{"id":3048,"date":"2012-06-11T19:31:36","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T00:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/?p=3048"},"modified":"2012-06-11T19:43:05","modified_gmt":"2012-06-12T00:43:05","slug":"the-ethics-of-individual-eugenics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/2012\/06\/11\/morality\/the-ethics-of-individual-eugenics\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ethics of Individual Eugenics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ross Douthat just published an opinion column for the New York Times entitled Eugenics, Past and Future<\/a>, about the ever increasing control of individuals over the genetic makeup of their offspring.\u00a0 After the obligatory brickbats thrown at the old eugenicists of the 20’s and 30’s, he maintains that what he calls “ethics” should be applied to decide whether such individual level eugenics is desirable or not.\u00a0 Here are the last four paragraphs of his essay:<\/p>\n

Is this sort of \u201cliberal eugenics,\u201d in which the agents of reproductive selection are parents rather than the state, entirely different from the eugenics of Fisher\u2019s era, which forced sterilization on unwilling men and women? Like so many of our debates about reproductive ethics, that question hinges on what one thinks about the moral status of the fetus.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From a rigorously pro-choice perspective, the in utero phase is a space in human development where disease and disability can be eradicated, and our impulse toward perfection given ever-freer rein, without necessarily doing any violence to human dignity and human rights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But this is a convenient perspective for our civilization to take. Having left behind pseudoscientific racial theories, it\u2019s easy for us to look back and pass judgment on yesterday\u2019s eugenicists. It\u2019s harder to acknowledge what we have in common with them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First, a relentless desire for mastery and control, not only over our own lives but over the very marrow and sinew of generations yet unborn. And second, a belief in our own fundamental goodness, no matter to what ends our mastery is turned.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a word, Douthat believes that morality should be used to decide whether parents can exercise control over the genes of their offspring or not.\u00a0 I would argue that morality has nothing to do with it.<\/p>\n

Debates like this illustrate the fact that, while our understanding of what morality is, and why it exists, has been expanding by leaps and bounds, we have as yet been unable to come to grips with the implications of that understanding.\u00a0 We are still too mesmerized by the illusion of the Good as object, as a thing-in-itself.\u00a0 In spite of the fact that there are a myriad of other Goods, quite different from our own, we cling to the comforting fantasy that we perceive the “real” Good, the “true” Good.\u00a0 It stands to reason.\u00a0 That’s the way evolution has programmed us, presumably because those individuals unfortunate enough not to perceive the Good in that way did not survive.<\/p>\n

Morality exists because it evolved.\u00a0\u00a0Culture and environment have a profound influence on how and what we\u00a0perceive as\u00a0good and evil, but those perceptions would not exist at all failing the existence of the innate behavioral traits that are their ultimate cause.\u00a0 Those traits promoted our survival at\u00a0times and places utterly unlike the present, and I see no basis for assuming that they will continue to promote our survival in the modern world, nor do I see any basis for the supposition that they would be relevant in any way to decisions about whether or not to act in ways that were impossible at the time they evolved.\u00a0 Specifically,\u00a0 morality is not relevant to parent’s decisions about the genetic makeup of their children.<\/p>\n

Assuming I am right about what morality actually is, there is no objective basis for moral decisions.\u00a0 Philosophers throughout the ages have sought such a basis, but never found one.\u00a0 How, then, are moral decisions made regarding issues such as the one raised by Mr. Douthat?\u00a0 His last paragraph perfectly illustrates the method.\u00a0 By striking virtuous poses and shaming and shouting down the opposition.\u00a0 Whoever shouts the loudest and shames the best wins.\u00a0 If Mr. Douthat can successfully manipulate\u00a0human moral emotions\u00a0so as to evoke a subjective feeling of moral approval\u00a0for his contentions that parents who seek to control the genetic inheritance of their offspring really are seeking a mindless and illegitimate form of “mastery and control,” and that they are usurping unwarranted control over the “marrow and sinew of generations yet unborn,” and have a flawed belief in their own righteousness, then he wins.\u00a0 If his opponents can shout louder, strike more convincing poses, and manipulate more effectively, they win.\u00a0 Read the comments following the essay and you’ll see the process unfolding before your eyes, complete with extravagant and bombastic\u00a0poses and the shouting down of anathemas on the morally flawed.<\/p>\n

And what is my opinion concerning the “should” of this matter.\u00a0 Alas, my “should” can have no sturdier basis than my own, personal whim.\u00a0 My whim is to survive.\u00a0 It seems to me that parents are the best judges of whether their offspring are likely to survive or not, and should be allowed as much latitude as possible in insuring their survival, including by consciously endowing them with the genes most likely to insure their survival.\u00a0 As for the state, I suspect the old eugenicists had at least some excuse for giving it such a large role.\u00a0 Many of the intellectuals of the 20’s and 30’s believed in the perfectibility of the state.\u00a0 They had not yet been disillusioned by the reality of the fascist and Communist versions of totalitarianism.\u00a0 We should be sufficiently aware by now that the state is far too liable to prefer its own interests over those of individual citizens to ever again entrust it with such power.<\/p>\n

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Ross Douthat just published an opinion column for the New York Times entitled Eugenics, Past and Future, about the ever increasing control of individuals over the genetic makeup of their offspring.\u00a0 After the obligatory brickbats thrown at the old eugenicists of the 20’s and 30’s, he maintains that what he calls “ethics” should be applied … Continue reading “The Ethics of Individual Eugenics”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[87,110,48,6,28,5,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-designer-babies","category-ethics","category-evolution","category-good-and-evil","category-human-nature","category-morality","category-transhumanism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwEq0-Na","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3048"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3054,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions\/3054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}