Judgement of human traits

merrymadscientist · Deinonychus Joined: Dec 19, 2007 Posts: 301 Location: UK

Why are some human traits considered as things which individuals cannot control and cannot be condemned for, whereas others are considered to be an individual's choice?

I will take the example first of things such as intelligence or physical beauty or extroversion. All of these are considered good traits to have. However, people that don't have them are not in general blamed for not having them (they may be looked down upon in certain ways or miss out on opportunities, but noone tells them that it is their fault that they have a low IQ or are ugly/introvert). Note, these things are both genetic and environmental in origin (although probably mainly genetic).

However if we take other positive traits such as goodness and motivation/willpower, then people are assumed to take responsibility for their presence/absence and are blamed if lacking in these areas. It is automatically assumed that everyone has the equivalent amount of willpower to motivate themselves to achieve whatever they should achieve (or even just to survive). So we have people that are disabled but who fight on cheerfully and achieve things against the odds held up as role models for those who give in. Does anyone ever consider that possessing willpower is just as out of individual control as possessing intelligence? That in fact we don't all possess equal capacity to make things happen in our lives?

A similar thing with goodness. People condemn Hitler, Saddam, psychopathic serial killers as being truly evil people (who some say will go straight to hell - I do not personally believe in such a place), but is it really possible that such people have made a free choice to be like that? Perhaps they are no more to blame than Mother Teresa.

I guess that these latter traits in general have more environmental influence than genetic (although this is just a guess and I dont know for sure), but I don't see how that really can change our perceptive of the trait, as we are just as much a product of the environment as of our genes. Perhaps these latter traits are considered in some way more inherent to the 'self' or the 'soul' of the person and this is why most people are so judgemental about them.

I would be interested to hear your views.