A racial group is a category used to distinguish people from each other. These groups are based on physical characteristics (like skin color or facial features) and shared social or cultural identities, ancestral origins, or other traits that can be observed. Individuals may be categorized in more than one racial group, and some people choose to identify with multiple groups. Some diseases, such as cancer, are more common among members of certain racial groups.
The concept of race is a central topic in moral, political, and legal philosophy. Some scholars focus on the broader conceptual and methodological questions of how to think about race, while others normatively assess specific forms of racial inequality, such as affirmative action, racial descriptive representation, residential racial segregation, and racially discriminatory policing.
Race is a social construct that reflects the complex dynamics of the human experience. Many different disciplines, including anthropology and history, have long understood that the distinctions between distinct human communities are the result of historical and cultural interventions rather than innate biological differences.
Scholarly work in genetics and other scientific fields in the late 20th century has further affirmed that discrete or essentialist races do not exist. However, scholarly debate continues regarding whether reproductive isolation—either during evolution or through modern practices barring miscegenation—may have generated enough genetic distinctiveness to justify the existence of non-discrete, biologically meaningful groups of humans that share not only physical phenotypes but also clusters of genetic material.
A key question here is how to balance the claims of those who believe that discrete, innate races do not exist against the assertions of those who argue for the continued importance of race in society. Some philosophers adopt an eliminativist approach, which is the view that racial categories do not correspond to any natural referents and therefore must be eliminated (Mallon 2006).
Others endorse a construtivist position on race, which holds that while the term “race” has no objective referent in biology, it is possible to define observable, measurable human characteristics as belonging to a racial group and that these racial groups can be distinguished from each other. This approach is supported by the fact that genetic studies can identify racial clusters, which have the appearance of natural biological boundaries.
For these scholars, the racial groups defined by science can serve as a useful reference point for discussion of human difference and a framework for understanding and tackling racial inequality. But the idea of race is still deeply entrenched in American culture, and a significant percentage of Americans report that being white has helped their economic and professional success. This has led to a polarization of opinion on how to handle the issue of race in our country. Some support policies that enshrine the idea of race as a legitimate category of distinction, while others reject it completely. Both approaches raise difficult moral and ethical questions for the field of moral philosophy.