ID: 010715966
Professor Menge
Intro to Philosophy
December 8, 2016
Topic 1-Appiah and Race
Every person that you encounter in your life will share at least one similarity throughout: the fact
that they are human. In a very broad sense, we all are the same, as in we all are indeed human beings
that share (almost) the same biological makeup, but once looking beyond this very broad classification,
it is easy to see that no two humans are exactly the same. Not only do humans differ when it comes to
physical appearance, but we also differ when it comes to our ethical identities. In his paper, “But Would
That Still be Me?” Anthony Appiah discusses his beliefs on how central race and gender are to our
personal ethical identities, claiming specifically that race is less central to our ethical identities than
gender.
Before explaining the argument, I think it is important to briefly interpret what Appiah means by
ethical identity. Appiah says that he is looking at the, “…issues in the semantics, metaphysics, and logic
of identity…” that “are centrally concerned with the identification of individuals across (metaphysically)
possible worlds…” (page 493). To me, it seems that Appiah believes ethical identity entails being a
person with the same set of central traits and/or values, even if you somehow ended up on a completely
different world. So when Appiah claims that race is less central to our ethical identities than gender, he
is saying that gender has a bigger impact on our traits and values than race does. Appiah begins with his
reasoning for gender and why it has a bigger impact, discussing a hypothetical situation where he gets a
sex change. He goes on to say, “…A sex-change operation would make of this (metaphysical) person a
different (ethical) person. And so there is a sense in which she would not be me” (page 495). In his
defense, he says, “…gender (masculine and feminine, the social roles) provide the sharpest models for a
distinction between the metaphysical notion of identity that goes with Kripkean theorizing and the
notion of identity-the ethical notion-that I am seeking to explore” (page 495). When Appiah moves on to
race, the first statement he makes is, “No coherent system of biological classification of people-no
classification, that is, that serves explanatory purposes central to biological theory-corresponds to the
folk-theoretical classifications of people into Caucasian, Negro, and such” (page 496). One of the main
distinctions Appiah seems to be hitting at is that gender is rooted in our biology, while race is not,
making gender much more central to our ethical identity. He also believes that racial identity should not
be treated any differently than ethnic identity, in the sense that people should be free to identity with a
race if they please or not, like we seem to “allow” for ethnic identity.
I think that Appiah is right in his claims, and that when it comes to gender and race, gender has a
bigger influence on our beliefs and views than race. Being a man or woman brings with it a very
different view of the world, depending on which you are. In America, that difference is less notable, but
in some countries, being a woman comes with a life of mediocrity and basically servitude, which would
have a immense effect on someone’s views and beliefs. However, race does bring with it its fair share of
effects on beliefs and views. Sadly, most of these effects nowadays come from racism, but I do not think
that if you changed your race you would notice as big of a difference in life, thus leading to a change in
views and beliefs, as you would if you changed your gender. When you change something that is rooted
deep inside you (your chromosomes/DNA for example), I think that your body experiences a big change
that is demonstrated not only in appearance but also in ethical identity. Race seems to be sometimes
classified by “colors”, and if you were to just change the color of your skin, I believe that while a change
may occur in your ethical identity, it would not be near the change that would be observed if you
changed your gender.
Topic 2-Nozick’s Experience Machine
Throughout the course of our lives, we all will go through uncountable amounts of experiences.
What is interesting about these experiences, is while they occur almost always outside of your body and
include interaction with other people or things, it is often how we feel on the inside because of these
experiences that we most care about. Robert Nozick, in his paper, “The Experience Machine,” implores
a thought experiment that involves a machine capable of producing the feelings associated with
experiences, without actually having to partake in them. He says, “Super-duper neuropsychologists
could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a
friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes
attached to your brain” (page 42).
It is easy to see why Nozick writes about such a bizarre topic, for shortly after explaining what
