Reply to My Critics: (Re-)Defining Racism: A Philosophical Analysis

In (Re-)Defining Racism, I offer the first comprehensive examination of the philosophical literature on racism and argue for a new methodological approach that I call conventionalism. Framing my argument within this approach, I defend an oppression theory of racism. In this article, I will attempt t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Urquidez, Alberto G. ca. 20./21. Jh. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2021
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2021, Volume: 24, Issue: 3, Pages: 679-698
Further subjects:B Grammatical analysis
B Racial oppression
B semantic externalism
B Moralism
B Moral Responsibility
B Metalinguistic negotiation
B Wittgenstein
B Descriptive Analysis
B Conventionalism
B Semantic internalism
B Political morality
B Prescriptive analysis
B Racism
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Description
Summary:In (Re-)Defining Racism, I offer the first comprehensive examination of the philosophical literature on racism and argue for a new methodological approach that I call conventionalism. Framing my argument within this approach, I defend an oppression theory of racism. In this article, I will attempt to accomplish two goals: offer a reply to the thoughtful comments of my critics, and lay out the main argument and major themes of my book in an accessible manner. First, I will describe the philosophical problem of defining “racism” and explain why I think a new methodological approach is necessary to address this problem. Second, I will present the moralist presupposition of my project and extend my oppression theory of racism in response to the challenge of assigning responsibility for oppression. Finally, I will address several criticisms to my prescriptive approach, including: (1) my prescriptive approach unjustifiably privileges moralist explanation (explaining why racism is bad) over social explanation (explaining the causes of racism); (2) the tool of semantic clarification, which my conventionalist framework draws upon, is inadequate for resolving conceptual disagreement; (3) my call for scholars to negotiate the meaning of “racism” is unlikely to succeed and would be insufficient to inspire social change if it were to succeed; and, finally, (4) my conventionalist approach is wedded to a misguided intensionalist semantics, for an extensionalist semantics is more appropriate for the term “racist.”
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10677-021-10207-2