Folk Racial Classification and Pursuit of Medical Knowledge

The goal of this symposium will be to explore whether any folk racial classification is appropriate to use in medical research from the viewpoint of reliable knowledge acquisition and potential ethical implications. A basic assumption of this symposium is that given the epistemic and ethically value-laden aims of medicine, it's inappropriate to decouple the epistemic and ethical aspects of this question. A special focus will be paid to two topics: whether any folk racial classification is a reliable proxy for medically relevant human genetic diversity, and whether using folk racial classification in medical research will cause more harm than good. There will be four presenters: Michael Hardimon, Shelbi Meissner, Quayshawn Spencer, and Sean Valles, each of whom will address the symposium question in a unique way since Hardimon is a philosopher of race, Valles is a philosopher of medicine, Spencer is a philosopher of biology, and Meissner is a feminist epistemologist. The insights gained from this symposium will be valuable to philosophers of medicine and biology as well as medical scientists.