Michael Hardimon (University of California, San Diego)
Recent philosophers have argued that the folk concept race can be placed on an empirically and conceptually sound footing. Where does this leave folk racial classification — i.e., classification into particular races (black, white, Asian) from the standpoint of medical knowledge? I will argue that the legitimacy of the folk concept of race does not entail that folk racial classification provides reliable markers of medically relevant alleles but that the use of such classification remains indispensable nonetheless for the purpose of tracking the health effects of racism.
