Abstract

Racism confronts contemporary social life with an apparent paradox: Moral reason surely condemns antipathetic discriminatory beliefs and practices. Racism is clearly of this sort. But racist ideas and acts, generally considered irrational, pervaded forms of social life simultaneously with the widespread admission that all human beings are by nature rational. Most try to resolve this apparent paradox by insisting that racists fail to realize their rational potential, and to that degree are immoral. Focus by social scientists on the sociology and psychology of 'race relations' and fascination with the mythological appeals of racism have entrenched the presumption that racism is inherently irrational. Nevertheless, those selfsame philosophers concerned to widen the cast of rationality expressed also virulently racist beliefs and arguments. This apparent paradox cannot be resolved simply on the basis of racism's irrationality. Disturbing features of our moral ideas and relations are uncovered by pursuing the other horn of the dilemma. Analysis of our moral conceptions and of the history of racism reveals that the language central to modern expression of our moral relations is coterminously the language of expression of racial relations, hence of racism. We shift focus from social scientists' prevailing concerns with phenomenal appearances of race relations to the intellectual roots of racism. 'Race' became popular scientifically only during the Enlightenment. This rise in 'race conciousness' encouraged the peculiarly modern development of racism. We show that racism's rise was determined both by contemporary forms of colonial exploitation and by the establishment of modern biological and anthropological science. The conceptual media by which racism can be expressed are embedded in intellectual discourse. Without the scientific and philosophical discourses of 'race,' racist discriminations would be inconceivable. Racist forms of social relation, action and belief were rendered possible only by a dominant, hence rational, mode of representing the natural and social world--scientific, philosophical, moral, aesthetic, economic, political, legal. The structure and grammar of the discourse are laid out, and an alternative moral discourse is outlined to compete against racist discourse and encourage non- and anti-racist acts