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> All men are created equal. - U.S. Declaration of Independence The above statement is false. That's more clear than ever and geno-economics contributes to th

> All men are created equal. - U.S. Declaration of Independence The above statement is false. That's more clear than ever and geno-economics contributes to that clarity. If you live your life by this assumption you will get many important things wrong. Yet this clearly wrong statement, as applied to the operation of the rule of law, is also one of the most brilliant, important and useful concepts invented by civilization. As a proposition for how to engineer law to support a flourishing society, it is true and right. I think that's the right way to deal with this controversy. Acknowledge that people have significant and important differences that are beyond their control, while also acknowledging that such difference can be overwhelmed by the effects of their nurturing and other controllable differences, such that it's better to judge them holistically and personally when that data is available.

Iamhisalt 8y ago
“All men are created equal” - “before God.” The last two words are how the founders interpreted that statement when written. They were all male, wealthy and white. People allowed to participate in government were the same.
jvanderbot 8y ago
There's a huge distinction between right in fact and right in policy.
vtange 8y ago
That line is taken out of context a lot - the Declaration of Independence does not try to assert that all humans are equal in ability, its main focus was to state that all humans have equal rights to their life, liberty and freedom to pursue happiness. That means that even if a human is weaker, or even disabled, he or she still has equal rights to a human who is in good health.
- crimsonalucard 8y ago
  Also, originally it only referred to men as in human of the male sex.
- tynpeddler 8y ago
  Yes and no. Classical liberalism uses the assumed equality of all people to argue that the people are capable of and ought to engage in self rule. If by some miracle of science we can prove that this presumed equality is mostly false, then you can begin to attack the fundamental justification for self rule. There is a lot of complexity here (for example, what does it even mean for for a disabled person to have an equal right to good health?) and this discussion could go for days, but assumed equality is a huge foundational point for classical liberalism.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    > Classical liberalism uses the assumed equality of all people to argue that the people are capable of and ought to engage in self rule. "Equality" in the sense of equal rights, yes. Not in the sense of equal capabilities. Classical liberalism, as exemplified in documents like the Declaration of Independence, was based on the idea that, even though people have differences in ability, those differences do not give any person a right to rule over any other person. That's where the justification for "self rule" comes from. Since this reasoning already recognizes that people have differences in ability, "science" showing that people have differences in ability (did we really need "science" to tell us this? isn't it obvious?) does not invalidate the reasoning at all.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  But not if they were "nonhuman savages" that were roughly human shaped but not Western European in skin tone.
  - avertz 8y ago
    There are other interpretations that square with this obvious contradiction. The founders may have believed as Aristolte that man was a rational animal and those lacking rationality were not men but just animals and fit to be slaves. More likely though they did not mean the equality of White and black but the equality of themselves and King George, stripping him of his divine right to rule. Using this quote to justify contemporary egalitarianism is ridiculous.
coldtea 8y ago
>The above statement is false. That's more clear than ever and geno-economics contributes to that clarity. If you live your life by this assumption you will get many important things wrong. "It's bad to kill people" -- this statement is also false. There's no logical necessity that says its bad to kill people, it's only a utility calculation (whether you get caught, what the profit will be vs repercussions etc). Still if you don't live your life by this assumption (that killing people is bad) you will get many important things wrong. The basic moral imperatives should not be based on them being objectively true, but on what kind of world we want to live in. "All men are created equal" doesn't mean "everybody is as tall" or "as strong" or "as smart". Obviously those who wrote it knew that already. It also doesn't mean a person without qualifications should get to work as a doctor just as well as someone with a M.D. diploma. They knew that too. It just means that all people are equally worth, not to some utility function, but absolutely as human beings.
- hirundo 8y ago
  > It just means that all people are equally worth, not to some utility function, but absolutely as human beings. In order to believe that worth can be determined independent of a utility function, you need a standard of absolute worth. Even religious statements of worth are based on utility to the deity. Biological statements of worth regard utility toward the population or ecosystem. I can't think of a non-utilitarian standard of worth that isn't arbitrary, can you?
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >In order to believe that worth can be determined independent of a utility function, you need a standard of absolute worth Or you can just dispense with the notion of worth of a person as person altogether -- then you don't need to "determine" anything. That's what the "equal" part means in that sentence: don't try to determine". You can determine the skills of a surgeon, the education of a scholar, the speed of an athlete, the voice of an actor, the coding skills of a developer, etc. But you should not try to determine the worth of a person as person. That is, when you don't care to measure something something specific, you should not consider someone inferior. >Even religious statements of worth are based on utility to the deity. Not really, at least not in the religions I've known. At least in (non-protestant) christianity people have absolute utility.
conanbatt 8y ago
Its not a statement of fact my man, it's a moral principle to organize government, law and order.

Iamhisalt 8y ago

“All men are created equal” - “before God.” The last two words are how the founders interpreted that statement when written. They were all male, wealthy and white. People allowed to participate in government were the same.

jvanderbot 8y ago

There's a huge distinction between right in fact and right in policy.

vtange 8y ago

That line is taken out of context a lot - the Declaration of Independence does not try to assert that all humans are equal in ability, its main focus was to state that all humans have equal rights to their life, liberty and freedom to pursue happiness. That means that even if a human is weaker, or even disabled, he or she still has equal rights to a human who is in good health.

crimsonalucard 8y ago
Also, originally it only referred to men as in human of the male sex.
tynpeddler 8y ago
Yes and no. Classical liberalism uses the assumed equality of all people to argue that the people are capable of and ought to engage in self rule. If by some miracle of science we can prove that this presumed equality is mostly false, then you can begin to attack the fundamental justification for self rule. There is a lot of complexity here (for example, what does it even mean for for a disabled person to have an equal right to good health?) and this discussion could go for days, but assumed equality is a huge foundational point for classical liberalism.
- pdonis 8y ago
  > Classical liberalism uses the assumed equality of all people to argue that the people are capable of and ought to engage in self rule. "Equality" in the sense of equal rights, yes. Not in the sense of equal capabilities. Classical liberalism, as exemplified in documents like the Declaration of Independence, was based on the idea that, even though people have differences in ability, those differences do not give any person a right to rule over any other person. That's where the justification for "self rule" comes from. Since this reasoning already recognizes that people have differences in ability, "science" showing that people have differences in ability (did we really need "science" to tell us this? isn't it obvious?) does not invalidate the reasoning at all.
fjsolwmv 8y ago
But not if they were "nonhuman savages" that were roughly human shaped but not Western European in skin tone.
- avertz 8y ago
  There are other interpretations that square with this obvious contradiction. The founders may have believed as Aristolte that man was a rational animal and those lacking rationality were not men but just animals and fit to be slaves. More likely though they did not mean the equality of White and black but the equality of themselves and King George, stripping him of his divine right to rule. Using this quote to justify contemporary egalitarianism is ridiculous.

coldtea 8y ago

>The above statement is false. That's more clear than ever and geno-economics contributes to that clarity. If you live your life by this assumption you will get many important things wrong. "It's bad to kill people" -- this statement is also false. There's no logical necessity that says its bad to kill people, it's only a utility calculation (whether you get caught, what the profit will be vs repercussions etc). Still if you don't live your life by this assumption (that killing people is bad) you will get many important things wrong. The basic moral imperatives should not be based on them being objectively true, but on what kind of world we want to live in. "All men are created equal" doesn't mean "everybody is as tall" or "as strong" or "as smart". Obviously those who wrote it knew that already. It also doesn't mean a person without qualifications should get to work as a doctor just as well as someone with a M.D. diploma. They knew that too. It just means that all people are equally worth, not to some utility function, but absolutely as human beings.

hirundo 8y ago
> It just means that all people are equally worth, not to some utility function, but absolutely as human beings. In order to believe that worth can be determined independent of a utility function, you need a standard of absolute worth. Even religious statements of worth are based on utility to the deity. Biological statements of worth regard utility toward the population or ecosystem. I can't think of a non-utilitarian standard of worth that isn't arbitrary, can you?
- coldtea 8y ago
  >In order to believe that worth can be determined independent of a utility function, you need a standard of absolute worth Or you can just dispense with the notion of worth of a person as person altogether -- then you don't need to "determine" anything. That's what the "equal" part means in that sentence: don't try to determine". You can determine the skills of a surgeon, the education of a scholar, the speed of an athlete, the voice of an actor, the coding skills of a developer, etc. But you should not try to determine the worth of a person as person. That is, when you don't care to measure something something specific, you should not consider someone inferior. >Even religious statements of worth are based on utility to the deity. Not really, at least not in the religions I've known. At least in (non-protestant) christianity people have absolute utility.

conanbatt 8y ago

Its not a statement of fact my man, it's a moral principle to organize government, law and order.