Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T09:55:08.532Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is Race a Cause?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Alexandre Marcellesi
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Advocates of the counterfactual approach to causal inference argue that race is not a cause, and this despite the fact that it is commonly treated as such by scientists in many disciplines. I object that their argument is unsound since two of its premises are false. I also sketch an argument to the effect that racial discrimination cannot be explained unless one assumes race to be a cause.

Type
General Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 80 , Issue 5 , December 2013 , pp. 650 - 659
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I thank Craig Callender, Nancy Cartwright, Michael Hardimon, Gil Hertshten, and Chris Wüthrich for comments on earlier drafts. I also thank audiences at the PSA 2012 and at the University of California, San Diego, Graduate Philosophy Colloquium. Research for this article was supported by the God’s Order, Man’s Order, and the Order of Nature project (Templeton Foundation).

References

Angrist, Joshua, and Pischke, Jörn-Steffen. 2009. Mostly Harmless Econometrics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blank, Rebecca, Dabady, Marilyn, and Citro, Constance, eds. 2004. Measuring Racial Discrimination. Washington, DC: National Academies.Google Scholar
Glymour, Clark. 1986. “Statistics and Causal Inference: Comment; Statistics and Metaphysics.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 81:964–66.Google Scholar
Greiner, James, and Rubin, Donald. 2011. “Causal Effects of Perceived Immutable Characteristics.” Review of Economics and Statistics 93:775–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardimon, Michael. 2012. “The Idea of a Scientific Concept of Race.” Journal of Philosophical Research 37:249–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holland, Paul. 1986. “Statistics and Causal Inference.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 81:945–60.Google Scholar
Holland, Paul 2003. “Causation and Race.” Technical Report RR-03-03, Educational Testing Services, Princeton, NJ.Google Scholar
Ragin, Charles. 1987. The Comparative Method. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rubin, Donald. 1974. “Estimating Causal Effects of Treatments in Randomized and Nonrandomized Studies.” Journal of Educational Psychology 66:688–701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar