresponding to their distinctive geographical ancestry and were culturally distinct from other such groups and consequently counted as races but were not distinguished by hierarchical relations of power. The social reality of such races would consist entirely of the cultural features that distinguished them.

2. Condition (ii) expresses Jeffers’ commitment to social constructionism. It says that race is essentially political in origin. “The origin of races as we know them,” he writes,” is to be found in the construction of white supremacist social hierarchies” (p. 62). “[T]he fundamental factors making it the case that races exist are sociohistorical in nature” (p. 38). European imperialism and the hierarchical social structure it created constituted the specific empirical circumstances that “first gave rise to racial difference as we know it” (p. 57). Groups that satisfied (i) but not (ii) would not be races. In the absence of a specifically political formation process that generates power inequalities, races would not exist. This implies that, prior to their encounter with European imperialism, groups that satisfied condition (i) were not races. Jeffers dubs this component of his view “political constructionism,” contending that political constructionism offers “the best way from a social constructionist perspective to understand the historical development of racial difference” (p. 51).

Condition (ii) does not, however, say that a race must continue to stand in a hierarchical social position to remain a race. Groups that attained racehood as the result of a political formation process could come to coexist as races in an egalitarian manner while remaining races. Jeffers thus rejects Sally Haslanger's well-known contention that the end of social hierarchy based on appearance and ancestry would mean the end of race (Haslanger, 2019). “Race as a social construction could live on past the death of racism … given that racial groups could continue to exist as cultural groups” (p. 57).

Conditions (i) and (ii) distinguish Jeffers’ “moderate” cultural constructionism from what he calls cultural constructionism's “maximally robust” form. The latter holds that “(1) the origin of racial difference is to be found in divergent ways of life; (2) only cultural difference must always be understood in order to understand the reality of race in the present; and (3) cultural difference is essential to race, such that the end of distinctive ways of life would mean the end of race” (p. 37). Jeffers rejects each of these three claims.

3. Condition (iii) constitutes the cultural “moment” of cultural constructionism. Its starting point is that races exhibit distinctive cultures or ways of life. “[R]aces,” according to Jeffers, “are made up of people who share not only a similar appearance and ancestry but also a common culture” (my italics). The distinctive cultures of racial groups exhibit emerge out of the political conditions that divide people into groups unequal in power. “[A]t the point of origin, it is a political circumstance (e.g. the social hierarchy of slavery) that gives rise to the cultural condition of racial identification being common” (p. 61). “[A]s soon as you have races emerging in this way, you have social categories shaping the identities of those who are included in them in such a way that these members may plausibly view these categories as culturally significant” (p. 62). Once appearance-and-ancestry groups enter into hierarchical relations of power, they begin to develop distinctive ways of life.

A comment about the cultural component of Jeffers’ view. It's one thing to say that a group must have a distinctive culture to count as a race. It is another to say that that culture must be inflected by hierarchical power relations. Although I do not think that a group must have a distinctive culture to count as a race, I can see the philosophical motivation for this view,

The fact that groups that have been traditionally thought of as races have, in fact, exhibited differences in culture and that these differences are often taken to be “racial” might not unreasonably lead one to think that culture is essential to race. However, I am unclear about the philosophical motivation for the idea that a group G's distinctive culture must be inflected by hierarchical relations of power in order for G to count as a race. It appears to be driven by a prior commitment to social constructionism. The appearance-and-ancestry groups that entered into hierarchical relations of power during the age of European imperialism presumably had distinctive cultures before they entered into those relations. Why weren’t they already races?

4. Surprisingly, Jeffers does not think that groups must continue to exhibit distinctive cultures to retain their status as races. In his view, “diversity in ways of life is not essential to race” (p. 194). He tells us that he can envision “a circumstance in which both racial hierarchy and racial cultures have faded away but race lives on as a legal distinction that is mainly of bureaucratic significance, engendering no inequality between members of racial groups but also representing nothing of great significance to the identities of members.” Condition (iv) captures this thought. It holds that race “will live on as long as racial distinctions are socially recognized in some form” (Jeffers et al., 2019).

Having sketched the key elements of cultural constructionism, we are now in a position to specify the sense, or rather the senses, in which culture is essential to race in Jeffers’ view. One sense is that a group must develop a distinctive culture in response to hierarchical social relations to count as a race. This sense is straightforwardly and unambiguously metaphysical. The idea is that having a distinctive culture is an essential element of what it is to be a race. A second, no less important, sense in which Jeffers takes culture to be essential to race is broadly normative. Here the idea that culture is what gives race significance and makes racial membership meaningful. Culture in his view is “fundamental from a normative standpoint” (p. 194). Jeffers’ approach to the question of what is it to be a race is driven by his normative commitment to the idea that races can exhibit legitimate forms of cultural difference that are to be affirmed and appreciated. He takes the continued existence of racial diversity as cultural diversity to be an important good. It is precisely because races are cultural groups that shape the identities of their members that the continuing coexistence of different races under conditions of equality is something to be affirmed. Racial membership is made meaningful by the fact that it is membership in a cultural grouping with its own way of life. Furthermore, the fact that racial differences of appearance and ancestry are associated with cultural differences between races invests in differences of visible physical features that correspond to geographical ancestry with significance.

Jeffers’ account of what it is to be a race shows that race can be conceived of in such a way that culture is essential to it. The inclusion of condition (iii) makes culture essential to his conception of race. Jeffers’ account thus represents one possible way of conceiving of race, one possible way of fixing the application of the predicate “is a race.” Jeffers’ account allows one to see why such a conception might be attractive.

But the approach Jeffers takes risks running together what are two distinct questions. One is, What is it to be a race? The other is, What makes race significant? I have no objection to Jeffers’ answer to the significance question—at least insofar as it is understood as a question about what makes what makes membership in a subordinated racialized group significant. The problem is that what makes race significant may be only incidentally connected to what race most fundamentally is. The concern is that building the features that make race significant into race leads Jeffers to attribute something to race that is not part of its fundamental make-up.

But if race can be conceived in such a way that culture is essential to it, it need not be conceived of in this way. In the next section, I show that—and how—it is possible to conceive of race without adverting to culture.

The minimalist conception of race

The question What is it to be a race? is best addressed by providing the barest, most stripped-down possible characterization of racehood. In doing that, we identify what we take race most fundamentally to be. I believe the simplest specification of what it is to be a race is found in the conception I once dubbed the “minimalist concept of race” (Hardimon, 2017) and now call the minimalist conception of race (MCR). The MCR represents a particular way of specifying the concept of race and fixing its extension. It amounts to Jeffers’ condition (i) minus conditions (ii)–(iv). The fact that it represents a conception of race shows that it is possible to conceive of race without adverting to culture. It provides an example of a conception of race that makes no reference to culture.

The MCR holds that race is a biological subdivision of the (human) species

- (M1) that, as a group, is distinguished from other groups of human beings by patterns of visible physical features,

- (M2) whose members are linked by common ancestry peculiar to a member of the group, and

- (M3) that originates from a distinctive geographic location.

Possible examples of minimalist races include Western Eurasians, sub-Saharan Africans, East Asians, and Amerindians. This list is not intended to be complete. Latinos do not satisfy the MCR because they do not exhibit a single pattern of visible physical characteristics. Pacific Islanders do not satisfy the MCR because they include both Melanesians and Polynesians, groups that exhibit distinct patterns of visible physical features. Jews do not satisfy (M1)–(M3) because they include Mizrahi Jews (so-called “Oriental Jews,” who originate primarily from Iraq, Persia, and Yemen), Ethiopian Jews, and Abayudaya Jews along with Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. These groups do not share a common pattern of visible physical features.

The MCR requires that a race exhibit a pattern of visible physical features distinct from the pattern exhibited by at least one other minimalist race. It does not require that the pattern of visible physical features a minimalist race exhibits be distinct from every other minimalist race (for an opposing view, see Spencer 2019). Nor does it preclude the possibility that two distinct minimalist races may share a common visible physical feature. It is perfectly possible that two distinct minimalist races exhibit the very same skin color. So fundamental to our basic idea of race (different races look different) is the idea of visible physical difference that it is hard to see how a concept that did not require that races be visibly distinct could be understood to be a concept of race. ²

No less indispensable is the idea that races must exhibit distinctive ancestries (for an opposing view see Glasgow, 2009). The MCR captures the core intuition that races are a specific kind of ancestry group and explains why racial membership is thought to be transmitted through biological descent. A concept of race that did not require that the offspring of two MR₁s be an MR₁ would not be recognizable as a race concept. (M3) does no more than makes explicit that the ancestry referred to in (M2) is geographical ancestry. A group kind that was not transmitted through ancestry would not be race. An articulation of each of the MCR's three conditions is required for a full specification of what it is to be a race.

It is crucial to appreciate that the MCR is distinct from the more familiar racialist conception of race. The racialist conception of race is the empirically refuted, traditional, pernicious, essentialist, and hierarchical biological conception, commonly but mistakenly taken to fix the race concept. Racialist races do not exist. Minimalist races do exist. The actual groups that satisfy the MCR do not satisfy the racialist conception of race. They lack biological essences. Nor do they possess mental and moral properties that are explained by a biological essence.

The MCR is minimalist. It does not posit an underlying biological racial essence. It does not posit a hierarchy of races. It does not say that minimalist races differ with respect to honesty, courage, or intelligence, and so forth. It makes no reference whatsoever to normatively important features. A fortiori it does not posit a correlation between visible physical features and normatively important traits. It neither ranks races on a scale of inferiority and superiority nor specifies features on the basis of which they could be ranked. It is a non-essentialist and non-hierarchical race concept. Being non-essentialist and non-hierarchical, it is non-malefic.

The articulation of the MCR

The MCR shows that the popular conceit that biological race must be understood in terms of the idea of a biological racial essence is mistaken. It provides a non-essentialist conception of biological race. It thus makes it possible to conceive of biological race as a (non-essentialist) minimalist biological race. Its articulation shows the possibility of forming a non-malefic conception of biological race.

The MCR holds that conditions (M1)–(M3) exhaustively specify what it is to be a race. It says that any group that satisfies these conditions is a race full stop. It does not, however, say that these conditions specify everything that is important about race. It says that if group G is distinguished from other groups by patterns of visible physical features, if it has members who are linked by common ancestry peculiar to those members, and if it originates from a distinctive geographic location, then, whatever else is true of it, G is a race. It says, in effect, that to be a race just is to be an appearance-and-ancestry group of a certain kind.

If the MCR does indeed fix what it is to be a race, the idea of a race that is “merely cultural,” where this is understood to mean that a group can be a race without being distinguished by patterns of visible physical features simply makes no sense. A group that retained a distinctive culture but lost its distinctive visible physical features would cease to be a race.

The MCR is minimalist in a number of respects. It makes no reference to differential power relations or differences of culture. The conception contains no counterpart to conditions (ii) and (iii) of the cultural constructionist account. It holds that a group can in principle be a race without ever having stood in unequal power relations or having ever developed a distinctive culture. Races may as a matter of contingent fact come to occupy social positions that are unequal in power, but coming to occupy social positions that are unequal in power is not an essential condition of counting as a race. The MCR also recognizes that races may develop distinctive cultures as the result of having stood in hierarchical power relations and, indeed, that races may have developed distinctive cultures without ever having stood in hierarchical power relations, but it does not regard having a distinctive culture as an essential condition of racehood.

The MCR thus prescinds from both power and culture. It represents race as being a matter of physical, biological, and geographical differences rather than differences that result from sociohistorical processes. It takes race to be a bio-geographical kind. It holds that race counts as a biogeographical kind in virtue of (i) being defined in terms of biological and geographical features and (ii) the fact that races have a biogeographical origin. ³ The correct explanation of the origin of races is given in terms of reproduction under conditions of geographic isolation, leading to the selection of common observable characteristics: the differential patterns of visible physical features that correspond to differences in geographical origin. Ashkenazi Jews exhibit distinctive visible physical features but do not count as a race because the distinctive physical features they exhibit are the result of inbreeding consequent upon social isolation rather than geographic isolation.

It is clear that culture plays no role in the MCR's specification of racehood. Cultural items such as language, customs, religion, values, and beliefs do not appear in its characterization. The MCR does not, however, deny that there are (contingent) cultural differences between races. Nor does it say that there could be a race that exhibited no cultural features whatsoever. Nor again does it say that the cultural features associated with race are unimportant. Its contention is that it is possible fully to specify what it is to be a race without referring to culture.

Groups that satisfy the MCR do as a matter of fact typically exhibit different patterns of cultural features, but this is incidental to their counting as races. If the patterns of visible physical features of G₁ and G₂ differ, G₁ and G₂ count as distinct races no matter how similar the pattern of cultural features they exhibit may be. If G₁ and G₂ have the same pattern of visible physical features corresponding to the same geographical ancestry, they are instances of one and the same race, no matter how great the cultural differences between them.

It is crucial to recognize that the MCR is a genuine conception of race, that it is a conception of race and not some other thing. Its claim to be a genuine conception of race can be motivated by the observation that the visible physical features that figure in the patterns of visible physical features referred to in (M1)—features such as skin color, hair shape, and lip form—count intuitively as racial. This can be seen through reflection. Differences in skin color, hair shape, and lip form are prototypical examples of differences that we regard as racial. They are just the sort of features one would mention if one wanted to explain what we mean by ‘race’. They are features that count as “racial,” if any do.

Differences in skin color, hair shape, and lip form do not have to be associated with differences of culture (or power) to count as “racial.” Nor, for that matter, do they have to be associated with a biological essence or correlated to normatively important characteristics (intelligence, capacity for self-government, sexuality, criminality) to count as “racial.” What makes them “racial” is the fact that they are components of patterns of visible physical differences that trace back to differences in geographical ancestry.

We can say that racial features such as skin color are “racialized” in a technical sense when they are associated with mental, moral, or cultural traits—or differences in power. The key here is that it is possible for features to be racial without being “racialized.” The idea that a feature must be racialized to be racial is a mistake.

Now we allow that the sort of differences we are calling “racial”—differences in patterns of geographical ancestry that correspond to differences in geographical ancestry—exist and if we allow that there are groups that exhibit such features, we allow that there are minimalist races.

Races are nothing more than groups that exhibit racial features.

Jeffers would presumably deny that visible physical features that correspond to geographical ancestry are eo ipso “racial.” He comes close to denying this explicitly when he says that “differential power relations are what first brought racial differences into existence” (p. 54). Read literally this means that there were no racial differences prior to differential relations of power that came into being during the age of European imperialism. But the idea that differences in skin color, hair form, and head shape did not count as “racial” before the age of European imperialism is implausible. They may not have been regarded as “racial” before that time, but they can be seen retrospectively to have been racial nonetheless. What made them racial is the fact that they are visible physical features which are parts of patterns of visible physical features traced back to differences of geographical ancestry. What happened during the age of European imperialism is not that these features became racial. It is rather that features that were already racial came to be “racialized” by virtue of being associated with differences of power.

Jeffers holds that “racial distinctions are, fundamentally significant social distinctions” (p. 45 my italics). But this is a mistake. Distinctions between patterns of visible physical features that correspond to differences of geographical ancestry count as “racial” whether or not they are socially significant. Such distinctions can become socially significant but social significance is not what makes them racial. Being racial is one thing. Being socially significant is another. Whether racial distinctions are significant social distinctions is a contingent matter. Racial distinctions come to have social significance when and only when they are invested with social meaning in social contexts by sociohistorical processes. One can stipulatively define ‘racial’ in such a way that differences in patterns of visible physical features that correspond to differences in geographical ancestry only count as “racial,” if they are associated with differences of culture and power differential, but only at the cost of losing sight of the fact that there is a perfectly good sense of “racial”—arguably the ordinary sense—on which differences of patterns of visible physical features that trace back to differences in geographical ancestry.

The biological features that the MCR identifies as racial—features such as skin color, lip shape, and head form—lack intrinsic importance. They are not rooted in biological essences and have no biological connection to normatively important properties. Race as the MCR characterizes it is not intrinsically important. However, the MCR does not hold that the biological features of race are unimportant full stop. It allows that such features can come to have significance in the social contexts in which they are found.

The MCR's conception of race is biological rather than social. It is biological because and in the deflationary sense that, the MCR defines what it is to be a race in biogeographical terms: geographical ancestry and patterns of visible physical features, because the groups that it represents have a biological origin and because the groups it represents are reproduced through sexual reproduction. Minimalist races count as biological groups because and in the deflationary sense that they are defined in terms of the biogeographical conditions of the MCR.

The MCR shows that it is possible to provide a full specification of what it is to be a race in biogeographical terms. It thus shows that what it is to be a race can be specified without reference to culture. The fact that the MCR is recognizable as a conception of race (that it is a concept we can reflectively regard as a concept of race) shows that culture is not part of what we take race most fundamentally to be.

The minimalist conception of ethnicity

Because the MCR's specification of what it is to be a race makes no reference to culture, it cannot account for differences in cultural features that correspond to geographical ancestry—differences that are sometimes thought of as racial. This is not a defect, however. Accounting for cultural differences falls outside the MCR's job description. The MCR's job is to capture the biology of race. But differences in patterns of cultural features that correspond to differences of geographical ancestry exist and their existence constitutes a phenomenon that calls for conceptualization. That task is best carried out by the notion I will call the “minimalist conception of ethnicity” (MCE). The MCE holds that an ethnic group is a group of human beings

- (E1) that, as a group, is distinguished from other groups of human beings by patterns of cultural features,

- (E2) whose members are linked by common ancestry peculiar to a member of the group, and

- (E3) that originates from a distinctive geographic location.

The philosophical motivation for the introduction of the MCE is to complement the MCR. The MCE shows that it is possible to conceptualize cultural differences that correspond to geographical ancestry—differences that might be thought of as “racial”—without adverting to race.

That the MCE mirrors the MCR is evident. It substitutes patterns of cultural features for patterns of visible physical features and preserves the common ancestry and geographic origin conditions. Patterns of cultural features include such items as language, norms, values, behaviors, and practices. Ethnic differences in the sense specified by the MCE are cultural differences that correspond to geographical ancestry. The MCE defines ethnic groups as groups that exhibit features that are ethnic in this sense.

The MCE is plainly distinct from the MCR. Its specification makes reference to differences of cultural features rather than differences of visible physical features. Minimalist ethnic groups are ontologically distinct from minimalist races. An ancestry group that traces back to a particular geographical location and exhibits a distinctive pattern of visible physical features is distinct from an ancestry group that traces back to the same particular geographical location and exhibits a distinctive pattern of cultural features. The members of these groups may be identical but the groups themselves are distinct. ⁴ The groups are ontologically distinct because they are specified in different ways. Minimalist ethnic groups are characterized in terms of cultural and not biological features. A minimalist race could lose the pattern of cultural features it has (e.g. as the result of political subordination) and remain the same minimalist race, provided it retained the same pattern of visible physical differences. A minimalist ethnic group could lose its pattern of visible physical features (e.g. through the operation of science fiction visible physical feature changing machines) and remain the same minimalist ethnic group, provided it retained its pattern of cultural features.

The MCE makes no reference to visible physical features. It does not require that members of a minimalist ethnic group exhibit the same pattern of visible physical features. Minimalist ethnic groups can and typically do exhibit different patterns of visible physical differences, but these differences do not distinguish them as minimalist ethnic groups. The visible physical differences minimalist ethnic groups exhibit are incidental to their ethnicity.

The MCE is minimalist. It does not posit a biological essence that accounts for the cultural features of minimalist ethnic groups. Nor does it posit a cultural essence. It allows that the cultural features a minimalist ethnic group exhibits may change over time. It does not require that each member of a minimalist ethnic group exhibit all the cultural features of that ethnic group. It is for example possible that a member of a particular minimalist ethnic group may not speak the language of their group. A fundamental way in which the MCE resembles the MCR is that membership in a minimalist ethnic group is transmitted by ancestry. An individual I is a member of MEG₁ if they are the offspring of two members of MEG₁.

The MCE is not intended to capture each and every feature of every standard use of the terms

“ethnicity” and “ethnic group” A term of art, it differs from some understandings of the meaning of “ethnic group.” One example of this is its requirement that minimalist ethnic groups trace back to a single geographic origin. Because of this requirement it does not count Latinos, a group which is sometimes counted as an ethnic group (e.g. by the US Office of Management and Budget) and whose ancestry traces back to multiple geographical locations as an ethnic group. The MCE's job is to fix a useful way in which the term “ethnic group” can be used.

Historically, the concepts of race and ethnicity have often been confused. The similarities between the MCR and the MCE—between (M2) and (E2) and between (M3) and (E3)—help to explain the possibility of such confusion. Confusion arises whenever the idea of cultural differences is built into a specification of the concept of race or the idea of visible physical differences is built into the specification of the concept of ethnicity. The fact that the MCR and the MCE are two distinct conceptions shows that it is possible to draw a sharp conceptual distinction between race and ethnicity. One does so by removing the idea of culture from the concept of race and excising the idea of visible physical differences from the concept of ethnicity.

The MCR makes it possible to think about race without thinking about ethnicity. The MCE makes it possible to think about ethnicity without thinking about race. These two things are distinct. Having conceptions that make it possible to keep these distinct things distinct clarifies our thinking.

Now if the sort of essence posited by the racialist concept of race existed—if there were a biobehavioral essence linking differences of culture to differences of visible features, it would be possible to form a well-formed referring concept that was equally a concept of race and a concept of ethnicity. But there is no such biobehavioral essence. This fact makes it imperative to separate the concepts of race and ethnicity.

Why race is best conceived without adverting to culture

The first reason why race is best conceived without adverting to culture is parsimony. A conception of race that makes no reference to culture is analytically simpler than a conception of race that makes reference to culture. It contains fewer elements. Jeffers would no doubt object that the MCR is insufficient to provide a full characterization of race. I argued, however, in “The minimalist conception of race” section that the kind of group picked out by conditions (M1)–(M3) can be recognized as a race without adverting to culture and that the MCR can be recognized as a conception of race despite the fact that it makes no reference to culture.

Conceiving of race without culture allows us to see that biological race (= minimalist biological race) is only contingently related to culture. The fact that a particular cultural form originates with a particular biological race is a contingent matter. As far as biology goes, it is possible that a particular cultural form that originated with a particular minimalist biological race could have originated with some other minimalist biological race. From the standpoint of biology, there is no reason why a particular minimalist biological race could not have produced a culture other than the one it happened to produce. Nothing in the biology of race destines a particular biological race (minimalist race) to a particular culture. The members of any particular minimalist biological race can in principle renounce the cultural features with which their racial group is associated. Any minimalist biological race can in principle originate, adopt, or participate in any culture. No culture is uniquely well suited to any particular minimalist biological race. No minimalist biological races is uniquely well suited to any particular culture There is thus no sense in which cultural features are intrinsically racial. They are not expressive of a biological racial essence or necessarily correlated with a pattern of visible physical features.

The fact that biological race is only contingently related to culture means that the only sense in which a culture can be said to be “racial” is the “thin” sense of being contingently associated with a particular minimalist race. One of the merits of the MCR is that it deflates the “raciality” of cultural differences between biological races by facilitating recognition of the fact that the cultural differences between them are not expressive of a biological racial essence or necessarily correlated with patterns of visible physical features associated with geographical ancestry. In this way, it guards against the mystification of race.

Conceiving of race without the concept of culture helps us arrive at a proper normative assessment of the importance of biological race. Because it allows us to see that biological race just is minimalist biological race, it makes it possible to see that biological race, considered in and of itself is relatively unimportant. There is nothing more to it than differences of geographical ancestry manifesting themselves in superficial patterns of visible physical features. Biological race, being minimalist biological race, is not a big deal.

Taking culture to be essential to race is a bad idea because doing so can easily lead us back into the pernicious, essentialist conception of race, which posits an essential link between biological differences in race and differences in culture. It can do so because it preserves this bedrock feature of the racialist conception. The idea that culture is essential to race can suggest the objectionable idea that some cultural items (e.g. European classical music) are suitable only for people who exhibit certain patterns of geoancestry-tracing patterns of visible features (e.g. those tracing back to Europe). It can suggest that the pattern of visible physical features you possess can exclude you from the possibility of participating in human cultural forms.

Another disadvantage of building culture into race is that doing so imports features into race that can be ranked on an evaluative scale. ⁵ Features that are cultural are features that can be ranked. To be sure it is possible to take culture to be essential to race without conceiving of culture hierarchically as Jeffers does (à la Herder and du Bois) and so without conceiving of race hierarchically, but it is difficult to do so without opening the door to the claim that one race is culturally superior to another. It is thus difficult to import culture into race without opening the door to racism. The fact that the MCR provides an exhaustive specification of what it is to be a race using terms that are more or less evaluatively neutral is one of its chief strengths. Building culture into race undermines that evaluative neutrality.

Conceiving of race without culture does not preclude recognizing the existence or value of the cultural differences between minimalist races. It does not prevent members of non-dominant racialized groups from affirming the cultural forms that are (as it happens) distinctive of their group or endeavoring to preserve these cultural forms. It does not prevent us from appreciating the diversity of cultural forms (contingently) associated with different minimalist races. Jeffers can have everything he wants to celebrate about the cultures that are associated with race without building culture into race.

Conclusion

Chike Jeffers’ cultural constructivism provides the strongest and most persuasive contemporary articulation of the idea that culture is essential to race. It shows that it is possible to conceive of race in such a way that culture is essential to it and makes clear why such a conception might be attractive. The MCR shows that it is possible to conceive of race—something properly regarded as race—without taking culture to be essential to it. Conceiving of race without culture is more parsimonious and less liable to mischief and mystification. Given the choice between a conception of race that makes culture essential to it and a conception of race that does not, we should choose the latter.

We are better off on balance conceiving of race in a way that makes no reference to culture than conceiving of it in a way that makes culture essential to it.