Let’s say that someone finds out that the book “The Bell Curve” is actually right, and that some ethnic groups are measurably stupider than others.
What obligations do the groups have toward each other? In that situation, is it ethical to give them as much free will? Is it ethical to remove some of it? What about education and testing?
I’ve wondered about that… as it stands, the stupid (independent of ethnicity) are sort of thrown to the wolves; would we do that if there were definitely a group proven to be stupid?
Do you mean that (a) on average, members of Group A are measurably stupider than members of Group B, but (b) this or that member of Group A may well be measurably smarter than each member of Group B?
We still make decisions and policy for individuals not groups.
If you need a tall person for a job, you don’t advertise for scandinavians you measure them.
If you need a fast person to represent your country in the olympics, you don’t look for someone with Kenyan ancestry. You see how fast they can run.
If you need a smart person, you don’t exclude people with the “wrong” ethnic background. You make sure they are smart.
An average for a group tells you very little about the ability of an individual and it is perverse to exclude a group when it is easy to test for the ability you require.
You should have preferences for people of the stupider group in certain jobs and schools in which they are underrepresented.
That would be kind of a token apology for society favoring the “smarter” group as well as provide positive role models so the “stupider” group could do better.
I’m imagining something similar to A in your example.
I just got to wondering hypothetically what the ethical implications would be if it turned out that indeed some ethnic group was proven to be on average, markely stupider than the rest in a statistically significant way. Or even if one was proven to be markedly smarter than everyone else.
Would that smarter group be obligated to somehow not play in the same sandbox as everyone else?
Would everyone else be obligated to somehow not discriminate vs. the stupider group? (Why would you hire someone from a group proven to be dumber on average than everyone else?)
If you automatically didn’t hire person A because on average group A is “dumber” than group B, then you’re the stupid employer. Group averages say nothing about individuals. Just making up numbers, what if group A has an average SAT score 200 points lower than group B. You’d be stupid employer to automatically not consider hiring an individual from group A, because their individual SAT score could be very low or very high, you have no way of knowing unless you actually look at their score.
You’d still treat people the same as individuals, but one implication for policy would be that we would no longer automatically assume assume that a test or process that produces unequal outcomes across races, is racist.
Thus the New Haven firefighter case, and disparate-impact laws like the EEOC four-fifths rule, would be considered idiotic, as in fact they are. So the result is not more prejudice - any employer who overlooks smart members of the Dumbo clan or shoos in idiots from the Smarties tribe would be uncompetitive and go out of business. Rather, we’d have fewer inefficient constraints than we have today.
This is my answer as well. This is something people ought to be doing already, and it will yield the best results regardless of whether there is an ethnic average difference.
In fact, whenever discussions come around to “are there or are there not any inate differences in any characteristics between various ethnic groups?” my response is always:
– Yes, there are differences (on average.) This is pretty much the definition of an Ethnic Group – a group of people who have some disposition towards some kind of characteristic which, on average, allows grouping them together in the first place…
– Anyone who looks at the average of the (supposed) ethnic group to which any individual may (look like they) belong, rather than measuring the characteristic we’re looking for on the individual level is beyond dumb.
This is even without going into the question of who belongs to what ethnic group, or groups, how do we define who belongs, what do we do with “mixed” ethnicity… Just looking at the individual rather than at any supposed group the may “belong” to makes all of these questions moot and irrelevant – as they should be.
There will still be geniuses. The greatest genius of all time might be someone of whatever the genetically stupidest race is. Ultimately, you should still base what you do, who you hire, etc. on a person’s ability.
Unfortunately, stereotyping will hinder this, but using unbiased tests to alleviate this will simply result in people of smarter races–with wealthier parents–getting more training on how to pass the tests and hence do better on them, all the while wasting their time on learning how to pass tests instead of learning how to be a smarter person.
There is no good solution until bio-engineering allows us to solve the problem–at which point the big rift becomes between those who have been modified and those who are natural-born instead of between the races.
I don’t see any obligation to do anything at all. And frankly this has been proven beyond any non-PC doubt, anyway.
Has been said already, but should be hammered home: The key point is that variation within a group is greater than variation between groups. So folk should be treated as individuals.