Abstract

We examine the philosophy of race from the perspective of the identified problems with such a philosophy – domain problems, deference problems and mismatch problems. Any philosophy of race should consider at least two domains of human endeavor – the social and the natural. In most cases the social domain defers to the natural domain for a biological explanation for race. Some researchers suggest that there is an impasse in the natural domain that keeps the door open for a biological explanation of race. We examine this purported impasse and conclude that there is a complete lack of scientific support for the existence of human races, and that hence the impasse is a mirage. The inference of no biological races is not, however, a non-result. The consequent lack of support for biological races can be acknowledged by social scientists in formulating their social domain-oriented ontology of race.