Monthly Archives: August 2013

A Non-Consequentialist Defense of Truth

In 2005, Larry Summers, the illustrious economist and former president of Harvard University got himself into considerable hot water when he articulated the following hypothesis regarding why relatively few women occupy senior-level science and engineering positions:

So my best guess, to provoke you…[is] that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them. [1]

Were Summers an academic philosopher, he might have asked himself the following question before speaking: “If it turns out to be an unalterable fact that as a society we can have either a meritocracy or the relatively even representation of men and women in high-level STEM professions, but not both, this will cause many people, especially feminists and egalitarians, great anguish; so wouldn’t it be better to simply keep my mouth shut on this subject?” In other words, if the dissemination of a particular truth will produce more harm than good under a utilitarian calculation, why should we not suppress it? (assuming of course that this were somehow within our power)    Continue Reading »

Posted in Blog | 2 Comments