Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with eugenics, just as there’s nothing wrong with prejudice, where the problem lies in discrimination; or as with Communism, where the problem lies in Stalinism and the like. And just as proximity and association have tainted our conceptions of prejudice and Communism, so have they misled our views on eugenics. After all, when you strip away all of the connotations, eugenics simply means selectivity in breeding; and who isn’t selective when it comes to relationships? Anywhere from arbitrarily objective requirements–”I won’t go out with anyone shorter than 5’11″!”–to purely subjective preferences–”she should be sweet, and funny, and…”–everyone has standards that they’d like to be met. And while most of us base these standards on what we find physically attractive or mentally appealing, other concerns could affect our perceptions of each other; for example, would you feel comfortable having a child with someone who has a high chance of passing on a serious hereditary disease? It’s certainly something to think about.
If we’re on the same page in agreeing that eugenics, in the context I use it in, is acceptable social behavior (and if you don’t agree, then suspend your disapproval for now), then I can take the next step and draw a line between the selective breeding of humans and the selective breeding of dogs. Now obviously there are significant differences; in selective breeding in dogs to create purebreds, for example, many times it is acceptable to inbreed the animals. For humans, needless to say, this is strictly prohibited. Yet to consider the underlying reasoning, the purpose of this breeding is to bring out certain desirable traits–in animals, the physical traits in particular.
So why is there no human Best in Show? The ethical dilemma that segregates humans and animals plays its part here, too. One common example is the Kantian “means to an end” argument, in which human life should never be treated as a means, only as an ends in and of itself. However, we humans have that all-important capacity for sentience; so if we were to willingly breed–or with the onset of genetic manipulation, engineer–ourselves into paragons, would this be dehumanizing? It seems that this could only occur as a result of the ‘humanity’ of consciousness; thus, instead of dehumanization, it really should be the opposite. There is, of course, a second roadblock: those who believe we shouldn’t “create life” artificially. For this I will simply refer back to how we breed animals; if the sanctity of life itself is such an a priori issue, it seems impossible that purebreds or Thoroughbreds could exist. Of course it’s entirely possible that we have a huge double standard; hypocrisy is the standard of humanity, isn’t it? For the sake of argumentation, however, illogicality will be ignored, and we can thus conclude that genetic engineering and/or selective breeding of humans should be a perfectly ethical and acceptable practice.
…Yet I still feel squeamish about plastic surgery. Go figure.
0 Responses to “What’s wrong with Eugenics?”