Philosophy Discussion Questions

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• What does it mean to say that white supremacy is a political system? How does this contrast with claiming racism is a personal belief?
• Explain each of Mills’ three aims: the existential claim, the conceptual claim, and the methodological claim.
• What is the racial contract?
• What, according to Mills, is the purpose of the racial contract?
• How does it achieve that purpose?
• Explain the difference between signatories and beneficiaries of the racial contract.
• What is the epistemic contract?
• Why is the epistemic contract a necessary part of the racial contract?
• Give an example of how the epistemic contract works.
• In what sense does Mills agree with Rousseau that humans are innately compassionate? 
• What does Mills mean when he says that “the Racial Contract…has the best claim to be an actual historical fact” and how does he argue for this claim?
• What role did Christianity play, according to Mills, in the formation of the modern concept of race?
• What role did the Enlightenment concept of rationality play in the formation of the modern concept of race?
• For each of the three classical social contract theorists we read (Hobbes, Locke & Rousseau), explain how their theories contributed (according to Mills) to the development of the racial contract.
• How does the racial contract’s state of nature contrast with the classical state of nature conceived as a time before civilization arose?
• What is meant by the claim that space is ‘normed’ within the racial contract? How does this contrast with the concept of space in the classical contract?
• Describe the reciprocal relationship between spaces and persons in the racial contract’s state of nature.
• Why does the state of nature manifest as segregation within the white-controlled state?
• What is the economic dimension of Locke’s social contract? In what way is the economic dimension of the Racial Contract different?
• Mills repeatedly claims that the individual of the classical contract theory is ‘really’ a white adult male. Explain what this means.
• Explain Mills’ claim that “nonwhite cognition has to be verified by white cognition to be accepted as valid.”
• According to Mills, is the existence of white supremacy as a political system objectively true? Explain why or why not.
• What does it mean to say the classical social contract is voluntary? How does the racial contract differ?
• Does Mills think that white people are superior to people of color? Explain why or why not.
• What is the role of physical violence in enforcing the Racial Contract?
• Explain the point of Mill’s claim in Chapter 1 footnote 3 that “historically, white racial solidarity has overridden class and gender solidarity.”