[bshanks]

My opinion is that the reason conflicts of interest are suboptimal is not mainly that they tend to cause people to lie about their beliefs, but rather that they tend to cause people to truly believe that which would benefit them if true.

In other words, the presence of an extreme conflict of interest causes me to take anything the person says with a large grain of salt, but does not, to me, cast doubt on a person's good faith.

More generally, as a matter of etiquette, it seems to me that (a heuristic that encourages people not to assume good faith in response to evidence that does not include any implication of unethical behavior) is unwise. For example, the evidence here is that, "he would have been a Carnegie or a Rockefeller had DC been adopted," which is not, in itself, unethical. Therefore one should not, on the basis of this evidence alone, assume good faith any less than one did prior to this evidence.