Debating Race
Received: 6 June 2016 Revised: 21 July 2017 Accepted: 20 September 2017
DO
I: 10.1111/phc3.12468
A R T I C L E
Racial realism I: Are biological races real?
Quayshawn Spencer
University of Pennsylvania
Correspondence
Quayshawn Spencer, University of
Pennsylvania, Department of Philosophy, 249
South 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104,
USA.
Email: qspencer@upenn.edu
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© 2017 The Author(s) Philosophy Compass © 201
Philosophy Compass. 2018;13:e12468. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12468
Abstract In this article, I discuss and critique how metaphysicians of race
have conceived of and defended racial realism according to how
biologists use “race”. I start by defining “racial realism” in the
broadest accepted way in the metaphysics of race. Next, I summarize
a representative sample of recent attempts from metaphysicians of
race and biologists to defend racial realism and the main criticisms
against each attempt. I discuss how metaphysicians of race have
defended racial realism according to how ordinary people use “race”
in Part II.
1 | INTRODUCTION
In Joshua Glasgow's influential book A Theory of Race, he clearly and succinctly defines “racial realism” as the view that
“race is real,” where “something is real just in case it exists” (Glasgow, 2009, 5).1 While there is variation among
metaphysicians of race with respect to what gets called ‘racial realism’, Glasgow's definition nicely captures the core
of what all metaphysicians of race accept.2 Now, given this thin notion of racial realism, racial realism might seem to be
trivially true. For example, it is widely accepted in the natural sciences that if you can show that even one member of a
kind exists, then that kind exists.3 For instance, that is the strategy chemists use to identify new elements, and it is the
strategy that biologists use to identify new species. Given this assumption, and given that, say, Asians, Blacks, Native
Americans, and Whites are paradigms of races in current American English, is not it trivially true that race itself exists?
Well, it is not that simple.
First, we need to do some metaphysics. To be specific, we need to know what is sufficient for existing in order to
say that Asians, Blacks, Native Americans, and Whites exist. This may sound strange. But think about this. Is not it true
that Tyrannosaurus rex is a paradigm species of the genusTyrannosaurus? But does that fact make it true that the genus
Tyrannosaurus exists? Of course not, because we need to show that the instances of a kind exist in order to use those
instances as evidence that the kind itself exists. Furthermore, showing that anything exists requires adopting some
standards for existing.
Second, we need to do some linguistics. In particular, we need to know what “race” means in the relevant context
in order to say that any particular group exists as a race in that context. This investigation is needed because while it
may be true that Asians, Blacks, Native Americans, and Whites exist, it may turn out to be false that each one is a race.
For example, Blum (2002, 137–146) has argued that Asians, Blacks, Native Americans, and Whites exist, but do not
exist as races given the high bar for what counts as a race in current American English.4 Only after one completes both
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of these investigations can one use the existence of Asians, Blacks, Native Americans, and Whites, as evidence for the
reality of race.
As you might have guessed, the metaphysical exercise of answering whether race is real has churned out many
different answers. For instance, when the linguistic context of asking whether race is real is restricted to “race” as
understood among biologists (e.g., “race” as a synonym for “subspecies” or “ecotype”), then some philosophers and
biologists have argued that race isn't real.5 However, some philosophers and biologists have argued that race is real
in a biological sense of “race”.6 When the linguistic context of asking whether race is real is restricted to some ordinary
language or dialect (e.g., English, American English, etc.), the most common answer among metaphysicians of race is
that race is real.7 However, more than a few metaphysicians of race have argued that race is not real in the relevant
ordinary sense.8
Now that I′ve discussed how metaphysicians of race define “racial realism,” I'll move on to a discussion of the
major attempts to defend racial realism as “race” is understood among biologists, as well as the major objections to
each attempt in the literature. I will save my discussion of major attempts to defend racial realism as “race” is
understood among ordinary people for Part II.
2 | IS RACE REAL IN ANY BIOLOGICAL USE OF “RACE”?
2.1 | Races as Subspecies
In the last twenty years, there have been five major attempts to defend the reality of race when “race” is understood
in a purely biological way. I will group them into two types of defenses. Some of them are defenses of the reality of
race when “race” is understood as a synonym for “subspecies”. The rest are defenses of the reality of race when “race”
is understood as a synonym for “ecotype”. I will discuss attempts to defend the reality of subspecies first. But before I
begin, I should clarify a few things about subspecies.
In systematics (the study of biodiversity), organisms are sometimes classified into subspecies in addition to
species, genera, and orders. In the most general sense, a subspecies is a subgroup of a species that is an “incipient
species” (Mayr, 1942, 155).9 Moreover, incipient species are groups of organisms that are not quite species, but are
well on their way to becoming species (Mayr, 1969, 44). After Darwinian evolutionary theory was incorporated into
systematics, systematists have felt the need to classify many species into subspecies. This is because Darwin not only
made popular the idea that almost all species originated from evolution, but also that species tend to originate from
gradual evolution due to the dominance of natural selection as the process of speciation (species evolution).10 Thus,
if natural selection is the dominant cause of speciation, we should expect to find that many past and present species
had or have incipient species (a.k.a. subspecies).
In the last 20 years, one major attempt to defend subspecies realism, as I will call it, was Ernst Mayr's defense of
the reality of geographic race.11 According to Mayr (1969, 41; 2002, 90), a “geographic race” or “subspecies” is “an
aggregate of phenotypically similar populations of a species inhabiting a geographic subdivision of the range of
that species and differing taxonomically from other populations of that species.” Mayr (2002, 90) argued that it is
“a biological fact” that geographic races exist in many animal species, and so, from induction, it is “a biological fact”
that the geographic race itself exists. While Mayr (2002, 91) thought that geographic races exist in humans
(Homo sapiens), the case for the existence of geographic races is best made using non‐human animals.
For instance, in a groundbreaking study, Gonder et al. (2011, 4767) identified three phenotypically similar
subgroups of common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), each of which occupy a subdivision of the geographic range
of common chimps, and whose genetic variation is large enough to pass conventional tests of “differing
taxonomically”. To be specific, some biologists today use a threshold of σ2a≥0:25 in an analysis of molecular variance
(or “AMOVA”) to test whether the genetic variation among two or more conspecific groups is taxonomically
significant (Templeton, 2013, 263).
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An AMOVA is a genetic analysis that divides the total genetic variation in a species (σ2) into genetic variation
among its organisms (σ2c Þ, genetic variation among its local populations of organisms (σ2b), and genetic variation among its groups of local populations (a.k.a. population groups) at a single level of grouping (σ2a); where a local population is a
randomly mating group of organisms. The equation that guides the analysis is below:
σ2 ¼ σ2c þ σ2b þ σ2a (1)
Gonder et al. showed that the total genetic variation among common chimps can be divided in such a way that its
population groups differ taxonomically in virtue of exceeding the σ2a≥0:25 threshold. The AMOVA equation that
Gonder et al. (2011, 4768) found is below:
1 ¼ 0:642 þ 0:057 þ 0:301 (2)
The population groups that Gonder et al. (2011, 4768) used to calculate (2) were Upper Guinea chimps, Gulf of
Guinea chimps, and equatorial Africa chimps. Given thatσ2a ¼ 0:301 and that these three chimp populations exemplify the other essential properties of being a geographic race, it seems unquestionable that geographic races exist in
common chimps, and thus, that the geographic race exists. For a bit of context, the reader might be interested to know
that σ2a ¼ 0:043 for humans when we are subdivided into our most genetically different population groups (Rosenberg, Pritchard, et al., 2002, 2,382).
While the case for geographic race realism might seem airtight, there are some leaks. In particular, some biologists
and philosophers of biology have complained for years that the geographic race is not biologically real because the
threshold used to identify taxonomic difference is biologically arbitrary or subjective.12 For example, there is no
biological theory that justifies picking σ2a≥0:25 as a threshold for subspecific difference. It just as well could have been
0.15, 0.35, or anything else. Furthermore, even if most systematists agree that σ2a≥0:25 is an appropriate threshold to
use, that would give the geographic race a subjective reality at best, as opposed to an “objective” reality (Templeton,
1998, 632–633; Andreasen, 1998, 205).
While this line of attack has been persuasive to many in the literature, I am not convinced. For one, any
quantification of genetic difference in this context is merely a measure of taxonomic difference, not what constitutes
taxonomic difference. In the case of subspecies, what constitutes taxonomic difference is being an incipient species.
So, even if a threshold of genetic difference is biologically arbitrary, that fact does not imply that the geographic race
itself is biologically arbitrary, just that our quantitative tests for subspecific difference are biologically arbitrary. And
they are!
Instead of focusing on the quantity of genetic difference among population groups to measure taxonomic
difference, systematists should look at the quality of genetic difference among population groups. This is because
the genetic difference between two population groups can be very small but biologically important if that difference
is relevant to reproductive compatibility. A good example is the genetic difference among humans and common
chimps. On average, a human's genome differs from a common chimp's genome in only 1.229% of total nucleotides,
however, the small genetic difference between humans and common chimps is enough to sustain a biological species
boundary between the two because humans and common chimps cannot produce viable and fertile offspring
(Yu, Jensen‐Seaman, Chemnick, Ryder, & Li, 2004, 1381).13
In the case of subspecies, a good qualitative genetic test for subspecific difference would be identifying genes for
incomplete hybrid sterility. When two groups can produce viable and fertile hybrids, but viable and fertile hybrids are
limited to a particular type (e.g., a particular sex), that is known as incomplete hybrid sterility. If incomplete hybrid
sterility exists among a set of population groups within a species and the phenomenon has a genetic basis, that is
much better evidence than the current quantitative genetic standard for these groups “differing taxonomically”.
However, a more decisive objection against the biological reality of the geographic race is that geographic races
are not required to be genealogical groups—and by a genealogical group I mean a monophyletic group (or clade), which is
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a group containing all and only an ancestor and all of its descendants, or a paraphyletic group, which is a group
containing all and only an ancestor and some, but not all, of its descendants (Wiley & Lieberman, 2011, 9).14 Since
Darwinian evolutionary theory was incorporated into systematics, most systematists agree that real taxa must be
genealogical groups. The reason why is twofold.
First, most systematists have always agreed that “real” or “natural” taxa are the groups of organisms that nature
has produced (Darwin, 1859/1999, 338; Wiley & Lieberman, 2011, 9). Second, most systematists agree with Darwin's
(1859/1999, 109–110) hypothesis in The Origin of Species that the groups of organisms that nature has produced are
genealogical groups, all of which are genealogically connected in a “great Tree of Life”. So, for most systematists today,
to not require taxa to be genealogical groups is tantamount to not requiring taxa to be real. Moreover, we now have
empirical evidence that geographic races sometimes systematically mismatch the genealogical groups that nature has
produced.
For example, in a surprising meta‐analysis, Zink (2004, 561) discovered that 97% of the geographic races that
systematists have identified in birds (Aves) are not monophyletic groups. Also, it might interest the reader to know that
two of the three geographic races that Gonder et al. (2011, 4768) identified in common chimps are neither
monophyletic nor paraphyletic groups (Kaessmann, Wiebe, & Pääbo, 1999, 1161). Due to the worry that geographic
races are not the groups of organisms that nature has produced, the majority of the remaining defenses of subspecies
realism in the past 20 years have advanced genealogical conceptions of subspecies. Below are the views about what
race is from three of the most discussed defenses of subspecies realism in the past 20 years.15
1. “[R]aces” or “subspecies” are “the smallest population units that function as an evolutionary lineage within a
species” (Templeton, 1998, 632; 2013, 263).
2. “Cladistic subspecies” or “cladistic races” are “monophyletic groups” of “breeding populations” in “well‐defined
species” (Andreasen, 1998, 209; Andreasen, 2005, 95–96).
3. “[R]aces” are “inbred lineages” within a species that originated from “populations once geographically separated”
and that “as a result of the separation, there are differences in superficial phenotypic traits,” and “the distinct phe-
notypes” are maintained when conspecifics from different inbred lineages are brought together due to “incipient
isolating mechanisms” that developed during the period of geographical isolation (Kitcher, 1999, 97; 2007, 303).
Due to space constraints, I will not discuss all three of the major defenses of subspecies realism in the past
20 years. Rather, I will just discuss Andreasen's as representative of the group. Andreasen's argument for the reality
of cladistic race is slightly different from Mayr's argument for the reality of geographic race. Remember that Mayr
claimed that geographic races exist in many animal species, and used that claim to infer that the geographic race exists
as well. In contrast, Andreasen (1998, 200) claims that cladistic races “once existed” in the human species, and she
uses that historical fact to infer that the kind cladistic race has “biological reality”.16
Something that's key to appreciating Andreasen's defense for the biological reality of cladistic race is understand-
ing why she thinks that something that satisfies the essential properties of a cladistic race is biologically real. Basically,
she thinks this because she thinks that cladistic races are groups of organisms produced by nature—in this case by the
natural process of evolution—as opposed to merely being a product of “our classifying activities” in systematics—as
she thinks is the case with geographic races (Andreasen, 1998, 207–209). But even so, Andreasen owes us some
empirical evidence that humans once had cladistic races. For that evidence, Andreasen turns to a well‐known
phylogenetic tree first constructed by the population geneticists Luigi Cavalli‐Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, and
Alberto Piazza, which I have presented in Figure 1 below.
While the details of how Cavalli‐Sforza, Menozzi, and Piazza (1994) constructed the tree in Figure 1 are complex,
all you need to know for this discussion is how to interpret the tree and that the tree has been reproduced over and
over again using different background assumptions.17
As for how to interpret the tree in Figure 1, interpret each edge as a breeding population, each internal vertex as a
point in time when a parent population split into two daughter populations, the root as the time when our species
FIGURE 1 A Phylogenetic tree for nine human breeding populations from Cavalli‐Sforza et al. (1994, 80)
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originated, and each leaf as a more modern (but unspecified) time.18 Furthermore, interpret each edge incident to a
leaf as representing one of nine breeding populations that Cavalli‐Sforza, Menozzi, & Piazza, 1994, 77–79) have pre-
viously determined to be monophyletic groups of breeding populations. Thus, if Cavalli‐Sforza et al.'s tree is accurate,
the human cladistic races that once existed were the following: New Guineans and Australians, Pacific Islanders
(excluding New Guineans), Southeast Asians, Northeast Asians (excluding Arctic Northeast Asians), Arctic Northeast
Asians, Amerindians, Europeans, non‐European Caucasoids, Africans (excluding North Africans), non‐Africans, and
six other monophyletic groups of breeding populations that I will leave as an exercise for the reader to identify.19
In the literature, there have been three major objections to Andreasen's racial realism. The first is the semantic
mismatch objection. Roughly, this objection states that cladistic subspecies are not races because what constitutes a
cladistic subspecies deviates too much from “the folk concept of race” and “our folk taxonomy” of races (Glasgow,
2003, 459–460).20 For instance, notice that according to Figure 1, neither Asians nor Hispanics (a.k.a. Latinos) were
ever human cladistic races. However, some critics consider these omissions to be a “central flaw” of Andreasen's racial
realism (Glasgow, 2003, 459; Glasgow, 2009, 96). In addition, according to Figure 1, there were many human cladistic
races that ordinary people have never recognized as races. One example is Pacific Islanders, Southeast Asians, and
the parent population of these two. Finally, notice that, according to the concept of a cladistic race, cladistic races
need not be distinguishable by visible phenotypes. However, that is also a fatal flaw of Andreasen's racial realism
for many critics since they see races to be distinguishable by visible phenotypes by definition (Glasgow, 2009, 94
Zack, 2002, 76).
Unfortunately, Andreasen wavered in her response to the semantic mismatch objection. Sometimes she
responded to it by saying there is “quite a bit of agreement” between the human cladistic races that once existed
and some ordinary racial schemes, especially the one used on the 2000 US census questionnaire (Andreasen, 2004,
437). Other times, Andreasen (2005, 105) responded to it by saying that human cladistic races need not match folk
races or folk concepts of race in order to be races because systematists are simply using “race” differently from
ordinary people. The correct response to the semantic mismatch objection is Andreasen's second response.
As Sally Haslanger (2012, 299) has rightly pointed out, there are no “language police” for the word “race” or any
other word. Words get their meanings from linguistic communities conventionally assigning meanings to them, and as
such, any word can have a different meaning across different linguistic communities that intend to use the word
differently. Furthermore, and as I have discussed previously, systematists do intend to use “race” differently from
ordinary people. They intend to use “race” as a synonym for “subspecies”. So, how ordinary people use “race” is
irrelevant to whether Andreasen's defense of racial realism succeeds.
A much stronger objection to Andreasen's racial realism is the treeness objection (Gannett, 2004, 330; Templeton,
2013, 264). Remember that Andreasen relies entirely on Cavalli‐Sforza et al.'s phylogenetic tree as evidence that any
cladistic races ever existed. However, this is a controversial source of evidence because it's controversial that the
evolutionary history of human populations has a tree structure. In graph theory, a tree is a connected graph with no
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loops or cycles (Diestel, 2000, 12). Since Cavalli‐Sforza, Menozzi, & Piazza, 1994, 80) represented each human breed-
ing population as a single edge before the time t represented by the leaves, that assumption seems to presuppose that
(T1) each population was reproductively isolated at t and was reproductively isolated at all times from t to when it
evolved (Gannett, 2004, 329). Since Cavalli‐Sforza, Menozzi, & Piazza, 1994, 80) represented the evolutionary rela-
tionships among human breeding populations before t with a tree, that assumption seems to presuppose that (T2)
before t, no population evolved from fusion or hybridization, and every population evolved from branching or anagen-
esis (Gannett, 2004, 329).
Together (T1) and (T2) constitute the necessary and sufficient conditions for an evolutionary history of popula-
tions having a tree structure, and the treeness objection states that human cladistic races have never existed because
the evolutionary history of human breeding populations has never had a tree structure (Gannett, 2004, 330;
Templeton, 2013, 264). Furthermore, if human cladistic races have never existed, then Andreasen lacks the evidence
to say that the cladistic race exists. Also, the critics here do more than make bold claims.
One notable critic, Alan Templeton, devised a test for detecting whether an evolutionary history of populations
has a tree structure—a test called “Multi‐locus nested clade phylogenetic analysis (ML‐NCPA)”—and used that test
on a sample of human breeding populations similar to Cavalli‐Sforza et al.'s sample (Templeton, 2013, 269).21 His
result was that “ML‐NCPA strongly rejects the null hypotheses of no gene flow and no admixture under the null
hypothesis that isolated lineages did exist [in humans]” (Templeton, 2013, 269). In other words, Templeton found that
(T1) is false for every breeding population represented in Figure 1.
While the treeness objection is relevant and formidable, it is not the fatal blow that many race scholars take it to
be against Andreasen's racial realism.22 This is for two reasons. First, it can be true that the evolutionary history of
human breeding populations has never had a tree structure and false that human cladistic races have never existed.
Second, Cavalli‐Sforza et al. do not need to presuppose that the evolutionary history of human breeding populations
has a tree structure in order to reliably use a tree to reconstruct the evolutionary history of human breeding popula-
tions. Both of these claims may sound unbelievable, so let me explain.
Suppose that the evolutionary history of human breeding populations has never had a tree structure. Then, that
implies that there has never been a time when both (T1) and (T2) were true for human breeding populations. But even
if the latter is true, why does that matter for knowing whether human cladistic races ever existed? Andreasen (1998,
209) defines a “breeding population” as “a set of local populations linked to one another by reproductive ties that are,
for the most part, reproductively isolated from other such populations.” Thus, breeding populations can exist without
being completely reproductively isolated from one another. In that case, (T1) being false does not imply that human
breeding populations never existed.
But also, a monophyletic group of breeding populations can exist even if some of its constituent breeding popu-
lations evolved from fusion or hybridization. For instance, some evolutionary biologists take Cavalli‐Sforza et al.'s tree
to be evidence that East Asians evolved from fusion between Northeast (including Arctic Northeast) and Southeast
Asians (Karafet et al., 2001, 625). If that is true, and if Southeast Asian is an extinct breeding population and East Asian
is an extant breeding population, then {Southeast Asian, East Asian} is a monophyletic group of breeding populations
where one population in the group (East Asian) evolved from fusion. So, (T2) being false for human breeding popula-
tions does not imply that monophyletic groups of breeding populations never existed in humans. Provided that H. sapi-
ens is a well‐defined species, all of this shows that it is possible that monophyletic groups of breeding populations in a
well‐defined species (cladistic races) once existed in our species even if the evolutionary history of human breeding
populations never had a tree structure.
Of course, even if human cladistic races could have existed without the evolutionary history of human breeding
populations being a tree structure, the question now becomes how can Andreasen reliably use Cavalli‐Sforza et al.'
s tree as evidence that human cladistic races once existed? The latter is especially perplexing since we now know (from
Templeton's analysis) that the evolutionary history of human breeding populations does not have a tree structure. The
worry here is that since Cavalli‐Sforza et al.'s use of a tree to reconstruct the evolutionary history of human breeding
populations appears to presuppose a tree structure for that history, and since the evolutionary history of human
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breeding populations doesn't have a tree structure, it seems to be a mistake to use Cavalli‐Sforza et al.'s tree as
reliably representing the underlying evolutionary history.
However, Andreasen's reliance on Cavalli‐Sforza et al.'s tree to infer that human cladistic races once existed is not
problematic simply because we know that the evolutionary history of human breeding populations does not have a
tree structure. The latter is because Cavalli‐Sforza et al.'s tree is an idealization that is strictly speaking inaccurate,
but accurate enough to be useful in detecting major branchings in the evolutionary history of human populations.23
For instance, the split on Cavalli‐Sforza et al.'s tree that separates Africans from non‐Africans is very robust across
phylogenetic studies and was 98% robust in Cavalli‐Sforza et al.'s bootstrap analysis (Cavalli‐Sforza, Menozzi, &
Piazza, 1994, 80; Cavalli‐Sforza & Feldman, 2003, 269).24 As such, it is not a bad inference at all to say that, at some
point in the past, non‐Africans and Africans were two human breeding populations (in Andreasen's sense) that evolved
via branching from a single parent population. Furthermore, if at least that much is true, then Andreasen can say with
confidence that humans once had at least two cladistic races: Africans and non‐Africans. With that said, the more
recent splits on Cavalli‐Sforza et al.'s tree were less robust in their bootstrap analysis and are less robust across
phylogenetic studies, and so, should be viewed with skepticism.25
Perhaps the strongest objection to Andreasen's racial realism is that she hasn't provided a convincing case for any
cladistic races being biologically real (and thus, real) even if it's true that humans once had groups of populations that
satisfy the essential properties of a cladistic race. We can call this the biological reality objection against Andreasen's
racial realism.26 There are a number of concerns that one can have about the biological reality of cladistic races,
but here is one.
Andreasen (1998, 209) has given us no reason to believe that “for the most part, reproductively isolated” is not
merely a “conventional” boundary for breeding populations that she invented as opposed to a biologically real boundary
(Andreasen, 1998, 209; Mncube, 2015, 168). In particular, there is nothing about Andreasen's boundary for breeding
populations that guarantees that breeding populations will be genealogical groups.27 For example, suppose that A, B,
X, and Y are all distinct local populations that exist throughout a time period t. Also, suppose that the genealogical rela-
tionships among them are as follows: A budded from B and X budded from Y.28 Now suppose that these are all of the
gene flow events that occurred throughout t that involved at least one of these local populations: there were four gene
flow events between B and X, three gene flow events between X and Y, and four gene flow events between A and Y.
Given the above assumptions, it follows that, during t, ~57% of all gene flow events involving a member of {B, X}
occurred with another member of {B, X}, and ~43% of all gene flow events involving a member of {B, X} occurred with a
member of {A, Y}. Furthermore, an analogous pattern holds for the members of {A, Y}. Since both {B, X} and {A, Y} are
“for the most part, reproductively isolated” groups of “local populations” that share “reproductive ties,” each one
counts as a distinct breeding population during t according to Andreasen (1998, 209). However, neither {B, X} nor
{A, Y} are genealogical groups of local populations! Rather, the genealogical groups of local populations in this scenario
are {A, B} and {X, Y}. Furthermore, the above scenario is not just an imaginative hypothetical. This very systematic error
has been discovered in one of the most popular computer programs that population geneticists use to detect breeding
populations (Kalinowski, 2011).
Since there is nothing about Andreasen's boundary for breeding populations that guarantees that breeding
populations are genealogical groups, the cladistic race suffers the same fate as the geographic race. Neither is real
from the viewpoint of systematics after the Darwinian revolution. So far, I hope I have shown how difficult it has been
for scholars to defend subspecies realism. The difficulty is essentially that we have not yet been able to find a way of
dividing a species into naturally occurring incipient species as opposed to merely conventional groups.29 However, even
if it turns out that the subspecies is not real, it could be true that the ecotypic race is real.
2.2 | Races as Ecotypes
In ecology (the study of interactions among living things), “race” is sometimes used as a synonym for “ecotype,”
where an “ecotype” or “ecotypic race” is a group of organisms “(within a species) genetically adapted to a certain
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environment” (Pigliucci & Kaplan, 2003, 1163). The term “ecotype” was coined by GöteTuresson in 1922, but the idea
of an ecological race was introduced by Benjamin Walsh in 1864.30 In the race theory literature, Massimo Pigliucci,
Jonathan Kaplan, and John Dupré have all argued that the ecotypic race is real.31 However, I will focus on Pigliucci
and Kaplan's (2003) defense as representative of the group.
In Pigliucci and Kaplan's (2003) defense, they use Mayr's strategy for defending the reality of the geographic race.
In other words, since ecotypic races are biologically real (and thus real) in many species, the ecotypic race is real as
well. In particular, Pigliucci and Kaplan (2003, 1162–1163, 1170) argue that ecotypic races are found in an evergreen
species, a bacterial species, two butterfly species, a wasp species, and even humans. Furthermore, according to
Pigliucci and Kaplan (2003, 1163, 1169), ecotypic races are biologically real (and thus real) because they are
“biologically meaningful” conspecific groups in virtue of being “ecologically distinct,” and this is so despite the fact that
ecotypes are not necessarily “incipient species” or even “phylogenetically distinct”. Pigliucci and Kaplan (2003, 1168)
use “fair‐skinned people” as an example of an ecotypic race in the human species.
We now know, largely due to the work of Nina Jablonski and her colleagues, that lightly pigmented skin is an
adaptation in the human species. It turns out that lightly pigmented skin makes surviving to reproductive age easier
for humans in environments with low ultraviolet B (UVB) sunlight (e.g., Alaska, Northern Europe, Greenland, Siberia,
etc.) because it allows human skin cells to produce more vitamin D3 (a vital nutrient) from sunlight than they would
be able to produce being heavily pigmented (Jablonski & Chaplin, 2010, 8962). Even though humans in low UVB
sunlight environments have always obtained significant amounts of vitamin D3 from their diets, it still helps to have
light skin.32
Thus, over time, lightly pigmented skin spread widely among people residing in low UVB sunlight environments as
an adaptation for survival (Jablonski & Chaplin, 2000, 74). Some examples of human populations with high frequencies
of people with lightly pigmented skin are the Saami people of Scandinavia, the Chukchi people of Siberia, and the
Greenlandic Inuit (Jablonski, 2012, 57, 207). In addition to these evolutionary facts, we also know that lightly
pigmented skin originated as a genetic mutation in the indigenous people to low UVB sunlight environments
thousands of years ago (Jablonski, 2012, 42–45).33 Thus, Pigliucci and Kaplan (2003, 1168) take “fair‐skinned people”
to be a clear example of a group of organisms in the same species who are genetically adapted to a specific
environment (an ecotypic race), and thus, as evidence that the ecotypic race is real.
But is it? There have been more than a few worries presented in the literature about the reality of the ecotypic
race. For one, some critics worry that there is no biologically non‐arbitrary reason to use some genetic adaptations to
identify ecotypic races, like skin color, but not others, like, say, lactase persistence (Andreasen, 2007, 471; Templeton,
2013, 269).34 Furthermore, some critics say that replying to the latter objection by saying that each genetic adaptation
to a particular environment can, in principle, be used to identify a distinct ecotypic race amounts to “trivializing the
concept of race” (Andreasen, 2007, 471). In addition, some critics worry that since many animal and plant traits are
continuous (e.g., stem height) as opposed to discontinuous (e.g., finger number), thinking in terms of ecotypes will lead
to unnatural ecological classifications. For example, Templeton (2013, 269) points out that since skin color is a
continuous trait in humans, there is no biologically non‐arbitrary way to divide people into discrete skin color
ecotypes, such as “fair‐skinned people”.
While these objections appear to be fatal to ecotype realism, they are not. I will handle the continuous trait worry
first. Templeton is absolutely right that “fair‐skinned people” is not an ecotype and we should be worried about any
attempt to divide a species into ecotypes based on continuously varying traits. However, all that objection does is
problematize one example that Pigliucci and Kaplan provide for the existence of ecotypes. There are plenty more
to choose from, even in humans. For example, consider the sickle cell trait in humans. It is a discontinuous trait,
and it is a genetic adaptation (due to balancing selection) to a specific environment—namely, environments where
malaria is endemic.
With respect to the first two objections, the mistake here is thinking that there is some common “concept of race”
among biologists that makes it a problem that ecotypes can be based on any genetic adaptation. Sure, this may seem
weird from the viewpoint of a subspecies conception of race. For instance, a single organism can be wholly a member
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of many different ecotypes at the same time due to simultaneously possessing many different genetic adaptations, but
a single organism cannot be wholly a member of more than one subspecies at a time given how biologists think of
subspecies.35 However, all that shows is how different an ecotype is from a subspecies, not that there is something
conceptually confused about the idea of an ecotype! In fact, biologists allow a single organism to be wholly a member
of many different homozygotes at the same time, so why not ecotypes?36
A better worry about the ecotype is whether it is a kind of thing that nature produced (a natural kind) as opposed
to a kind of thing that ecologists simply made up. I am sympathetic to this worry for the simple fact that it is far from
clear that the species category itself is a natural kind as opposed to a kind of thing that systematists simply made up.37
So, any attempt to present an infraspecific division of organisms (e.g., subspecies, ecotypes, etc.) as “natural” should be
met with skepticism. With that said, there are deflationary ways to identify biologically real things, and according to
those ways, the strongest arguments for the biological reality of race in a biological use of “race” come from Pigliucci,
Kaplan, and others on behalf of the ecotypic race.38
3 | CONCLUSION
In this article, I have summarized what “racial realism” means among metaphysicians of race and I have discussed a few
representative attempts to defend racial realism of a particular type in the last 20 years. The type of racial realism I
focused on was racial realism from the viewpoint of biologists' use of “race”. Now, let us move on to exploring the
landscape of racial realism defenses when “race” is understood in an ordinary way.
ENDNOTES 1 As is customary in the metaphysics of race, I will use the term “exists” as synonymous to the phrase “actually exists”. Thus, what's real from the viewpoint of metaphysicians of race is just what actually exists. However, note that this practice is not uncontroversial in metaphysics. For instance, Lewis (1986) has defended the position that reality consists in what actually exists and what possibly exists.
2 For example, in a series of articles, Robin Andreasen defends “the biological reality of race” but remains “agnostic” about “the existence of races today” (Andreasen, 2000, S653, S659). However, note that Andreasen's biological realism about race still accepts Glasgow's core notion of racial realism.
3 In metaphysics, a kind is usually understood to be a traditional kind or a cluster kind. A “traditional” kind is a group whose members are determined by a set of “necessary and sufficient membership conditions” (Boyd, 1999, 142). An example would be the element gold. Any atom with exactly 79 protons is an instance of gold. A “cluster kind” is a group whose members are not determined by a set of necessary and sufficient membership conditions, but rather, by possessing “most” of a family of non‐accidentally co‐occurring properties (Boyd, 1999, 143). For example, there is no set of necessary and sufficient membership conditions for being a member of the species Escherichia coli (a.k.a. E. coli). Rather, something is a member of E. coli if it exemplifies most of the following properties: gram‐negative, facultative anaerobic, rod‐shaped, non‐spore forming, and lactose fermenting.
4 See Appiah (1992) for a similar line of reasoning for rejecting racial realism.
5 For some examples, see Wilson and Brown (1953), Mishler (1999), and Maglo (2011).
6 For some examples, see Andreasen (1998), Templeton (1998), Kitcher (1999), Mayr (2002), Pigliucci and Kaplan (2003), Dupré (2008), and Coyne (2009).
7 For examples, see Outlaw (1996), Sundstrom (2002), Alcoff (2006), Haslanger (2012), Taylor (2013), Spencer (2014), and Hardimon (2017).
8 For examples, see Appiah (1992), Blum (2002), Corlett (2003), and Glasgow (2009). However, it's worth noting that Glasgow has since changed his mind. See Glasgow and Woodward (2015) for Glasgow's new realist stance.
9 Subspecies are also called “species in statu nascendi,” which amounts to the same thing as incipient species (Dobzhansky, 1943, 441).
10 I say “almost all” because Darwin (1859/1999, 395) was agnostic about how the original species (or species) originated. Also, please read all of my remarks about Darwinian evolutionary theory as contextualized to earth. Darwinian evolutionary theory is a theory about the origin of terrestrial species.
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11 However, see Coyne (2009) for another defense of geographic race realism. Also, it's worth pointing out that Theodosius Dobzhansky was a huge defender of geographic race realism in the twentieth century. See Gannett (2013) for a thorough discussion of Dobzhansky's many different defenses of racial realism.
12 This objection was first made by Wilson and Brown (1953). But for reiterations, see Andreasen (1998) and Templeton (1998).
13 This point has been made before by Mosley (1999, 80) and Boxill (2004, 211).
14 For example, see Andreasen (1998, 204–205) for this objection. 15 While Kitcher never explicitly calls his definition of “race” a definition of “subspecies,” he does appeal to “incipient isolating
mechanisms” in his definition of “race” (Kitcher, 1999, 97). Kitcher (1999, 92) also claims to be capturing “how biologists employ the notion of race” and engages with the geographic race concepts of Theodosius Dobzhansky and Ernst Mayr (Kitcher, 1999, 90–91). So, Kitcher's concept of race is at least close enough to the notion of a subspecies that it's reasonable to classify his work on race with the work of subspecies realists.
16 Interestingly, and as I said earlier in this article, Andreasen (2000, footnote 4) is “agnostic” about the existence of human cladistic races today.
17 For a detailed discussion about how this tree was built, see Cavalli‐Sforza et al. (1994, 7–9, 24–30, 73–81). For a discussion of this tree's robustness, see Cavalli‐Sforza and Feldman (2003).
18 This last point is important. As Andreasen (1998, 200) rightly points out, it's implausible that these leaves represent the present day due to the rampant gene flow among present‐day human populations. However, it's more believable that these leaves represent the time when previously isolated human populations began interbreeding, which could be, say, 1492.
19 See Cavalli‐Sforza, Menozzi, & Piazza, 1994, 79) for textual evidence that this is how one should interpret each of these population terms.
20 For critics who launch a semantic mismatch objection against Andreasen's defense of racial realism, see Zack (2002, 76) and Glasgow (2003, 2009, 91–97). Also, see Glasgow (2003, 2009, 97–102) and Appiah (2006, 366) for semantic mis- match objections against Kitcher's defense of racial realism.
21 The reason why it's prudent to conduct a test for tree structure on a data set is because some tree reconstruction methods, such as the very one that Cavalli‐Sforza et al. (1994) used, will produce a tree from a data set regardless of whether the data set represents an evolutionary history with a tree structure.
22 Besides Gannett and Templeton, see Maglo (2011, 378–379), Hochman (2014, 84–85), and Kopec (2014, 1060–1063) for more race scholars who see the treeness objection to be a fatal blow to Andreasen's racial realism.
23 The type of idealization that I think Cavalli‐Sforza et al. are using is what Michael Weisberg (2007, 640) calls a “Galilean idealization,” which is the deliberate introduction of a distortion into a theory in order to make it “computationally tractable”. See Cavalli‐Sforza, Menozzi, & Piazza, 1994, 81) for textual evidence that this is what's going on.
24 A bootstrap analysis for a phylogenetic tree is an analysis of the degree of confidence one has in each branching event represented by the tree being accurate. See Cavalli‐Sforza, Menozzi, & Piazza, 1994, 80–81) for an example of bootstrap analysis.
25 For instance, the split between European and non‐European Caucasoids has been rejected by Li et al. (2008, 1101) and Tishkoff et al. (2009, 1036).
26 For examples of critics who have entertained this worry about Andreasen's racial realism, see Spencer (2012, 202–203) and Mncube (2015).
27 This concern can be extrapolated from Spencer (2012, 203). Also, for a general objection to using breeding relations instead of genealogical relationships to define biological taxa, see Velasco (2008).
28 Budding and splitting are the two types of branching evolution. In a splitting, the parent does not survive the evolution of its offspring. An example is when an E. coli bacterium undergoes binary fission to produce two new bacteria. However, in a budding the parent survives. An example is when a fallen branch from a California redwood sprouts into a new tree. Of course, for each of these examples, some modification must occur (e.g., mutation) in order for the branching to count as evolution.
29 Actually, see Kitcher (2007) for a retraction that there ever were any naturally occurring races out there. He's now a pragmatist about which biological kinds are real.
30 For a discussion of the history of the idea of an ecological race, see Spencer (2009, 14).
31 For evidence, see Pigliucci and Kaplan (2003), Dupré (2008), and Pigliucci (2013).
32 For example, the traditional diet of Greenlandic Inuit relies heavily on eating the blubber of marine mammals (e.g., seals, walruses, etc.) which is rich in vitamin D3 (Jablonski, 2012, 56).
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33 With that said, human skin pigmentation is controlled by multiple genes and we don't yet know the identity of all of the genes involved (Jablonski, 2012, 42–45).
34 Lactase persistence is the trait in humans of being able to digest lactose up to and throughout adulthood. 35 This is one major conceptual problem for the idea of an ecotypic race according to Andreasen (2007, 471). 36 A homozygote relative to a locus L is any organism that possesses alleles at L and only the same alleles at L. 37 For some defenses of the unnaturalness of the species category, see Mishler (1999) as well as Barker and Velasco (2013). 38 For some deflationary notions of biologically real kinds or particulars, see Glasgow (2009, 82), Spencer (2012, 2014, 1036),
and Hardimon (2017, 94).
ORCID
Quayshawn Spencer http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6896-164X
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Quayshawn Spencer received his PhD in philosophy and an MS in biology from Stanford University in 2009 and
2008, respectively. His dissertation questioned whether the cladistic race was biologically real using a novel way
of identifying scientifically real kinds. His master's project in biology was to investigate whether certain Eurema
butterfly species have been misclassified by systematic entomologists using mitochondrial DNA and newer phy-
logenetic tree reconstruction algorithms. Spencer is currently an Assistant Professor in the department of philos-
ophy at the University of Pennsylvania. His research in the philosophy of race, philosophy of biology, and
philosophy of science has primarily appeared in Philosophy of Science, Philosophical Studies, and Studies in History
and Philosophy of Science. Spencer also has two books under contract with Oxford University Press that engage
with topics in the metaphysics of race.
How to cite this article: Spencer Q. Racial realism I: Are biological races real? Philosophy Compass. 2018;13:
e12468. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12468