Race,space and moral climatology: notes toward a genealogy

This paper is a contribution to the genealogy of the presupposition that climatic zones and their inhabitants may legitimately be portrayed in the vocabulary of moral judgement. Focusing on four different scholarly domains at different points in time—Enlightenment philosophy, early Victorian anthropology, late nineteenth century tropical medicine, and early twentieth century climatology—it discloses the extent to which intellectual exchange among a Western elite was concerned with the mobilization of «moral climatology» for racial purposes. The persistent and widespread inclination to use climate as the vehicle for moralistic construals of global space is thus demonstrated.