Abstract
Since its original 1996 publication,Jorge Garcia's ``The Heart of Racism'' has beenwidely reprinted, a testimony to its importanceas a distinctive and original analysis ofracism. Garcia shifts the standard framework ofdiscussion from the socio-political to theethical, and analyzes racism as essentially avice. He represents his account asnon-revisionist (capturing everyday usage),non-doxastic (not relying on belief),volitional (requiring ill-will), and moralized(racism is always wrong). In this paper, Icritique Garcia's analysis, arguing that hedoes in fact revise everyday usage, that hisaccount does tacitly rely on belief, thatill-will is not necessary for racism, and thata moralized account gets both the scope and thedynamic of racism wrong. While I do not offeran alternative positive account myself, Isuggest that traditional left-wing structuralanalyses are indeed superior.
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Mills, C.W. ``Heart'' Attack: A Critique of Jorge Garcia's Volitional Conception of Racism. The Journal of Ethics 7, 29–62 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022874712554
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022874712554