Ethics 131 (3):460-488 (
2021)
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Abstract
Some language encourages essentialist thinking. While philosophers have largely
focused on generics and essentialism, I argue that nouns as a category are poised to refer to
kinds and to promote representational essentializing. Our psychological propensity to
essentialize when nouns are used reveals a limitation for anti-essentialist ameliorative
projects. Even ameliorated nouns can continue to underpin essentialist thinking. I conclude
by arguing that representational essentialism does not doom anti-essentialist ameliorative
projects. Rather it reveals that would-be ameliorators ought to attend to the propensities for
our representational devices to essentialize and to the complex relationship between
essentialism and prejudice.