Bracken Philosophy and Racism

PHILOSOPHY AND RACISM*

HARRY M. BRACKEN

We seem to have been extremely ingenious in producing myths and theories to help justify our oppression of one another. Thus sexism appears to be of ancient origin. Racism in the West seems to be of more recent design. I take racism to be the doctrine which a group may articulate in order to justify its oppression of another group by appealing to some putative flaw (in recent times usually understood as being contained within the biological consti tution) in the oppressed group. Thus I mean to include within racism "con- genital inferiori ty" by virtue of skin color as well as by linguistic differences. In this paper I shall call attention to the contributions which some philosophers have made to the development of racial theory. 1

Racism, so defined, becomes a problem with the Spanish Inquisition. It is in Spain that one finds biological criteria taking precedence over religious conversion with the distinction between "new" and "o ld" Christians. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity - the modern religions of the West - are universalistic in the sense that they accept, and in varying degrees, seek converts, In Spain the restraint imposed on the act o f conversion by race marked a new and ominous development. Indeed, a similar move occurs in 18th century Ireland with the distinction between "new" and "o ld" Protestant. The discovery of the New World provided a tremendous impetus to racial theorizing. There is an extended debate over the nature of the Indian - resolved, if only partially, by the acceptance of Las Casas' (1474-1566) arguments on behalf o f the Indians and in the subsequent promulgation of Pope Paul III 's Sublimus Deus.

* Some of the research for this paper was supported by the Canada Council and the Qu6bec Education Ministry (FCAC). I am greatly in- debted to Noam Chomsky and Norbert Hornstein for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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In the intervening years we have witnessed different forms of racism - e.g. based on color, language, religion, and nationality. At present, color racism appears to be the most widespread, It may also be the most fundamental. At least there is a tendency to take advantage of the language of color racism when concerned with another form, e.g. the Canadian injunction: "speak white" in place of "speak English". Religious racism, the most ancient form in the West, can still be observed in all comers of the world. Nationalism taken in the sense of a group of people laying claim to a piece of Mother Earth is quickly convertible to a racist position, although it often is found in conjunction with one or more other forms. I have omitted the clear racist overtones in discussions of the poor, aristocracies, "noble birth", etc., because these discussions are parasitic upon standard racist forms. Elites preserve their privileges with or without the availability of racial theories. Philosophers have done their share to support elites and they have produced racial theories. 2 It is with the latter that I am concerned.

At the outset, linguistic racism may strike one as the form most likely to be philosophically interesting. There is no shortage of data on our use of linguistic clues to classify people by nationality, neighborhood, religion, class, education, or "character". And we are aware of the uses to which university curricula have been put to favor the fortunes of one language at the expense of another. Furthermore, we know how often language lms been a weapon in the construction of empires. One need only look to a discussion of the superiority claims made on behalf of a language to appreciate that political considerations take precedence over linguistic ones. There is nothing inferior about Flemish or Yiddish, Catalan or Gaelic, Basque or Breton - except the political power of their speakers! Nevertheless, language has always been of particular interest to philosophers not only because of matters of logic and meaning, but because they have seen language as a mirror of the human mind. Post-Darwinian thought gave added incentives to linguistic racism by helping the long-standing efforts to rank languages - and to rank accordingly those who speak them.

Put this way, it is clear that what has mattered has been the ranking of minds. Although linguists, and particularly anthropologists, were only too wilting to espouse the cause, incredible efforts were expended to show that blacks had inferior intellectual endowments. Philosophers played a role in these moves. Indeed, it is my contention that philosophers provided the conceptual frame-

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work within which full-blown racism could be stated. To be specific, I contend that Locke provided us with a model of man in terms of which racism could be readily stated. Racism was present earlier, as we have seen. But there seems little reason to doubt that the exigencies of the African slave trade encouraged the development of a compatible theory of man. During this period Cartesian and dualist theories of man were displaced by empiricist accounts.

Contemporary philosophers prefer to avoid debates over racism. In part this arises from the philosopher's notion that his task is primarily to decide whether a given thesis is a conceptual or empirical matter. The truth determination of empirical questions can be assigned to the appropriate scientists. This notion is remarkable given the notable lack of unanimity with respect to putative principled distinctions founded upon conceptual connections, rules o f grammar, logical truth, the analytic/synthetic distinction, etc. Contemporary philosophers, however, also prefer to avoid debates over racism because they do not appreciate the contributions which the great philosophers have made to racial doctrine - or if they do, they deem these contributions non- philosophical. Put another way, philosophers often seem to think that those of us who believe that there are philosophical founda- tions to modern racism are obliged to show that, e.g. racism cannot be formulated within a rationafist framework or, alterna- tively, that empiricism entails racism. In fact, all we have to show is that one's philosophical position makes a difference.

It is clear that, for example, among medieval (Christian) philosophers, one finds that different ontological doctrines facilitate (or inlfibit) discussions of those matters of transcendent importance to that culture. Thus, in so-called Averroistic terms, it becomes al- most impossible to talk about personal immortality. One can shift the issue to the domain of pure faith, but for all practical purposes it is outside the bounds of the available conceptual framework. Similarly, transubstantiation apparently can more readily be formulated within a Thomistic than an Ockhamist ontology. Ac- cordingly, there is no reason to be surprised if one ontology, one methodology, one analysis of concept formation, should facilitate (or inhibit) our formulating racist doctrines.

Locke, I contend, 3 is a pivotal figure in the development of modern racism in that he provides a model which permits us to count skin color as a nominally essential property of men. This comes about because in the course of his formulations of theories of essence and substance it emerges that the essential properties of

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men are computed like those of gold. What appears to be a simple system of classification based on tallies of observed properties in fact facilitates counting color, sex, language, religion, or IQ as "essential". Indeed, there is no mechanism within the Lockean model to rule out counting skin color as the "essential" property of men.

There are four distinguishable elements in Locke's doctrines which facifitate the articulation of racism. To repeat, it is not my contention that these elements logically entail a racist position, but rather that they do make it easier to formulate. With the Lockean position it becomes possible to talk about men's essence in ways which were explicitly ruled out by the Cartesians. More- over, Locke knew that his revisions in the traditional nomenclature could have consequences with respect to the racial ranking of men. The four elements are: (1) his anti-essentialism; (2) the tally-model for the determination of (nominal) essences; (3) choice-preference with respect to items to be included within the tally; (4) the blank tablet. As for anti-essentialism, we read in the Essay that we do not know the "real Constitutions of Substances, on which each secondary Quality particularly depends", and that even if we did, "it would serve us only for experimental (not universal) Know- /edge; and reach with Certainty no farther, than that bare In- stance." (Essay IV, vi, w 4 The even if theme is constant, although the emphasis changes. At Essay II, xxxi, w 13, Locke writes that it is "very evident to the Mind ... that whatever Collection of simple Ideas it makes of any Substance that exists, it cannot be sure, that it exactly answers all that are in that Sub- stance: Since not having tried all the Operations of all other Substances upon it..." Then Locke adds the even if clause: "And, after all, if we could have, and actually had, in our complex ldea, an exact Collection of all the secondary Qualities or Powers of any Substance, we should not yet thereby have an Mea of the Essence of that Thing. For since the Powers or Qualities, that are observ- able by us, are not the real Essence of that Substance, but depend on it, and flow from it, any Collection whatsoever of these Qualities, cannot be the real Essence of that Thing."

Locke rejects the idea of substance because he can have no clear and distinct idea of it (cf. Essay II, xxiii, w 4). He admits to having ideas of qualities which can constitute a certain complex idea, but he denies that we can know such a collection to have anything but an accidental structure. No logical necessity binds the constituent elements together in the complex idea. No logical cement (cf. Essay II, xxiii, w 26) binds the malleability to the

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fixedness in our idea of gold. As for the gold itself, we are in the dark about its secret springs. "It is impossible for us to know, that this or that Quality or Idea has a necessary Connexion with a real Essence, of which we have no Idea at all, whatever Species that supposed real Essence may be imagined to constitute." (Essay IV, vi, w 5).

We are, he tells us, as ignorant of body and spirit as of man and horse. We suppose for each an unknown common subject in which the various qualities we have observed may inhere. Thus for Locke there is no substance and there is no essence. In "Socrates is white," Socrates does not name an individual substance, "he" is simply that set o f qualities attributed to "him". Thus Locke rejects connections and cement holding between an individual thing and its property as well as between the several properties said to constitute the thing. At Essay IV, vi, w 10 he bewails our incapacity to discover any "necessary Connexion between Mal- leableness, and the Colour or Weight of Gold." It is this lack o f connection which perplexes Locke as to whether there are both spirits and bodies (Essay II, xxiii, w w 29-32). By Book IV (iii w 6) he is prepared to entertain the possibility that matter may think. So much for connections!

Locke's anti-essentialism raises questions about individuals as well as about the status of kinds and sorts. We can "slice" the world in many ways and it w,~uld seem that Locke has no ontologically privileged level. Despite his atomism, he does not seem to rest the world on a domain of indivisible atoms. We can talk micro- or macroscopi~ally about things - as we choose.

Anti-essentialism is one factor in Locke's theory which is relevant to the articulation of racism. What I call the tally-model is another. Having disposed of essences, Locke argues that species are mere tallies. He thus substitutes his doctrine of nominal essences for real essences. No principle governs the inclusion or exclusion of ideas from the complex idea of a substance. The tally-model, and not real essences, stands behind our talk about the world.

At Essay III, vi. w Locke says: "Upon the whole matter, 'tis evident, that 'tis their own Collections of sensible Qualities, that Men make the Essences of their several sorts of Substances..." And at Essay III, vi, w he speaks o f essences: "An Accident, or Disease, may very much alter my Colour, or Shape [etc.] ... None of these are essential to the one, or the other, or to any Individual whatsoever, till the Mind refers it to some Sort of Species of things; and then presently, according to the abstract Idea of that sort, something is found essential." That holds for man's reason

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quite as much as for his color. "Essential and not essential, relate only to our abstract Ideas, and the Names annexed to them. . ." Putting aside abstract ideas, any "particular Beings, considered barely in themselves, will be found to have all their Quafities equally essential; and everything, in each Individual, will be essen- t im to it, or, which is more, nothing at all." (Essay III, vi, w 5)

"We commonly," he writes, "take these two obvious Qualities, viz. Shape and Colour for ... presumptive Ideas of several Spe- cies..." (Essay III, vi, w In ordinary situations different people often have different complex ideas for the same species. Thus a child's complex idea of gold may only contain its yellow shining color. "For in all these, and the like Qualities, one has as good a right to be put into the complex Idea of that Substance, wherein they are all join'd, as another." (Essay III, vi, w At Essay IV, vi, w 9, he writes: "I would gladly meet with one general Affirma- tion, concerning any Quality of GoM, that any one can certainly know is true."

Locke 's tally-model is applied to men. He often expresses interest in monsters and changelings, for example: "I once saw a Creature that was the Issue o f a Cat and a Rat (Essay III, vi, w At Essay IV, iv, w he asks: "What sort o f Outside is the certain Sign that there is, or is not such an hthabitant within? For till that be done, we talk at random of Man..." Indeed, he says that some brutes "seem to have as much Knowledge and Reason, as some that are called Men" (Essay III, vi, w 12). Skin color emerges at a number of places in the Essay. "The Child certainly knows, that the Nurse that feeds it, is neither the Cat it plays with, nor the Blackmoor it is afraid of" (Essay I, ii, w 25). "White men" appear in the story of the rational parrot, Essay II, xxvii, w 8. Locke's color sensitivity is once again revealed at Essay IV, vii, w t6:

A Child having fram'd the Idea of a Man, it is probable, that his Idea is just like that Picture, which the Painter makes of the visible Appearances joyn'd together; and such a Complication of Ideas together in his Under- standing, makes up the single complex Idea which he calls Man, whereof White or Flesh colour [!] in England being one, the Child can demonstrate to you, that a Negro is not a Man, because White-colour was one of the constant simple Ideas of the complex Idea he calls Man: And therefore he can demonstrate by the Principle, I t is impossible for the same Thing to be, and not to be ... that a Negro is not a Man ...

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I f Locke would reject the child's view, he could not do it in any principled way. He gives us no guide lines for deciding whether a negro is a man or whether the progeny of [man] drills and women (eL Essay III, vi, w 23) are men beyond the similar sorts o f decisions we make about gold.

Locke also says "That there should be more Species of intelligent Creatures above us, than there are o f sensible and material below us, is probable to me from hence; That in all the visible corporeal World we see no Chasms or Gaps. All quite down from us, the descent is by easy steps, and a continued series o f Things, that in each remove, differ very little one from the other." (Essay III, vi, w 12) With this, Locke seems to be providing an added Fillip to his anti-essentialism. In the Aristotelian (and, for that matter, the Cartesian) tradition, while it might be difficult in a given case to decide the species of a thing, the dictum "substance does not admit of more or less" holds. No man is more or less a man than another. Whereas Locke, having rejected essences in favor o f a tally of properties, Fmds that the old difficulty of deciding what a thing is, takes on a new form. The set of ideas we collect around, say, a certain animal - can now count as consti- tuting a new species. Not even the absence of cross-fertility helps. There is a spectrum of things from higher to lower, and since we make species, we can introduce new species to cover our border- line cases, anomalies, etc. These amplifications of the tally model thus concretely advance the notion that humans may be ranked. The model is itself neutral: these choices o f particular tally items reflect Locke's own interests and preferences.

Francois Bernier (1684) sorted out "four or five" different "species or races" of men, and considered the blackness o f the African essential, whereas the darkness of the Hindu was accidental. Poliakov, who reports that Leibniz criticized Bernier for suggesting that all men are not o f the same race, writes that Bernier's classification is "perhaps the first writing in which the term 'race' appears in its modern sense. ' 's John Ovington, cited in Bk I of the Essay, reported on the inferior Hottentots: " I f there's any medium between a Rational Animal and a Beast, the Hotantot lays the fairest Claim to that Species. ' '6 Morgan Godwyn, 7 defending the humanity o f blacks, wrote an extraordinary attack on the brutali- zation of slaves and argued strongly against thinking of blacks as a separate and lower species. Bernier, a disciple of the atomist Gassendi, was a friend of Locke. His books, as well as those by Ovington and Godwyn, were in Locke's personal library. ~

Locke's simianization suggestion, combined with his chain-of-

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being account of species, reflects major conceptual innovations. Travelers' reports had provided the first item, but for Godwyn, that was strongly countered by his explicit soul/body formulation of our common humanity. Locke, on the other hand, takes the travelers' reports as support for his new theory with its option for "flexible" species hierarchically conceived. These combined steps are, of course, often found in the scientific claims of 18th century anthropologists (e.g. Linnaeus and Buffon). Locke, I submit, knew what the issues were. Indeed, he discusses the simianization of the African in the same chapter in which he states and re-states his tally-model. We thus have a concrete case in which Locke's model, which I have repeatedly described as facilitating the expression of racism, is actually so used by Locke. The combination of anti- essentialism and the tally-model yield an abstract model whose great virtue is its flexibility. The concrete application of the abstract model which we have just discussed is an instance of the use of this flexibility. This particular use is grounded in the third. element.

There is nothing necessarily racist about either anti-essentialism or the tally-model. Locke's third element is choice-preference. One could, like Voltaire, 9 decide to tally the properties so that blacks were a separate and inferior species. 1~ Or one could single out a property, say mind, and treat it as the defining property of humans. One would consider such a decision a moral one. Thus one could accept both Locke's anti-essentialism and tally-model and still take a non-racist position. But there are difficulties. Locke's anti-essentialism was also an attack upon a framework which included a theory of man's (universal) moral nature. That is, the doctrine of universal human nature was traditionally understood to provide the foundation for the theory of natural (i.e. moral) law. For Locke, on the other hand, we select properties for inclusion in our idea of a substance in terms of our interests. A goldsmith requires a more detailed list for gold than a child. Thus in its historical context, Locke's anti-essentialism has removed any basis for grounding any particular tally-set in anything other than our preferences. That seems to me one of his strokes of genius. He has cut both the ontological and moral heart out of substance/ essence talk - while preserving all of the basic terminology. Thus within Locke's revised account of substance, it becomes possible to treat any or no property as "essential" and, as we have seen, it also becomes more difficult to distinguish m e n from the other animals.

The fourth item in Locke's theory is one which is relevant to

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amined the "facts" expressed in color/inteUigence correlations, quite unaware that the decision to single out these items, from the huge and readily available potential tally, is not rooted in any ontologically "real" doctrine about human nature. It is rooted in a Lockean style tally-model. It is, moreover, still rooted in the old terminology within which intelligence, insofar as it is related to mind, is anything but accidental in humans! One is thereby spared reflecting on the nature of one's decision to choose color and intelligence as appropriately correlated, i.e. that one has indeed been p lay ing out an option which is intelligible only as a racially motivated choice. As Chomsky has pointed out, there is no reason to think that there is any scientific significance in correlating color and "intelligence". Nor would such studies entail any social significance, "except in a racist society in which each individual is assigned to a racial category and dealt with not as an individual in his own right, but as a representative of this category. ''14

The blank tablet plays another role: it eliminates any barrier to control. Noam Chomsky writes:

The doctrine that the human mind is initially unstructured and plastic and that human nature is entirely a social product has often been associated with progressive and even revolutionary social thinking, while speculations with regard to human instinct have often had a conserva- tive and pessimistic cast. One can easily see why reform- ers and revolutionaries should become radical environ- mentalists, and there is no doubt that concepts of im- mutable human nature can be and have been employed to erect barriers against social change and to defend estab- lished privilege.

But a deeper look will show that the concept of the "empty organism," plastic and unstructured, apart from being false, also serves naturally as the support for the most reactionary social doctrines. If people are, in fact, malleable and plastic beings with no essential psychological nature, then why should they not be controlled and coerced by those who claim authority, special knowledge, and a unique insight into what is best for those less enlightened? Empiricist doctrine can easily be molded into an ideology for the vanguard party that claims authori ty to lead the masses to a society that will be governed by the "red bureaucracy" of which Bakunin warned. And just as easily for the liberal technocrats or corporate managers who monopolize "vital decision-making" in the institutions of state capitalist democracy, beating the people with the people's stick, in Bakunin's trenchant phrase.

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The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful. This too, I think, may be a reason for its appeal to intellectual ideologists, of whatever political persuasion.IS The blank tablet makes a contribution to elitism, it removes a

moral barrier to social control, and it is also part of an explicit argument for a "performance" model of man. Thus observed characteristics, e.g. IQ test results, provide material directly for the racist uses of the tally model

I have said that there are four elements within Locke's philosophy which facilitated the rise of racism. I have not said that any one o f these or, indeed, all four together, logically entail racism. On the other hand, the Cartesian model provided what I have called a "modest conceptual barrier" to treating race, color, sex, or religion as other than accidental. One c~n appreciate this if one recalls that for Descartes, material substance is just three- dimensionality (e.g. in Meditation II and in his denial o f the vacuum). Geometry explicates the essence o f body and in knowing it one knows all possible material things. But the "necessary connections" that occur within this domain of essence are just those of logic and mathematics. One cannot deduce the existence o f particular objects nor does one have any insight into the relations between color and shape. As for minds, their essence consists in thinking. The presence of mind, generally evidenced by the speech capacity, is the defining property of humans (cf. Discourse, Pt. V). As for color, Descartes never endowed it with anything but accidental status. (Cartesians had an extraordinarily difficult time trying to make sense of the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.) The "modest conceptual barrier" to racism is provided by tile fact that color is not a predicate which can apply to minds, and minds constitute the human essence. Perhaps one could have found a way to distinguish black thoughts from white ones, but it is difficult to conceive how this could have been done without radical alterations to Cartesianism.

Even if it is granted that Locke's philosophy, or more generally, empiricism, facilitates the expression of racism, it is fair to ask whether Locke was himself a racist. One way to answer this is to turn to Locke's life. Peter Lastett has noted that Locke became a Commissioner o f Appeals in 1689 and a founding member of the Board of Trade in 1696. "Locke himself played a large part in the creation of this second body, the architect of the

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the articulation of racism as well as to the question of social control. Locke maintains that there are no innate ideas, that the mind is a blank tablet, and that all our concepts are derived from sense experience. He subscribes to the traditional empiricist "proof": block a sense channel and a person is deprived of the concepts appropriate to that channel, as in the case of the man born blind lacking color concepts. Hence, or at least so the claim goes, all our knowledge is abstracted from sense experience, u There has always been an intimate connection between empiricism /rationalism debates and rival learning theories, as in Plato's Meno and, on the other side, Aristotle's, Thomas', and Locke's uses of the man-born-blind. There is also the long recognized tie between the empiricist theories of meaning which emerged from Vienna in the 1930s and behaviorist S-R learning theory. Wittgenstein has also been said to locate the ultimate philosophical touchstone in the child's linguistic learning experience.

There is, given our larger cultural context, a temptation to view the blank tablet thesis as providing support for freedom. The doctrine that we are blank tablets seems to be linked with the view that environment is what makes the man. Or rather, that humans are not constrained by "writing" on their "tablets". Thus in the debates over IQ, heredity, and genetics it is clear that some people interpret the claim that IQ is hereditary as scientific evidence for the support of our present social structure. Accordingly, some of those who would prefer to see less rigid social structures argue, in etlect, tor the blank tablet model. Leon J. Kamin writes that "To attribute racial differences to genetic factors, granted the overwhelming cultural-environmental differences between races, is to compound folly with malice. ''12 Kamin concludes with a plea for egalitarianism and a return to clear-headed behaviorism.

Has the blank tablet model, as the ancestor to the behaviorist account of concept acquisition, been on the side of egalitarianism? I think the answer is no - primarily because the model carries with it the need for a group which will be charged with "writing" on the blank tablets. The model has helped justify the creation and growth of an elite class of experts who handle human prog- ramming. Indeed, it has been an essential component in the rapid accession to political power of social scientists in industrialized societies - particularly the United States. To put it another way, this model suggests that humans are infinitely malleable. This was perceived centuries ago. For example, Calvin argued for certain innate ideas against the blank tablet view because he wanted each

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person to have equal access to God without the mediation and control of the Church as Teacher.

Given the uses {o which genetics has been put in the service of racism, it is not surprising that some people think of behaviorism and the blank tablet as providing a non-racist alternative. Behaviorism was .thought (e.g. by Watson) to encourage egalitarianism. But aside from the risks of producing "writers on blank tablets", behaviorism encourages a "soft" racism by saying that group X could be "equal" if only such and such social policies were pursued. While it may not bind a people to perpetual failure, it does suggest the desireability of cultural make-up exams. Thus we continue to seek tests which will show that group X, at least when in social setting Y, can be more or less equal. Behind this "soft" racism remain the revisions in substance, essence and accident talk which Locke provided. That is, the tests operate against a background of hierarchically ranked (racial) species of men. The tests can be interpreted as evidence either to strengthen or weaken racial species doctrines. But in either case, the racial dimension is present. With "hard" racism one seeks to show that there is some sort of "inferiority" among blacks which is rooted in "nature" whereas with the "soft" racist option one seeks to show that the "inferiority" is remediable. Both cases thus embed their data in the tally-model. 13

It has often been said that the "scientific facts" show that group X is inferior. However, the choice of color and intelligence as defining properties is a choice which reflects the interests and preferences of those making these sorts of selections. This is not perceived for several reasons. One is that following Locke, we have systematically confused our substance, essence vocabulary. As al- ready noted, the original terminology had a set of choices built into it. There was not only a doctrine of human nature, the doctrine included the moral basis for universal natural (moral) taw. The traditional language also presupposed the claim that essences represented real connections in things. Locke rejects the real connections, he detaches the choice, and he overthrows the universal- ity of human nature. He does all this while verbally retaining "essences", etc. Accordingly, this retention of talk about "species" and "essence", within which skin color can now be decisive, camouflages the fact that he has made a choice to single out this (or any other) property. Within Cartesian dualism, and the pri- macy it accorded thought, no such "flexibility" was available. Indeed, one can appreciate the power of Locke's set of moves by noting that scientists have, for many intervening generations, ex-

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old Colonial system." Locke indeed does write about slavery. According to Laslett, w w 23, 24, and 85 of the Two Treatises o f Government constitute "Locke's justification of slavery. It may seem unnecessary, and inconsistent with his principles, but it must be remembered that he writes as the administrator of slave-owning colonies in America. As Leslie Stephens pointed out ... the Funda- mental Constitutions o f Carolina [w CX] provide that every free- man 'shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves' ... The Instructions to Governor Nicholson of Virginia, which Locke did much to draft in 1698 . . . . regard negro slaves as justifiably enslaved because they were captives taken in a just war, who had forfeited their lives 'by some Act that deserves Death' ... Locke seems satisfied that the forays of the Royal Africa Com- pany were just wars of this sort, and that the negroes captured had committed such acts... ''~6

Just war enters the discussion because while Locke would not have countenanced slave-taking within the EEC of his day, he seems to have felt that waste land was fair game. Waste land was land not being put to proper economic use - i.e. land which was not the property of civilized, defined as money exchanging, peol~le. By a happy consequence of his universal principle, Africa and the Americas were waste land. If their residents resisted the take-over of these waste-lands, they could properly be taken as captives in a just war and they and their progeny made perpetual slaves.

Let me briefly summarize the several aspects of Locke's thought which relate to racism. First, I have explored four aspects of Locke's doctrine (as expounded in the Essay) which facilitate the articulation of racist ideology. Locke's doctrine, to take but, one item, lets us count color as an essential quality of men. I have also shown the difficulty in formulating racist ideology within Cartesian terms. Second, I have shown that in the Essay Locke actually uses these new conceptual tools in his references to negroes and, more importantly, in his concern with the "species" ranking of the progeny of mandrills and women. Third, I have called attention to Locke's defense of racial slavery in his role as a senior administrator within the Board of Trade. ("Laslett has suggested that Locke himself was the originator of [the Board] .,)17 Cranston chronicles Locke's dominant influence within the Board.

In a review of Noam Chomsky's Reflections on Language John Searle ~8 expresses his distress at Chomsky's attempt to show

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that there are bet ter connections between empiricism and racism than between Cartesianism and racism. I quote from the review:

Chomsky concedes that the connection between empiricism and racism is not a logical connection but, again supporting Bracken, he argues that "empiricism facilitated the expression of the racist ideology that came naturally enough to philosophers who were involved in their profes- sional lives in the creation of the colonial system". And so on.

I have now read over these passages alleging a connection between racism and empiricism on the one hand and Cartesianism and freedom on the other several times, and I would very much like to think I am misunderstand- ing what Chomsky is saying. Otherwise, it is hard to interpret them in ways that do not render them quite unacceptable. Neither the great rationalists - Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza, nor the great empiricists - Locke, Berkeley, Hume and their modern followers such as Peirce, Carnap and Quine - were engaged in facilitating a racist ideology. If anything, it is a shorter step from the Cartesian theory of the mind to the theory of racial inferiority than from the Humean, because once you believe that there are innate human mental structures it is only a short step to argue that the innate mental structures differ from one race to another.

But it would not be proper to conclude from that that Descartes and his followers "facilitated the expression of the racist ideology", and I am unable to see that it is any more acceptable to smear the great empiricists with these veiled accusations of racism. Searle speaks of there being "a shorter step from the Cartesian

theory of mind to the theory of racial inferiority than from the Humean." But Searle completely misunderstands the Cartesian theory - color (including racial) predicates do not apply to minds. That is, he fails to see that Cartesianism, unlike empiricism, con- rains what I have described as a modest conceptual barrier to racism. However, I am gratified that Searle advances this interpretation because in seeing a closer relation between rationalism and racism than between empiricism and racism, he is granting that there might in principle be a relation between philosophical doctrines and racism. Accordingly, it ought to be possible on Searle's own terms to explore whether in fact there is such a relation. Thus Searle, in f'mding the mere investigation o f this question a "smear o f the great empiricists," is contradicting the implications of his own argument.

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I have not "smeared" as racists either the "great empiricists ... [or] their modem followers." Rather, I have argued that Locke's

philosophical theories facilitated "the expression of racist ideology" and that Locke was actively involved in formulating policies (compatible with those theories) and encouraging practices (e.g. the African slave trade and perpetual racial slavery) which were racist in character. I had not intended to "smear" Locke with a "veiled accusation". I made no smear; there was no veil.

"British Empiricists" may still be a popular course title but the old partnership o f Locke, Berkely, and Hume was dissolved more than a generation ago. A number o f Berkeley's contempora- ries (including Leibniz) saw him as some sort of Cartesian. I have argued elsewhere that Berkeley is best understood as a Cartesian. 19 He defends a "brotherhood of man" doctrine plus something akin to a Cartesian theory of mental substance and does not appear to have been a racist. Hume's debt to Berkeley's earlier writings was minimal.

Searle's remarks about "smears" suggest that he is ignorant about Hume's views. For present purposes, Hume's philosophical position can be treated as an extension of Locke's although in recent years a new and long overdue appreciation of the complex- ity o f Hume's thought - in reference, for example, to such topics as natural instincts, moral choice, and justice - has gained curren- cy. Like Locke, Hume was a senior administrator. Like Locke, he was involved in colonial affairs (as Under-Secretary of State). Like Locke, he was bigoted against Catholics. Like Locke, he articula- ted racist views. They occur as a note, probably added in the 1753 edition, to the essay "Of National Characters" (1748). It was criticized at length in the 18th century by the anti-Humean Scot- tish philosopher James Beattie z~ and by James Ramsay, 2~ a pupil of Thomas Reid. It is quoted, and its influence discussed, in an excellent study by Searle's colleague, Winthrop Jordan. 22 Hume writes:

I am apt to suspect the negroes, and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient GERMANS, the present TARTARS, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some

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other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many c9untries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are NEGROE slaves dispersed all over Europe, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; tho ' low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In JAMAICA indeed they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but 'tis hkely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly. 23

Both Beattie and Ramsay argued against Hume's racism from the standpoint of a dualist position. The rationalist presuppositions of their theories of human nature are used in their anti-racism. Ramsay questions Hume's color/intelligence correlations:

Mr. Hume, because a tall bulky man, and also a subtile philosopher, might have denied a capacity for meta- physical subtilty to all who wanted these his great bodily attributes, as well as suppose capacity and vigour of mind incompatible with a flat nose, curling hair, and a btack skin. (p. 182)

More important ly , Ramsay criticized Hume for denying that " the soul is a simple substance, not to be distinguished by squat or tall, black, brown, or fair." (10 . 235) This takes us back to the core of the issue of a relation between Cartesianism or empiricism and racism. Ramsay is criticizing Hume's color/intelligence correla- t ion, a correlation he takes to be an absurd consequence of Hume's empiricism. Ramsay interprets the entire correlation game as a mistake. He appeals directly to the Cartesian notion tha t the soul is a simple substance to which color predicates do not apply. Thus both Ramsay and Beattie interpreted Hume's philosophy as facilitating his racism and both took versions of rationalism to provide a barrier to racism. As I have akeady explained, in order to convert Cartesianism into a framework suitable for articulating racism, one would need to show how color predicates could apply to the mind. The sharp mind/body dualism and the claim that the human essence is mind or thought make this task difficult. Dis- plays o f conceptual ingenuity were unnecessary because the Locke- an alternative had become available.

Searle also appears to be "insinuating" that if one is prepared to "smear" the "great empiricists", Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, then one ought also to take on their modem followers, "Peirce,

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Carnap and Quine. ''24 Searle is apparently suggesting that if empiricism really did logically entail racism, then it ought to hold for the "modem followers". However, as even Seade's exposition of the discussion makes evident, no such claim about a logical entail- ment is at issue. In any case, given that Searle admits the possibility that connections hold between an epistemological position and racism, it might be more interesting to see whether contemporary philosophers express ideological views and if so, how they are related to their philosophies. Surely this is a legitimate inquiry with respect either to the present or the past.

Searle, in his irritation with Chomsky - and secondarily with me - has missed the point. Those of us who have tried to discover whether racism has any roots in our philosophical traditions have not been in the "smear" business. We probably all share a belief that racism is an evil - but the "'ultimate" question has to do with the ways in which racism has, in the course of our history, become so comfortably institutionalized within Anglo-American liberal culture. The conceptual building blocks which were initially used in the construction of racism within this culture were largely provided, I have contended, not only by empiricists but by racist empiricists. Indeed, an examination of the history of these matters suggests another question: does the fact that empiricist philosophy eliminated a conceptual barrier to racism explain, at least in part, the remarkable acceptance and popularity of empiricism across the past several centuries? Given its intellectual absurdity as a methodology for psychological theory, it seems a fair question. These are problems which philosophers ought to try to understand and explain. The hysteria with which Searle and, to a lesser extent, Williams, 2s have greeted them does not reassure. We may very well suspect that on a variety of topics, from elitism to human manipulation, empiricist philosophers have exercised a deleterious influence. But that should not deter us from an exploration of a past we all share, 26 even at the risk of being accused of "smearing" the "greats". Indeed, I should have thought that philosophers had a particular obligation to explore our past so that we may better understand ourselves in the present and hence may be enabled to make intelligent choices for our future.

McGILL UNIVERSITY MONTREAL, QUEBEC

CANADA

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HARRY M.BRACKEN

NOTES

1 I have also discussed this theme in "Essence, accident and race," Herma- thena, CXVI (1973), 81-96.

2 See Richard H. Popkin, "The Philosophical Basis of Eighteenth-Century Racism," in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, Vol. 3. Racism in the Eighteenth Century. (Cleveland & London: Case Western Reserve University Press, 1973) 245-262. Many aspects of the rise of racism are discussed in Popkin's work on Isaac La Peyr~re (whose book on the pre-Adamites appeared in 1655). I wish to thank Popkin both for his assistance on research and for his many illuminating discussions on these matters.

3 For a different interpretation, see Kathy Squadrito, "Locke's view of essence and its relation to racism: a reply to Professor Bracken," The Locke Newsletter, VI (1975), 41-54.

4 All references are to the Essay concerning humane understanding, 5th ed. (London, 1706).

5 L~on Poliakov, The Aryan Myth, (New York: Basic Books, 1974), p. t43.

6 John Ovington, A voyage to Surat in the year 1689. ed. H.G. Rawlin- son, (Oxford: University Press, 1929), p. 284.

7 Morgan Godwyn, The negro's and Indians Advocate. (London, 1680). 8 John Harrison and Peter Laslett, eds. The Library of John Locke (Ox-

ford: University Press, 1965). 9 Voltaire, La philosophie de l'histoire., ch. ii.

10 Multiple species and monogenesis existed together. "Philip D. Curtin, in his The Image of Africa, British Ideas and Action, 1780-1850 (Madison, 1964), indicates that though polygenesis was a minority position in the eighteenth century, it 'was extremely attractive to the eighteenth-century philosophes.' Cf. pp. 41-42. My researches suggest that until the end of the eighteenth century very few significant thinkers were willing to advocate a polygenetic theory, either of pre-Adamism, co-Adamism, or double Adamism. From the time of La Peyr~re's publication of the theory in 1655 it was constantly being refuted and ridiculed. Diderot, in his article in the Encyclop~die 'Pr~-adamite' treats the theory as having been demolished by the refutation of Samuel Desmarets in 1656. Cf. Denis Diderot, Oeuvres completes (Paris, 1876), XVI, 387-89. On the other hand, Spinoza seemed sympathetic, and borrowed many of La Peyr~re's ideas, as did Charles Blount. Voltaire accepted pre-Adamism, and Lord Kames offered a form of double Adamism. The theory became really forceful in the first half of the nineteenth century." Popkin, op. tit. p. 255.

11 Cf. Peter Geach, Mental Acts (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, s.d.) eh. x.

12 Leon J. Kamin, The Science and Politics of l .Q. (New York: John Wiley, 1974) p. 177.

13 See Russell Marks, "Politics and the Nature-Nurture Question", in Clar- ence J. Karier, ed., Shaping the American Educational State (New York: Free Press, 1975). For a detailed analysis of the recent IQ literature, see

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N.J. Block & Gerald Dworkin, "IQ: Heritability and Inequality," Philo- ;ophy and Public Affairs, II1 (1974), 331-409; IV (1974), 40-99.

14 Quoted from Ramparts, July/August (1972), p. 32, See also "Psychology and Ideology," Cognition, I (1972), 11-46. An expanded version appears as ch. vii of Chomsky's For Reasons o f State, (New York: Vintage Books, 1973). See also his "Equality: Language Development, Human Intelligence, and Social Organization." Philosophy and Social Action, II (1976), 1-20.

ls Noam Chomsky, Reflections on Language, (New York: Pantheon, 1975), p. 132.

16 John Locke, Two Treatises o f Government, ed. Peter Laslett. Key. ed. (New York: New American Library, 1963), pp. 325-6. Concluding an article on Locke and the Board of Trade, Laslett writes: "we have tried to show that ~t was not a job to the ph~Josopher J~hn Locke. It was his opportunity to demonstrate to me worlcl what was meant m his day, and for all succeeding generations, by the social and political responsibi- lities of the intellectual." In "John Locke, the Great Recoinage, and the Origins of the Board of Trade: 1695-1698," William and Mary Quarterly. 3rd ser. XIV (1957), 402.

17 Maurice Cranston, John Locke, (London: Longmans, Green, 1957) p. 400.

18 John Searle, "The Rules of the Language Game," Times Literary Supple- ment, 10 September 1976; 1118-1120.

19 Harry M. Bracken, Berkeley, (London: Macmillan, 1974). See also my "Berkeley: Irish Cartesian," philosophical Studies (Dublin), XXIV (1976), 3%51.

20 James Beattie, Elements o f moral science, cf. Pt II (Of Economics) w w 616-656. Also, An essay on the nature and immutability o f truth, in opposition to sophistry and scepticism. 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: Kincaid & Bell, 1771). Cf. Pt. III, ch. ii.

21 James Ramsay, An essay on the treatment and conversion o f African slaves in the British sugar colonies. (Dublin: T. Walker, 1784).

22 Winthrop D. Jordan, White over Black (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1969).

23 David Hume, Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. New ed. (Lon- don: A Millar, 1758), p. 125. " o f National Characters" appears to have been included for the first time in the 3rd ed. (1748) of Hume's Essays, Moral and Political. The racist footnote was added in the 1750s. This essay may also be found in David Hume: Philosophical Historian, ed. David Fate Norton and Richard H. Popkin, (Indianapolis: Library of Liberal Arts, 1965), p. 47. On Hume's sexism, see Louise Marcil Lacoste, "The Consistency of Hume's Position Concerning Women," Dialogue, XV (1976), 425-440. Some indication of Hume's attitudes towards Cathohcs (and the Irish) may be found in David Berman, "David Hume on the 1641 Rebellion in Ireland," Studies, Summer 1976, 101-112. It seems perverse to call Peirce, the theoretician of abduction, an empiricist.

25 Bernard Williams, reviewing Chomsky's Reflections on Language in the New York Review of Books (Nov 11, 1976, pp. 43-45), remarks that "it

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seems odd that anyone should need reminding at the m o m e n t that it is the environmental is t view o f mat ters o f ' intelligence' which has been identified as the liberal one." (p. 44) Williams is correct - the environmental is t view has been so identified. However, I have been contending that several ingredients in empiricism, including the environmental ism of the blank-tablet thesis, have in fact facilitated the articulation o f racism even while being identified as "liberal". See the article by Russell Marks cited in note 13.

26 Michael D u m m e t t has some thought fu l remarks on Frege as a "virulent racist" in his Frege (London: Duckworth , 1973), p. xii.

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