I might subjectively feel like I would. But believing that I would is flattering to me, and the two convictions appear to be quite negatively correlated. And for the great majority of things that fit this pattern, for a great majority of people the subjective feeling would be wrong.
Then I confess that we must be different in this regard: I already believe a weak form of that thing about genetic affliction predisposing its victims for destructive behavior, and because of that I feel more sympathetic to e.g. poor people of African descent who can’t handle modern society, not less.
Well, you already believe it, so you have access to better information!
I suppose I could extrapolate from my intuitions on individual differences: I don’t really care that someone’s genes predispose them to want to do certain things; if they do things because they want to do them, they’re responsible (as long as they remain in the range where they care about other people’s opinions and reactive behaviors.) We’re all determined by our genes and social conditioning, not as external forces but as contributors to who we are; the relevant difference with social influences is whether other people are responsible as well. On the other hand, people aren’t responsible for their abilities, except to the extent that they work to develop them or not. It seems to me that (although my earlier reservations about the validity of self-prediction may apply here) if I learned that the stuff that gets called intelligence was more (less) innate than I thought, I’d be more (less) sympathetic to conspicuous idiocy. If I learned that more (less) of it was regulated (whether genetically, culturally, meteorologically, whatever) by the desire to learn more I’d be less (more) sympathetic. So if e.g. looking at the evidence without preconcieved notions convinced me that Europeans were naturally stupid, I might be more sympathetic, but if it showed they were naturally violent I’d be less—is my guess, anyway.
I might subjectively feel like I would. But believing that I would is flattering to me, and the two convictions appear to be quite negatively correlated. And for the great majority of things that fit this pattern, for a great majority of people the subjective feeling would be wrong.
Then I confess that we must be different in this regard: I already believe a weak form of that thing about genetic affliction predisposing its victims for destructive behavior, and because of that I feel more sympathetic to e.g. poor people of African descent who can’t handle modern society, not less.
Well, you already believe it, so you have access to better information!
I suppose I could extrapolate from my intuitions on individual differences: I don’t really care that someone’s genes predispose them to want to do certain things; if they do things because they want to do them, they’re responsible (as long as they remain in the range where they care about other people’s opinions and reactive behaviors.) We’re all determined by our genes and social conditioning, not as external forces but as contributors to who we are; the relevant difference with social influences is whether other people are responsible as well. On the other hand, people aren’t responsible for their abilities, except to the extent that they work to develop them or not. It seems to me that (although my earlier reservations about the validity of self-prediction may apply here) if I learned that the stuff that gets called intelligence was more (less) innate than I thought, I’d be more (less) sympathetic to conspicuous idiocy. If I learned that more (less) of it was regulated (whether genetically, culturally, meteorologically, whatever) by the desire to learn more I’d be less (more) sympathetic. So if e.g. looking at the evidence without preconcieved notions convinced me that Europeans were naturally stupid, I might be more sympathetic, but if it showed they were naturally violent I’d be less—is my guess, anyway.