BAEcon Economics

This is an advanced introduction to the philosophy of race. Drawing on a range of disciplines, e.g. biology, psychology, medicine and philosophy, we will examine key topics in this area such as the metaphysics of racial categories, the use of race in medical diagnosis, and psychological approaches to tackle racism. Some of the questions addressed in this course include, 'Is race a biological kind, a social construct or something non-existent altogether?' 'Can we use race in medicine as a proxy for genetic differences?' and 'Does the science of implicit bias neglect the structural causes of racism?' This course does not require a background in any areas outside of philosophy. In contrast, by doing this course, you will learn to engage with philosophical issues to do with race in an empirically-informed manner.

The unit aims to:

• Introduce students to cutting-edge research in contemporary philosophy of race.
• Address the role of empirical research in addressing topics in the philosophy of race.
• Reflect analytically and critically about the latest philosophical and scientific research on race.

One two-hour lecture and one one-hour tutorial per week.

Students should be able to:

• Identify and analyse a range of 20th and 21st century theories on the science and philosophy of race;
• Explain philosophical and scientific positions about race accurately.

Students should be able to:

• Articulate and defend precise philosophical and scientific positions, and to anticipate and rebut objections to those positions;
• Identify and apply philosophical research methods consistently;
• Interpret and criticise both primary and secondary texts on the philosophy of race.

Students should be able to:

• Use research tools to effectively select resources in the preparation of assessments in the philosophy of race;
• Clearly communicate ideas about the philosophy of race.

Essay (2000 words) 50%

Exam (2 hours) 50%

The School of Social Sciences (SoSS) is committed to providing timely and appropriate feedback to students on their academic progress and achievement, thereby enabling students to reflect on their progress and plan their academic and skills development effectively. Students are reminded that feedback is necessarily responsive: only when a student has done a certain amount of work and approaches us with it at the appropriate time is it possible for us to feed back on the student's work. The main forms of feedback on this course are written feedback responses to assessed essays and exam answers.

We also draw your attention to the variety of generic forms of feedback available to you on this as on all SoSS courses. These include: meeting the lecturer/tutor during their office hours; e-mailing questions to the lecturer/tutor; asking questions from the lecturer (before and after lecture); presenting a question on the discussion board on Canvas; and obtaining feedback from your peers during tutorials.

• Haslanger, S. (2000). ‘Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do we Want Them to Be?’. Nous 34(1): 31-55.
• Hardimon, M. O. (2017).’ ‘Minimalist Biological Race’. In N. Zack (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race (pp. 02-23). Oxford University Press.
• Wiredu, J. E. (1997). ‘How not to compare African traditional thought with Western thought’. Transition (75/76): 320-327.
• Crenshaw, K. W. (2013). ‘Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color’. In The Public Nature of Private Violence (pp. 93-118). Routledge.
• Root, M. (2003). ‘The use of race in medicine as a proxy for genetic differences’.