Logical empiricists on race

- Reviews the logical empiricists' published writings evaluating scientific explanations that appeal to human racial taxonomy.
- Reviews the logical positivists empiricists' writings evaluating moral or political positions which rely on racial differentiation.
- Rationally reconstructs logical empiricist position on race to explicate their scientific and political remarks on the topic.

The logical empiricists expressed a consistent attitude to racial categorisation in both the ethical and scientific spheres. Their attitude may be captured in the following slogan: human racial taxonomy is an empirically meaningful mode of classifying persons that we should refrain from deploying. I offer an interpretation of their position that would render coherent their remarks on race with positions they adopted on the scientific status of taxonomy in general, together with their potential moral or political motivations for adopting that position.