{"id":5444,"date":"2017-06-09T16:24:43","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T16:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/06\/09\/can-one-change-ones-race-2\/"},"modified":"2017-06-09T16:24:43","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T16:24:43","slug":"can-one-change-ones-race-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/06\/09\/can-one-change-ones-race-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Can One Change One’s Race?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I raise the title question in the context of my recent study of  Rebecca Tuvel's controversial article, "In Defense of Transracialism" (Hypatia<\/em>, vol. 32., no. 2, Spring 2017, pp. 263-278). It raises a number of fascinating and important questions. I will argue that even if one can change one's sex, by having one's body altered by surgery and hormonal 'therapy,' one cannot change one's race, and to think otherwise is to equivocate on 'identity.' <\/span><\/p>\n

The Question and One of its Presuppositions<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Can one change one's race?<\/em> Suppose your parents are both white. Can you do anything, or have anything done to you, to become black, say? Common sense says: of course not!  But common sense is subject to philosophical scrutiny.<\/span><\/p>\n

Note first that our question rests on a presupposition, namely, that race has some sort<\/em> of reality. It presupposes the existence of at least two different races, the racial terminus a quo<\/em> and the racial terminus ad quem<\/em>. In plain English, the presupposition is that there is the race one is and the different race one wants to become. So race has to be real. For if race had no reality whatsoever, there could be no real change from one race  to the other. It is clear, then, that one cannot be an eliminativist about race and racial differences while holding that one can change one's race. There would be nothing one was changing from and nothing one was changing to.<\/span><\/p>\n

Race and Money <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

But from the fact that race is real it does not follow that race is not to some extent socially constructed or construed. For money is surely real without prejudice to its being a social construct. That money is intersubjectively real is shown by the fact that there is a real and important difference between losing and not losing a thousand dollars. That money is a social construct is shown by the fact that without homo oeconomicus<\/em> there would be no money. Gold ore is not money, nor are gold coins in a human-free world. And the same goes for counterfeit and  non-counterfeit Confederate dollars.  They are not legal tender because there is no social system now in existence that accepts them as such.  As interesting artifacts of the Confederacy, Confederate notes  of course have considerable monetary value. But they themselves are not money. You can't use Confederate notes to buy<\/em> Confederate notes.  (Buying is essentially different from bartering and trading.) You would have to use 'real' money such as U. S. dollars or Euros or Bitcoin. What makes a bit of metal or a piece of paper real money is its acceptance and use by humans as a means of exchange.<\/span><\/p>\n

So it is only within a system of social relations<\/em> that money is money. It follows that it is not the intrinsic properties of coins and notes and cognate instruments such as their size, shape, mass, and color that make these instruments money. <\/span><\/p>\n

Money is real; money is a social construct; ergo, some real things are social constructs. So it might be that race is real despite being a social construct. But we need to dig deeper.<\/span><\/p>\n

Money doesn't grow on trees. It doesn't occur in nature like leaves on trees. Human animals do occur in nature and grow from other human animals, their parents.  A human animal does not have to be accepted as human by other humans to be a human animal. Think of a baby human adopted and cared for by wolves. The biology of that individual is not a social construct. It is no more a social construct than the gold ore of which gold coins are made. The coin is money in virtue of socio-economic relations; the gold as metal is independent of the socio-economic nexus. The same goes for human organisms. They cannot be socialized apart from society, but they can be the biological individuals they are apart from society. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now sex and race are grounded in biology; race therefore cannot be a social construct in the way money is if it is a social construct at all.  Granted, racial theories and classifications are social constructs. But what they theorize about and classify cannot be plausibly viewed as a social construct.  Otherwise there couldn't be false theories or mis-classifications. Here, then, are some datanic starting points to be presumed epistemically innocent until proven guilty.<\/span><\/p>\n