The evolution of attitudes about social stratification: Why many people (including social scientists) are morally outraged by The Bell Curve

Abstract

This article contends that genetic factors incline many people to adopt sociopolitical attitudes that are associated with moral outrage when confronted with arguments that human beings inherently differ in their abilities to compete for social status. I propose a theory of social stratification, which asserts that this is a genetically influenced response that has an evolutionary foundation. The theory envisions natural selection favoring the co-evolution of social hierarchies and sociopolitical attitudes, one consequence of which is that persons with strong altruistic tendencies (especially when directed toward nonrelatives) will be drawn into ‘helping occupations’ such as education and will also be prone to adopt left-wing sociopolitical attitudes. Therefore, some of the strongest resistance to arguments presented in publications such as Herrnstein and Murray's (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994) The Bell Curve will be found in the academic community itself. Overall, the present article contends that people's attitudes, including those of us in the social sciences, are influenced by genetics, and that one of the effects of these genes is to cause many of us to be highly resistant to any evidence supporting the hypothesis that genes have major influences on people's abilities to achieve high social status.