In Which I Am Taken to Task for Saying Something Stupid
On Wikifray, I posted something not well considered, and Gregor Samsa took me to task, at which point I made things worse. What follows is my attempt to say something less stupid…
The Wikifray discussion is here
Hi Gregor,
Your critique comes at a useful time for me. I’ve been designing a course about technology and interactions between Europe and the Qing dynasty. I’d meant the course to be about things like changes in the manufacture of opium, jesuit contributions to cannon technology, the development of a Chinese navy (and the sinking of that navy by the Japanese in 1895), changes in sugar production and how they affected labor, the development of rifles with a higher rate of fire, the relationship between steamboats and steamship diplomacy — that sort of thing, not really history of science at all.
Well, anyway, a lot of the ways that both Chinese and Europeans understood this technological development was cast in racial terms ( roughly “Machines as the Measure of Men” ). So I got into depictions of the world according to supposed technological prowess, and from there it’s just a short hop to Gould’s book on The Mismeasure of Men. I was in the middle of that when I read Saletan. I’ll add that I felt a bit horrified because the institution where I teach is very similar to one that trained him, I regard my main task as trying to prevent people from spouting the kind of bullshit he was spouting. And then I manage to spout my own forms of bullshit as well.
Point being, if you are willing to keep up this conversation (I know you are busy) it would be very helpful to me.
To your most recent points:
Again, genes (interacting with environment) choose specific traits in individuals, a mapping that is itself value neutral. Which traits are highly valued is chosen by society, and varies over time and space. This point is entirely trite and uncontroversial, at least among the sane.
The general point may be uncontroversial, but the specifics matter. I assume this is so obvious to you that you choose not to dwell on it (or maybe you just think I’m dwelling too deeply on it, and want me to look in a different direction.) Anyway, as you know but apparently Saletan doesn’t, and for the benefit of anybody else reading — the variation is in the genes, the ways the genes are expressed, the ways that a given observer chooses to define the trait under observation, and the social value/attention placed on the trait. The cases of race and intelligence both show that you can construct a trait that, yes, corresponds to some kind of physical reality but is itself a reification. I think it is fair to say that most people are less aware of that last point than you are. And I also think the example is an argument for paying attention to history – which definitions have caused mischief in the past, and how? Perhaps you think that if people get the math right the problems are solved and the history doesn’t matter. The honest answer is that I don’t know the math well enough to judge, but it seems to me your Platonic goal of disinterested observation might be served by keeping an eye on those interested observers who thought they were being disinterested.
In my sober moments, I don’t mean to throw the baby out with the bathwater. My post is overstated, but I don’t think that that point is trivial, even to the sane. Maybe I wouldn’t know.
What is not trite is your normative claim that society should choose what it values so that people of different genetic endowments enjoy roughly equal success. The dog example illustrates that nobody is prepared to embrace it beyond a point, not even you (yes, their treatment varies across cultures but pampered slaves is as good as it gets). That is because there are other properties (e.g., general affluence, peacefulness, culture, etc.) that we find desirable in our notions of a good society, and a trade-off between equality and these other virtues is plausible. Some values may be imposed by power elites, but many others are rendered necessary by widely shared goals, like freedom from hunger and violence.
Fair enough. Still, the conversation seems to be going like this:
You “What about the constraints?”
Me “What about the way people overstate those constraints?” I mean, freedom from hunger and violence seem to me goals of very, very few societies – the far more common model seems to be “Protect one group from hunger and violence by lumping as much as possible of it on another.”
So I guess one of my questions is, what kind of a question are we debating? If we are talking about the world of2007, what do you think is the bigger problem – our failure to acknowledge genetic differentiation or the arrangement of the world into societies based on a bogus categories supposedly derived from science? I recognize the two aren’t mutually exclusive, and I also recognize that that isn’t your claim.
So yes, a trade off between equality and heritable virtues is possible (you are right) – but it seems to me that the more difficult social problems up to now have involved trade offs (not made) between groups that are not constituted by genetic differences. More often, what I see happening is people trying to justify for example, poor treatment of women on the basis of female biology. Hence my claim “Surely a just society is one that finds the best way for biological differences to be advantageous to all concerned, that finds opportunities for both short and tall. An unjust society is one that allows prejudice to shape scientific categories, thus justifying discrimination.” – I take your point that the “best way” is going to have a number of caveats, that it will never be possible to ignore genetic differences. I still think the second sentence is correct – you may find it trivial (and not relevant to your own intellectual endeavors) but it’s relevant to the lives of lots and lots of people. It doesn’t necessarily help them to acknowledge the general principle as obvious when the fallacy is so common. (Not that I’m doing them any good either).
Both you and Arch (to say nothing of Stanley Fish) also seem to suffer from the perennial confusion between normative science and the sociology of practiced science. The fact that there are few, if any, disinterested observers doesn’t imply that we shouldn’t endorse a Platonic principle of disinterested observation, and hold each other to it. The statements “Rushton’s motivations are racist” and “Rushton is wrong” require different (though not completely unconnected) reasoning. If I claim that dogs are genetically unsuited to play piano sonatas, it is not enough to cite chapter and verse on how many poodles I have killed or how I am funded by the cat lobby (cats, it is well known, have a deep appreciation of Chopin), true as they might be. The arrogance of postmodernism lies in the smug assumption that everyone who rejects epistemological relativism/nihilism must be a political naïf.
I’m not Stanley Fish. Point taken. As noted, I reacted the way I did because Saletan was rehearsing ideas that were both wrong and caused terrible injustice. He claimed that ignoring the injustice made him more objective, and then used his supposedobjectivity to ignore the ways issues he brought up had already been demonstrated to be problematic. What I think is sad about the episode is that Saletan has now replicated precisely the error you bring up here – he’s partially retracted what he said because he discovered that one of the authors of a study was racist, but still not pointed out the ways that the study was wrong. Probably a more socially useful post would have been to rehearse Gould’s points.
There is more to “what if” than proof by insinuation (though it is often employed as such a tactic, for sure). The evidence for racial differences in socially valued genetic endowments is unpersuasive, but that for substantial individual variations is overwhelming (mushy liberals refute the former by rejecting the latter). If you haven’t thought about how society should treat its congenitally dumb, ugly, lazy, criminal or psychopathic members (in proclivity, at least) - regardless of race or gender - you haven’t paid attention to much that is relevant in the social realm.
Your second sentence – I assume rewritten it says that “There are substantial individual variations in socially valued genetic endowments” I don’t quite understand how that answers my worries about who is deciding what is socially valued. And again, I remain impressed that there might be a lot of different ways of handling this problem, and that an answer on first principles might not be as effective as a kind of ad hoc pragmatism.
But I’ll try to take your question as stated. It seems to me that we have differential moral obligations. I think that there is a certain base set of obligations due to people simply by virtue of their being human, and that those obligations take priority over others (I’m perhaps Confucian in this respect – I see somewhat higher obligations to immediate community, family, etc). Once those basic obligations (i.e. those due to people by virtue of being human) are met, my tolerance for inequality is high. Indeed, I’d prefer a world in which the morally astute (which may well be a heritable characteristic) are rewarded.
Is that a useful response? If not, it would be most helpful for me if you reproduced the old ghost of a-z you –yadda yadda, me trenchant point, you idiotic point, me ??? style of précis.