As a Hereditarian, I Strongly Support Economic Redistribution
27th June 2024
A recognition that genetic influences on social outcomes are important will potentially influence the kind of help that society offers poorer individuals. But it does not in any way compel an absence of help, or a casual indifference.
And only people who fail to grasp the distinction between ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be’ would make that mistake.
Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.
Far too many people think that the scientific determination of ‘what we are’ is somehow normative of ‘what we ought to be’. Diet fads are based on this: We evolved to eat meat, so we all ought to eat meat and nothing else. Well, no. The first part of that statement is true, but the second part is not–non sequitur, as we old-fashioned people would say.