Why Are Individual IQ Differences OK?
Comment:
Yes, more on this. To a large extent, I agree with the sentiments here. This is part of what I find so appealing about Rawlsian Justice and Rawlsian social welfare functions. The naive libertarian notion (that is, there are libertarians with more sophisticated views than this, but they are small enough in number to ascribe this to libertarians in some generalized sense) that social justice comes from giving equality of opportunity to people and at some point (presumably once they become of age…aka 18?) letting them fend for themselves seems to ignore huge social and (as pointed out here) natural contexts that there is a fundamental non-equality of opportunity. Trying to create a system of government based on that strong premise, then, seems like folly. Thus the reason that I think the shortened version of Rawlsian egalitarianism is much stronger than it is often made out to be: inequality of outcomes can only be justified by insofar as those unequal outcomes benefit those at the bottom or insofar as those unequal outcomes are due /soley/ to differences in effort. Notice, that skill based differences, insofar as those skills are genetically (or ’socially,’ though that is clearly harder, in some ways, to pin down) endogenous, are not a basis for inequality (indeed, except insofar as that inequality proves sufficiently more efficient to make the worst off better). I’m not saying Rawls has everythong 100% pinned down (just read the Laws of Peoples to see some serious mistakes). But this attitude does not get taken very seriously in most settings, and it is hard to find what is wrong with the attitude (though building institutions that can grapple with the information required to make such decisions is of course a more difficult question).
Idang Alibi of Abuja, Nigeria writes on the James Watson affair: A few days ago, the Nobel Laureate, Dr. James Watson, made a remark that is now generating worldwide uproar, especially among blacks. He said what to me looks like…
