Race Research and the Ethics of Belief

Our beliefs have a profound effect on how we live our lives, and how we treat other people, so it is surprising how little attention has been given to the moral status of believing apart from its epistemic justification. In what follows, I develop a version of the harm principle that applies to beliefs as well as actions. In doing so, I challenge the often exaggerated distinction between forming beliefs and acting on them. 1 The thesis I propose is that it is morally defensible to hold socially consequential beliefs for which there is imperfect evidence only if they are unlikely to impose uncompensated harm on other people. After developing this view, I consider what it might imply about controversial research the goal of which is to yield true beliefs, but the outcome of which might include negative social consequences. In particular, I focus on the implications of research into biological differences between racial groups.