Reasons and Racism. Background of biological determinism in enlightened though.

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the influence of racial prejudice on enlightened thought, and its relations with modern biological determinism. The recent history of this theory and its links with racism are examined, and its origins in relation to bourgeois ideology are investigated. The role of slavery in John Locke’s philosophy is analyzed, and the impact, in colonial dynamics, of the first scientific works oriented to classify the human races is studied. Immanuel Kant's ideas on racial differences are reviewed, showing how they helped to legitimize European colonial projects.