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Preference, Principle, and Political Casuistry

Eric D. Knowles and Peter H. Ditto

in Ideology, Psychology, and Law

To say that someone is a person of principle is high praise; to declare that he or she is driven by personal preference is a damning critique. This chapter examines judgments of preference and ... More

To say that someone is a person of principle is high praise; to declare that he or she is driven by personal preference is a damning critique. This chapter examines judgments of preference and principle from a social-psychological perspective, arguing that they reflect lay-psychological hypotheses concerning the causes of behavior. It is argued that judgments are rarely purely principled or purely preference-based. Rather, a hybrid or casuistic model is proposed, positing that principles (for example, general intellectual commitments) often guide judgments after having been selected to cohere with one’s preferences (or affective biases) concerning the outcome. Examples of casuistic judgments are examined from the domains of life-and-death decisions, legal reasoning, and racial thinking. The chapter closes with a discussion of the normative status of casuistic judgment.Less

Introduction

Justin E. H. Smith

in Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference: Race in Early Modern Philosophy

This introductory chapter argues that modern racial thinking could not have taken the form it did if it had not been able to piggyback, so to speak, on conceptual innovations in the way science was ... More

This introductory chapter argues that modern racial thinking could not have taken the form it did if it had not been able to piggyback, so to speak, on conceptual innovations in the way science was beginning to approach the diversity of the natural world, and in particular of the living world. It also points out an oft-neglected aspect of the scope and aims of the natural and social sciences: the emergence of racial categories, of categories of kinds of humans, which may in large part be understood as an overextension of the project of biological classification that was proving so successful in the same period.Less

From Lineage to Biogeography

Justin E. H. Smith

in Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference: Race in Early Modern Philosophy

This chapter turns to François Bernier's contribution to the history of racial thinking. This French physician and traveler is often credited with being the key innovator of the modern race concept. ... More

This chapter turns to François Bernier's contribution to the history of racial thinking. This French physician and traveler is often credited with being the key innovator of the modern race concept. While some rigorous scholarship has recently appeared questioning Bernier's significance, his racial theory is seldom placed in his context as a Gassendian natural philosopher who was, in particular, intent to bring his own brand of modern, materialistic philosophy to bear in his experiences in the Moghul Empire in Persia and northern India. The chapter argues that Bernier's principal innovation was to effectively decouple the concept of race from considerations of lineage, and instead to conceptualize it in biogeographical terms in which the precise origins or causes of the original differences of human physical appearance from region to region remain underdetermined.Less

Conclusion

Justin E. H. Smith

in Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference: Race in Early Modern Philosophy

This concluding chapter links antiquarian and contemporary conceptions of race, though at the same time noting that there can be no easy distinction between the two. It shows that while there may be ... More

This concluding chapter links antiquarian and contemporary conceptions of race, though at the same time noting that there can be no easy distinction between the two. It shows that while there may be transhistorical and innate predispositions to divide human society into a fixed number of essentialized subgroups, it would be extremely hasty to suppose that these “kinks” of the human mind are somehow fixed in the human brain. Between any possible predisposition and the actual modern history of thinking about race, there is a tremendous amount of room for conceptualizing alternative paths our deep-seated propensities for thinking about human diversity might have taken, and could still yet take.Less

Race and Anti-Semitism

Frank M. Turner

Richard A. Lofthouse (ed.)

in European Intellectual History from Rousseau to Nietzsche

This chapter examines the emergence of racial or racialist thinking. Beginning in the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, racial or racialist thinking emerged as an articulated ... More

This chapter examines the emergence of racial or racialist thinking. Beginning in the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, racial or racialist thinking emerged as an articulated set of ideas which served as a means of interpreting history, defining social problems, explaining cultural difference, and accounting for different levels of economic development. It was only in the nineteenth century that race became an ideological factor in the articulated defense of the institutions of slavery, imperialism, anti-Semitism, and nationhood. The ideas associated with science, race, and anti-Semitism were normally associated with three areas of science: evolution, eugenics, and public health. These combined to scientise racial thinking, and within Europe by the turn of the century to scientize anti-Semitism.Less

Conversation Stoppers: Apologies All Around

in What Can You Say?: America's National Conversation on Race

This chapter centers on the role of the apology, which is considered as one of the problems with the way national conversation is played out that is most prone to change. It shows that the apology ... More

This chapter centers on the role of the apology, which is considered as one of the problems with the way national conversation is played out that is most prone to change. It shows that the apology may possibly be something that people can change (i.e. through responses and expectations of people). It cites two instances that show the apparent drawbacks and dangers when people try to do something more than apologize. The first case shows the difficulty of expecting anything other than an expression of regret, while the second case studies a case when a commentator tried talking about white racism, which resulted in him being criticized for being a white racist. After looking at these two cases, the discussion then turns to the mechanics of the two apologies that were made and the grilling that resulted from these apologies. It also studies Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s model that shows how people can connect to the racial aspects of public discourse in such a way that makes it easier to understand racial thinking.Less

A Short History of the Race Concept

Michael Yudell

in Race and the Genetic Revolution: Science, Myth, and Culture

This chapter describes the role played by scientific thought, from the late eighteenth century through to the twentieth century, in developing a language to measure the meaning of human difference in ... More

This chapter describes the role played by scientific thought, from the late eighteenth century through to the twentieth century, in developing a language to measure the meaning of human difference in the form of race. It explores how many scientists came to reject this concept in the twentieth century. The concept of race traces its roots from the consideration of the nature of human difference. Ancient civilizations such as Greece and Rome divided people between the civic and the barbarous, and between the political citizen and those “outside.” It was only towards the end of the Middle Ages that the idea of categorization based on human variations in blood or in kinship was accepted. The twentieth century saw another dimension of race as the studies of human genetics began to flourish. The chapter concludes with a brief examination of the current state of racial thinking in biology.Less

Which Lives Matter?

David Livingstone Smith

in On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It

This chapter puzzles out why the conviction that there are “higher” and “lower” kinds of beings is so stubbornly rooted in the human way of life. It traces the origins of such a way of thinking. The ... More

This chapter puzzles out why the conviction that there are “higher” and “lower” kinds of beings is so stubbornly rooted in the human way of life. It traces the origins of such a way of thinking. The chapter reveals that racial supremacist beliefs are part of a much larger framework, within which the relationship between race and dehumanization becomes much clearer. Racial thinking and dehumanizing thinking both rely on psychological essentialism, but both also rely on hierarchical thinking. Racialized people are typically thought of as lesser human beings. Because they possess an inferior racial essence, they are thought to be by their very nature at a lower level within the rank of the human. But dehumanized people are thought of as possessing the essence of a subhuman animal. That is what makes them less than human rather than lesser humans.Less

Citizenship of Women and Their Counterpart Throughout the Ventennium

Sabina Donati (ed.)

in A Political History of National Citizenship and Identity in Italy, 1861-1950

This chapter examines citizenship policies, strategies and discourses pertaining to Italian women and men during Mussolini’s regime. Drawing on studies about gender and fascism, it explores the issue ... More

This chapter examines citizenship policies, strategies and discourses pertaining to Italian women and men during Mussolini’s regime. Drawing on studies about gender and fascism, it explores the issue of birth to citizens (jus sanguinis) and the fascist duty of being prolific within a context of eugenic thinking and dictatorial pro-natalist objectives. It also surveys the fascistization of civil, political and social rights, and outlines trends and dilemmas that illustrate the fascist variant of female status civitatis vis-à-vis its counterpart. In the discussion, comparisons are also made with Nazi Germany. Finally, the chapter surveys the major racial discourses that touched upon the notion of Italianness and that were articulated in the peninsula not only during the late fascist period but also throughout the 1920s and the early 1930s. It does so by focusing on racial thinking pertaining to origins of the Italians, anti-Southern prejudices, and anti-Semitism.Less

Global Mixed Race: A Conclusion

Rebecca C. King-O’Riain

in Global Mixed Race

This concluding chapter argues that even with hopeful post-racial thinking, the discussions of mixing in many countries do not always revolve around understandings of race, but rather factors such as ... More

This concluding chapter argues that even with hopeful post-racial thinking, the discussions of mixing in many countries do not always revolve around understandings of race, but rather factors such as nationality, religion, and language. This is because the conditions and recognition of mixing are different throughout the world. For instance, policy changes led thousands of people who had lived their lives as monoracial Whites to “become” multiracial to apply for perceived economic benefits or obtain access to education. As such, affirmative action already existed in many nations even before the U.S. put it into effect for African Americans in 1961. In addition, many other nations have begun affirmative action programs due to the spread of global ideas of race.Less

How We Do Race

David Livingstone Smith

in On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It

This chapter teases out the core elements of the ordinary conception of “race.” This does not include a scientific or philosophical definition of race. Rather, the chapter talks about the view of ... More

This chapter teases out the core elements of the ordinary conception of “race.” This does not include a scientific or philosophical definition of race. Rather, the chapter talks about the view of race that most people just slip into when going about the everyday business of life. It is a conception that has been taken so thoroughly for granted that many do not even question it. The chapter argues that understanding the conception of race is key to understanding dehumanization, because beliefs about race lie at the heart of the dehumanizing process. It shows that dividing human beings into races—into “our kind” and “their kind”—is the first step on the road to dehumanizing them.Less

Remaking the Middle Ages

Lynn T. Ramey

in Black Legacies: Race and the European Middle Ages

Racial thought in the nineteenth century in the West was preoccupied with uncovering rules and methods to explain racial difference. By looking at 19th-century writing on the medieval period, the ... More

Racial thought in the nineteenth century in the West was preoccupied with uncovering rules and methods to explain racial difference. By looking at 19th-century writing on the medieval period, the relation between medieval people and modern concepts of race becomes evident. This chapter examines the history of theories of race, which explain the movement between categories of different people. The chapter further examines the history of medieval studies in the nineteenth century, which touches on nationalistic traits of the Middle Ages. It also summarizes the historical development of race theory as well as problems arising from the history of race theory.Less

Conclusion

Juliet Hooker

in Theorizing Race in the Americas: Douglass, Sarmiento, Du Bois, and Vasconcelos

The conclusion develops the implications of hemispheric juxtaposition for comparative political theory, and for African American studies, Latin American studies, and Latino studies. It explains how a ... More

The conclusion develops the implications of hemispheric juxtaposition for comparative political theory, and for African American studies, Latin American studies, and Latino studies. It explains how a hemispheric intellectual genealogy of racial thought in the Americas transforms our understanding of each of these thinkers: Frederick Douglass, Domingo F. Sarmiento, W. E. B. Du Bois, and José Vasconcelos. It also highlights two key theoretical concepts constitutive of racial thought in the Americas that emerge from the hemispheric analysis in this book: an expanded notion of democratic fugitivity informed by black fugitivity, and the concept of mestizo futurism.Less

“Becoming Visible”: Italian Women and Their Male Co-Citizens in the Liberal State

Sabina Donati (ed.)

in A Political History of National Citizenship and Identity in Italy, 1861-1950

“Becoming Visible”: Italian Women and Their Male Co-Citizens in the Liberal State

National Citizenship and Italianità in Historical Perspective

Sabina Donati (ed.)

in A Political History of National Citizenship and Identity in Italy, 1861-1950

This chapter-concluding the book-offers a full discussion of the vision(s) of Italian national identity that emerge from analysis of the citizenship policies and related official discourse carried ... More

This chapter-concluding the book-offers a full discussion of the vision(s) of Italian national identity that emerge from analysis of the citizenship policies and related official discourse carried out throughout our historical journey. Going back to the two metaphors introduced at the start (i.e., “citizenship as a mirror” and “citizenship as a pencil”), it uses these two allegorical instruments to summarize the major findings and elucidate the closing arguments. In so doing, it offers an overview of the origins and the historical evolution of citizenship and identity in Italy from 1861 to 1950 in order to show, in the longue durée, that italianità is by no means a fixed notion, that it can be dual, multidimensional and variable, and that it has been shaped by homegrown traditions of racial thinking concerning, in different ways, Southern Italians, Italian Jews, Italian colonial subjects and the historical origins of the Italics.Less

Lessons for Living:: Irving Fisher, National Vitality, and Human Conservation

Ian Tyrrel

in Crisis of the Wasteful Nation: Empire and Conservation in Theodore Roosevelt's America

Argues that conservation came to encompass human health as part of social and environmental sustainability; stresses the role of Irving Fisher in this campaign; and examines ideas of race suicide and ... More

Argues that conservation came to encompass human health as part of social and environmental sustainability; stresses the role of Irving Fisher in this campaign; and examines ideas of race suicide and eugenics in conservation. Argues that inter-imperial evidence for connections between racial deterioration, military strength and economic efficiency underpinned the developing human conservation movement towards the end of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, but eugenics became important only after the end of that presidency. These themes were presaged in Fisher’s National Vitality which was part of the 1909 Report of the National Conservation Commission.Less

Fascist Italy’s Colonized, Annexed and Occupied Territories: Citizenship Policies and Native Populations in Mussolini’s Roman Empire

Sabina Donati (ed.)

in A Political History of National Citizenship and Identity in Italy, 1861-1950

This chapter analyzes and discusses for the first time the still partially unknown citizenship policies concerning all the populations of Mediterranean Europe under fascist Italy and examines them ... More

This chapter analyzes and discusses for the first time the still partially unknown citizenship policies concerning all the populations of Mediterranean Europe under fascist Italy and examines them together with the civic accommodation of the African natives, which, by contrast, has already attracted the attention of scholars of colonial studies. Focusing on the entire fascist Ventennium (1922-1943), the chapter first surveys the citizenship issues pertaining to the native populations living in Italy’s African colonies (i.e. Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, Libya); it then moves on to outline those concerning the European territories (i.e. Aegean Islands, Albania as well as the lands that were occupied and annexed during the Second World War); and concludes with a full discussion on the citizenship discourses articulated in Mussolini’s comunità imperiale and touching upon the fascist “myth of Rome”, notions of race, concept of fascist civilization, and the historic paradigm of the maritime Republics.Less

Greece, Rome, and the Modern British Nation

Kate Nichols

in Greece and Rome at the Crystal Palace: Classical Sculpture and Modern Britain, 1854-1936

Chapter 6 examines what the presentation and responses to classical civilizations at the Crystal Palace might reveal about Britain’s perceived national and international status. It discusses how ... More

Chapter 6 examines what the presentation and responses to classical civilizations at the Crystal Palace might reveal about Britain’s perceived national and international status. It discusses how Greece and Rome figured in the national roles played by the Palace from 1854 to 1921: host to the Festival of Empire (1911), and the first incarnation of the Imperial War Museum. The Palace boasted a unique Natural History Department, curated by ethnologist Robert Gordon Latham, which exhibited tableaux of models of extra-European peoples engaged in ‘characteristic’ activities. The second section examines these models in the context of what were increasingly coming to be seen as representations of the ur-Europeans; the sculpture in the Greek Court, showing how the historiography of Greek sculpture intersected with Victorian racial thought. The final section considers the presentation of the Roman empire—and in particular, Roman Britain— in changing Victorian and Edwardian imperial culture.Less