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Konkvistador comments on A sense of logic - Less Wrong
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Well, yes, if you boil the original quote down to "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are [irrelevant stuff] endowed [somehow or other] with certain unalienable Rights, and [details about rights]" then whatever problems there are with the pieces you cut out (including "all men are created equal") will be difficult to see.
As a general rule, if you want to explore the implications of a particular phrase, it really helps to attend to that phrase, not elide over it.
Anyway, for my own part, if your understanding of "created equal" here is compatible with some people being born smart, some dumb, some sociopathic, some epileptic, some congenitally ill, and so on and so forth, then there's no problem. But I have a problem with folks, and there are many, who quote that line when their understanding of equality is incompatible with readily observed discrepancies in initial conditions and capabilities among people.
Blank slateists?
Well, I was thinking more of the folks who just quote it without thinking about what they're actually saying at all, but sure, insofar as there exist universal blank-slatists, them too. (I mean, I think there's room for legitimate uncertainty about what differences are determined at "creation" and what differences are imposed later, but it seems clear that some very important things really are different at "creation.")