Eugenics and Libertarianism -- PLEASE HELP ME DEBATE

Economics Political Theory
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1

In a class of mine we are discussing “genetics and society” i.e. how some couples are choosing to abort their unborn children if genetic testing says the child will have down syndrome or bad vision or some other defect. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/20/health/20PREN.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=ad8b7ac321c370d5&ex=1234501200 for more)

Some of the common questions are: What if parents start aborting children because they are predisposed to being gay (assuming we eventually find the elusive ‘gay gene’)? Is it appropriate to be worried that our society will become obsessed with genetic perfection? Those who can afford the genetic tests will create ‘superhumans’ while those who cannot afford it will have children who will be part of an ‘underclass.’ Should a parent be allowed to abort a child if it is not super-intelligent?

I am a Libertarian but I do not know how to debate these concerns. Please help.

Thanks

2

I think if we were far enough down the line to pick and choose genetics in family planning, it would not be a matter of carrying babies far enough for abortion but planning those genetic traits from the beginning. Maybe through some sort of engineering of DNA or something. Abortion is mainly for people who have boo-boo babies from irresponsible sexual partnership.

3

start looking at where coercions of moral agents is/isnt occuring; both in the scenarios described, and in any proposed ‘solutions’ of your classmates

4

Say you would allow the genetic modification of superfetuses if the parent wanted a gay baby with impaired vision and down syndrome. I think private eugenics would question our understanding and role of beauty and perfection in society. Your classmates sound like socialists if they think someone’s success is their failure.

5

Parents should be able to abort a child for whatever reason they want.

6

There are many different points to make here. I will start in reverse order.

The prospects of the rich creating a class of superhumans. For all of history the rich, correspondingly the most physically, intellectually and morally fit, have coupled together and given birth to children that were far superior to the common people. Genetic engineering accelerates this process, but also makes it possible for couples who do not have inherited genetic talents to give them to their children, in some ways making elitism much more accessible. But suppose this remains ultra-expensive and only the very wealthy can employ it, creating a new generation of people so talented that they can all become specialist surgeons or elite football players. Are the regular people of the underclass made worse off by the appearance of ever greater numbers of elite football players? Since vastly greater numbers of them are consumers of elite football than producers, then the larger number of elite players make them better off by increasing the supply of elite football and lowering the cost. The same is true for surgeries or any other product that can be purchased on the market.

Parents aborting pregnancies when the outcome is a crippled (diseased, deaf, dumb, homosexual, whichever) child. While there are many families who consider that all children deserve life, many other families are not materially capable of raising children who are crippled. In ancient times with large families the children would be born, but because the economic situation of the household was so precarious these children would receive fewer resources, become weaker and often die in childhood. (High infant mortality would be the norm.) Those who wish that all children be cared for must be prepared to materially support their position by taking the burden of child raising upon their own households, and at no time should the independence and freedom of the household be violated by “disallowing” activities within their property. Such an attempt to interfere would disrupt the peace and inevitably increase that which is hoped to be decreased.

Society becoming obsessed with genetic perfection. In the cultural sphere, the process of political centralization tends to result in the culture of the capital city wiping out all regional and communal cultures, while the process of decentralization results in the increasing differentiation of cultures. While the abundance of genetic engineering technologies would no doubt motivate a race to genetic perfection, in a society of free households this genetic perfection would take radically different aspects from one household to the next. While one family would desire children who excel at music, another would prefer tall children covered with blue dots, and another family would prefer short children with razor-sharp reflexes. The outcome of the process would be greater genetic diversity and more genetic specialization.

7

I disagree with all most everything you say, and your still my anarchist hero. I greatly admire your commitment to the ideology and that you don’t try to suger coat it to fit in with the modern judeo-christian standards of morality.

To the OP:

Its all going to come down to 1) When life begins 2) When children or fetsus attain rights. There was a great debate on it in my thread that was locked.

So if life begins at conception and all humans have rights, because they will eventually attain rationality then genetic abortions would violate the NAP.

Seems to me you need to identify when and how do people (or animals) attain NAP ‘protection’. Once you get that solved, the rest of the argument should come naturally.

OR

You could argue that doctors that perform these genetic abortions, will lose clientale and demand for their product, and will naturally stop the practice. The market forces argument tantamount the Plasticized Humans exhibits travelling the country made up of chinese prisoners who may or may not have consented to being plasticized.

Ixtellor

8

Yeah, abortion on demand is soooo abhorred in the western hemisphere.

9

Go away.

10

With that severe and total editing of my post, I am not sure what you object too.

If it is your admission that diversity of opinion is not desired or tolerated I guess thats your right. And if the mods agree with you I imagine I will be forced out. (Which would suck, because Jon is one of my current heros and I would missout on some of his great insights and explanations. [Oh and don’t forget John_Z])

Ixtellor

11

judeo christian values arent rational and should be immediately thrown out the window

12

Please;

Homosexuality is not a disability. Did you actually mean to assert this point of view?

Secondly, I find it highly questionable that the rich are more “physically, intellectually and morally fit”. Again, do you actually believe this?

13

What I believe is irrelevant.

Why do you say please?

14

But they are.

15

Says you.

16

I’ve been vying for this title. I am the Mises forum’s Anarcho-Keynesian.

I’m even setting up a Keynesian commune (The Keynes-State Idaho Project) where me, you and other likeminded individuals can retire and live it up!

17

Not true. In a statist world the easiest way to get rich is by utilising instruments of coercion, therefore the rich tend to correspond not to those most fit, but to those most willing to use coercion. Ie those of the worst moral character.

Something that seemed to work wonders for Charles II of Spain.

18

Fine, and in fact, I was in a debate arguing against taking action against racists.

You’re right, your beliefs do not affect the argument. I was merely expressing my belief that they were ill-founded.

19

I don’t know if this is the right time for a disclaimer, but I’m rich. Not massively rich, but i’m well in the top 1% of people in the UK.

In no way does this guarantee me being more intellectually, morally or physically fit than others. As it happens, I think I am above average in each of those categories, but I know a lot of people, and many of the richer people in my private school are far inferior in those categories to many of the poorer people I am friends with (who do not go to my school).

In general, I find no correlation between intellectual, moral or athletic ability and wealth - but this is anecdotal evidence.

20

I’ll give you three good reasons why eugenics will fail with or without a State agency.

  1. It’s quackery!

Yes, that’s right, kiddies. Genes make tell the cells to differentiate, ultimately forming an organism, but those genes in themselves are not measured in regards to fitness the same way that eugenicists conceive them to be in Nature. In reality, genes simply survive based on natural selection (who breeds the most per the environment, which explains humans, possums, and etc…). Genes do not come in ‘inferior’/‘superior’ flavors, genes come in all kinds of variations which can harm and help the organism that has them. Some genes that would lead to Alzheimer’s may in fact have a purpose in the regulation of memory under normal circumstances (normal circumstances includes the presence of the genes in question having their accompanied pseudo-genes to regulate their expression).

  1. Genes don’t express success.

What I mean by that statement is pretty clear, you could have all the genes for excellent memory, fast reflexes, above average strength and vision, but if you’re a complete jackass just once which leads to your doom, you die: end of story. Genes don’t prep animals to be successful automatically, that’s why some animals like humans, wolves, and possibly scores of others, train their young. Yes, even birds train their babies to fend in the wild, because on their own, they tend not to survive unless by chance they survived based on the factor of chance in all encounters. It has to be the biggest pet peeve among eugenicists that I’ve debated is their total lack of understanding of animals in general and probability. Sometimes, I think eugenicists are the “least fit.”

  1. Genes are genes, species are species, and you are you.

This point is a hard one to grasp because often it’s easy to equate one’s identity to that of the identity of the group we happen to be ‘under.’ Whether it’s geolocation, time frame, ethnicity, language/dialect group, or what team we love to love and the other team we love to hate, individuals conflate grouping via classification with the expressed properties of his/her own failings/successes with the group and vice versa. The success of genes in their fitness often have nothing to do with how well the individual does as probabilities mixed with natural selection often does a better job than the individual alone could ever do (over nearly countless other individuals carrying the same genes). Equally, species themselves evolve radically from each other and succeed/fail similarly often with minimal changes to their gene pool versus that of other species (for example, the same genes for Down Syndrome are carried among the majority of animal species, including humans). So, really, it’s a matter of parsing entity from entity, and kind from kind, both in raw properties, but also in context of hierarchy.