Kant's scientific racism

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of finding a basis of scientific racism in Kant's understanding of the races of man. Scientific racism is a procedure of justifying racist beliefs by means of biased interpretation of scientific discoveries. It is well known that Kant sporadically asserts some severely racist statements. However, analysis of the works in which such statements occur shows that they can be considered as nothing more than intruders that do not have any substantial connection or contribution to Kant's understanding of races of man. Kant is one of the first thinkers to consider the notion of race from a scientific perspective, but that does not necessarily mean that he embraced scientific racism nor that his ethical and naturalistic reflections are irreversibly compromised by his occasional racist outbursts.