CONSTITUTION

Our Scientific, Moral, and Political Position on Human Differences

Note: This page is a summary of a full article on our science, ethics, and morals – and why we address group differences while preserving interpersonal moral consistency. The Full Article is available here.

We distinguish scientific judgments about populations from moral judgments about persons.

Populations, nations, states, federations, empires, and civilizations differ in their accumulated genetic, demographic, territorial, intellectual, technological, informal institutional, and formal institutional capital. These differences are historically produced, empirically observable, causally consequential, and therefore legitimate objects of scientific investigation.

We do not infer from these population differences that every member of one population possesses the average characteristics of that population, nor that any person inherits guilt, merit, liability, or moral worth from group membership.

A person may be explained partly by reference to the capital, incentives, customs, institutions, and developmental environment of his population. But causal explanation is not moral judgment. Population membership may inform a prior under uncertainty; demonstrated individual conduct determines interpersonal trust, responsibility, liability, and remedy.

We therefore reject both the denial of population differences and the attribution of population averages to individual persons. The first makes social science impossible. The second makes interpersonal justice impossible.

Politically, we favor plural self-government rather than either universal homogenization or civilizational domination. Different populations possess different inheritances, circumstances, preferences, and capacities. They should therefore be free to construct the commons most suited to their interests, provided they reciprocally permit other populations to do the same.

Our ambition is to let a thousand nations bloom: to permit many peoples to preserve themselves, govern themselves, develop their particular forms of excellence, experiment with institutions, learn from one another, cooperate where interests converge, federate where scale requires it, and remain separate where difference would otherwise produce coercion and conflict.

We compare institutions and civilizations because some arrangements demonstrably produce better outcomes than others for particular purposes. But superiority of performance does not create superiority of moral worth, and it does not create a right of domination.

Civilizational achievements are forms of accumulated technology. They may be studied, imitated, adapted, and acquired, although often only slowly and at considerable cost because formal institutions depend upon supporting knowledge, habits, incentives, norms, and expectations.

Our position is therefore neither egalitarian denial nor supremacist domination.

It is empirical concerning populations, individualist concerning moral judgment, and pluralist concerning political organization.

Statistics describe populations.

Conduct identifies persons.

Reciprocity governs relations among both.

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