It is therefore reasonable to expect that increasing intelligence will, to some extent, disrupt our in-built self-deception.
No. Your argument is specious. Evolution ‘designed’ us with all sorts of things ‘in mind’ that no longer apply. That doesn’t mean that any arbitrary aspect of our lives will have an influence if it’s changed on any other aspect. If the environmental factors / traits have no relationship with the trait we’re interested in, we have no initial reason to think that changing the conditions will affect the trait.
Consider the absurdity of taking your argumentative structure seriously:
“Nature designed us to have full heads of hair. Nature also gave us a sense of sight, which it did not design to operate optimally in hairless conditions. It is therefore reasonable to expect that shaving the head will, to some extent, disrupt our visual acuity.”
This criticism is valid if we think that the trait we vary is irrelevant to the effect we are considering.
But we have already established that intelligence is likely to affect our ability to self-deceive.
For example, we could fairly easily establish that inhaling large quantities of soot is likely to affect our lungs in some way, then apply this argument to get the conclusion that pollution is probably slightly harmful (with some small degree of certainty).
Essentially this argument says: if you perform a random intervention J that you have reason to believe will affect evolved system S, it will probably reduce the functioning of S, unless J was specifically designed to improve the functioning of S.
Stated like this I don’t find this style of argument unsound; smoking, pollution, obesity, etc are all cases in point.
This criticism is valid if we think that the trait we vary is irrelevant to the effect we are considering.
No, the criticism is valid if we have no reason to think that the traits will be causally linked. You’re making another logical fallacy—confusing two statements whose logical structure renders them non-equivalent.
(thinking trait is ~relevant) != ~(thinking trait is relevant)
No. Your argument is specious. Evolution ‘designed’ us with all sorts of things ‘in mind’ that no longer apply. That doesn’t mean that any arbitrary aspect of our lives will have an influence if it’s changed on any other aspect. If the environmental factors / traits have no relationship with the trait we’re interested in, we have no initial reason to think that changing the conditions will affect the trait.
Consider the absurdity of taking your argumentative structure seriously:
“Nature designed us to have full heads of hair. Nature also gave us a sense of sight, which it did not design to operate optimally in hairless conditions. It is therefore reasonable to expect that shaving the head will, to some extent, disrupt our visual acuity.”
This criticism is valid if we think that the trait we vary is irrelevant to the effect we are considering.
But we have already established that intelligence is likely to affect our ability to self-deceive.
For example, we could fairly easily establish that inhaling large quantities of soot is likely to affect our lungs in some way, then apply this argument to get the conclusion that pollution is probably slightly harmful (with some small degree of certainty).
Essentially this argument says: if you perform a random intervention J that you have reason to believe will affect evolved system S, it will probably reduce the functioning of S, unless J was specifically designed to improve the functioning of S.
Stated like this I don’t find this style of argument unsound; smoking, pollution, obesity, etc are all cases in point.
No, the criticism is valid if we have no reason to think that the traits will be causally linked. You’re making another logical fallacy—confusing two statements whose logical structure renders them non-equivalent.
(thinking trait is ~relevant) != ~(thinking trait is relevant)
see edited comment above