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A Metaphysical Mapping Problem for Race Theorists and Human Population Geneticists

In this talk, I identify and clarify a mapping phenomenon that’s almost twenty years old. The phenomenon is that the populations at a fivefold subdivision of humans into biological populations—the so-called human continental populations—correspond one-to-one with the five official races of the Office of Management and Budget in the US government. This phenomenon has raised the interesting philosophical question of what exactly is the metaphysical relation being exemplified by this particular mapping. Metaphysicians of race have offered multiple different theories. Most importantly, Levin thinks that it’s co-exemplification of a certain kind of biological population, Ásta has argued that it’s a function of tracking, Hardimon has argued that it’s co-exemplification of minimalist race, and Taylor thinks that the relation is (at best) co-extension. However, in this paper, I argue that the metaphysical relation that’s exemplified is identity. After presenting and defending the identity thesis, I explore interesting implications of the identity thesis for race theorists and NIH-funded medical scientists.