Appendix IV: The Moral basis for arguing the Hereditarian Hypothesis

Appendix IV: The Moral basis for arguing the Hereditarian Hypothesis

When it comes to race and disparity, whether we are talking about academic performance or health (see note below), arguing HBD isn’t about being mean. Arguing HBD is defensive. It’s how the ‘bad guys’ in the morality narrative defend themselves and keep from losing. HBD has the potential to make White people feel LESS BAD about themselves, given that the said disparities are otherwise blamed on an ubiquitous, and presumably bad, mean, and ugly white (read: active, historic, or institutional) racism in Europe, South America, Canada, the US, (don’t forget Mexico!), etc. For example, this recent guardian article: ‘More Black People Jailed in England and Wales Proportionally Than in US‘ where crime rates are REFLEXIVELY attributed to “decades of racial prejudice in the criminal justice system.” In Wales?

[To get a clearer image at what I am referring to, refer here.

Of course, were other people normal, a commonsense Sowellesque counter to the mountains of lies and libels based on HED (human ethnic diversity) and the complexities of life would suffice. But, as it is, investigating and pointing out the HBD behind the situation is necessary to stop the infinite regress of white guilt and infinite progress of an unwanted neosocialism. That is, to be clear, is morally necessary — and as such deserves to be propounded righteously.

To quote Linda Gottfredson:

According to social privilege theory, there would be no racial inequality in a fair, non-discriminatory society. The continuing existence of racial inequality is therefore proof of continuing discrimination. The fact that racial inequality permeates nearly all aspects of American life means, then, that racial discrimination permeates nearly all aspects of American life. The fact that overtly discriminatory acts are rarely observed today means only that discrimination has become hidden from view. That seemingly sincere, well-meaning whites deny being bigoted means only that their bigotry is unconscious and they refuse to admit it. That black students perform less well on average than their white classmates means that their teachers must be racist, and the latter seem to prove their guilt if they suggest that their black students sometimes have more difficulty learning the curriculum. The fact that some racial-ethnic groups disproportionately fail to meet objective race-neutral standards is proof of further insidious racism, namely, that these standards were established with the intent to favor the dominant class while appearing to do otherwise. According to social privilege theory, high-achieving groups (at least European whites) are therefore automatically guilty of profiting from an oppressive social system, and low-achieving groups are being robbed of what is rightfully theirs. Every inequality becomes more evidence of entrenched evil. The talk of brotherhood 50 years ago is replaced by talk of reparations and retribution; the hope of mutual respect among the races by mutual resentment.

………………

In science, ideas are checked through empirical experimentation. In philosophy ideas are also checked; they are checked through hypothetical considerations. When it comes to ethical and moral ideas, such thought experiments, or moral dilemmas, are common tests. Through hypotheticals, we are forced to confront the contradictory implications of our ideas — they are tested against the manifold of our dispositions. Most people have heard variants of this one:

As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you – your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?

When it comes to Human Biodiversity and society we have the following dilemma:

Imagine a society in which there are different recognizable ancestral and ethnic populations. Imagine you know that these populations, on average, will not perform equally across all social dimensions, and particularly in some desired fields. Do you structure society to make sure that there is proportionate group representation in desired fields or do you affirm individual rights.

This hypothetical tests how we think about equality in relation to individuals, groups, opportunity, and outcomes. It’s interesting to see the answers we get. It’s even more interesting to see the attempts made to not answer it. Take Richard Nisbett’s comment in Race, genetics, and IQ:

If such a difference were wholly or substantially genetic in origin, the implications for American society would be dire. It would mean that even if the environmental playing field were leveled, a much higher proportion of blacks than whites would have trouble supporting themselves, and a much lower proportion of blacks than whites would be professionals and successful business people. A recent example of this claim can be found in the phenomenally successful book The Bell Curve (1994), by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray.

Why, exactly, would the implications be dire? One can either continue with group based discrimination or focus on individual rights. Jensen made this point a while back:

However, note that adverse impact is a phenomenon wholly related to group differences. It need not be seen as a problem if selection were only thought of in terms of individual differences. Thus the “dilemma” referred to in the title of my essay really boils down to the kind of question that science is unable to answer. It is the old question of whether group rights should predominate over individual rights. This is inherently not a scientific question at all, but a philosophical and ethical one. … On this point, of course, the argument devolves wholly on philosophic principle and social consent. Scientists may legitimately formulate predictions about the probable outcomes of different public policies, but they are no better qualified philosophically or ethically than any other citizens to choose which policy should be empowered. In our system of government, such decisions rest with the citizens, their elected representatives, and ultimately with the courts.
— Jensen, 2000.

The dire aspect for Nisbett and friends is that it would force them to face the above hypothetical, which they don’t want to, because it shatters their liberal ideas. Elsewhere I noted that Flynn holds that the Flynn effect offers analytic proof against Jensen’s “steal logic”; in the same way, we might say that HBD offers an analytic demonstration of the incoherence of contemporary Liberal logic.