On the "Gifted Eugenicist"
Alright, so, I'm taking a class on rights and human rights and had wanted to show via reducto ad absurdum that, rather than cultivate eudaimonia maximally, as Martha Nussbaum intended, the utilization of Aristotle's distinction between zoe and bios within her capabilities approach could be used to justify Eugenics. If you happen to think otherwise, Eugenics is just necessarily Social Darwinist and, therefore, nefarious. That, however, is neither here nor there.
My professor cautioned against this, as he pointed out that a "gifted Eugenicist" could suit any project to Social Darwinism, thereby rendering my reducto an erroneous concern.
I think that I am considerably more pessimistic of so-called "civil society" than my professor, but, what I wonder is if the thought experiment of the gifted Eugenicist couldn't be utilized in the determination of whether or not a theory will work in practice.
The basic schematic goes as follows:
Could a gifted Eugenicist suit (any given theory) to support Social Darwinism? If the answer is "yes", then it can not be assumed to work in practice.
On some level, I fear that this appeals too well to the lowest common denominator of humanity, but, given just how much theory has been used and abused in the Twentieth Century, which is to say nothing of the one we now live in, I wonder if it wouldn't turn out to be particularly apt.
Thoughts?
My professor cautioned against this, as he pointed out that a "gifted Eugenicist" could suit any project to Social Darwinism, thereby rendering my reducto an erroneous concern.
I think that I am considerably more pessimistic of so-called "civil society" than my professor, but, what I wonder is if the thought experiment of the gifted Eugenicist couldn't be utilized in the determination of whether or not a theory will work in practice.
The basic schematic goes as follows:
Could a gifted Eugenicist suit (any given theory) to support Social Darwinism? If the answer is "yes", then it can not be assumed to work in practice.
On some level, I fear that this appeals too well to the lowest common denominator of humanity, but, given just how much theory has been used and abused in the Twentieth Century, which is to say nothing of the one we now live in, I wonder if it wouldn't turn out to be particularly apt.
Thoughts?
Comments (41)
The negative side, the racist side, the deplorable side of eugenics is the idea that people already living are inferior than others. There's no reason to believe that.
That does not contradict the point that most parents would like a healthy baby.
Improving the quality of life of people should not be viewed as wrong.
It becomes problematic if in addition to that, someone says that these individuals are better in some nebulous sense. Especially if leaders begin to get behind such ideas.
This is not really a conversation about Eugenics, which, given the history of its use, in my opinion, is less salvageable than communism. You can attempt to prove to me that it won't be suited to the purpose of my social murder if you like, but, as I can very much so relate to Aldous Huxley's "savage", it's just going to be a moot point.
It's easy to say that, well, there are certain heredity diseases that should be taken into consideration while undergoing family planning and difficult to extricate things like scientific racism, prejudice against those deemed "insane", or, y'know, genocide from the sociological theory. As I happen to have been declared "insane" and not to trust the Western intelligentsia, it's doubtful that you will convince me to consign to my own systematic elimination. To me, the concept of mental illness just makes the entire field untenable.
Sure, though, family planning is a good thing, but is it Eugenics? Sir Francis Galton's theory was explicitly Social Darwinist and it did become a fundamental basis for late Nineteenth and Twentieth Century genocides. Sure, we salvaged Friedrich Nietzsche and even Martin Heidegger, but, when this theory, at best, amounts to social murder, what would the point of rescuing it from its abuse be?
All of which is besides the point, though. I just edited my post, but the thought experiment is of a gifted Eugenicist suiting to support Social Darwinism explicitly, and, so, always involving its negative connotations.
Very little is known about "mental illnesses", not that they don't exist. We likely all have some kind of them to some degree or other. We clearly know people in real life who exhibit behavior that is not acceptable in public and maybe even in private.
But "eradication" of these won't happen. Too many variables in life can serve as a virtual guarantee that some of us will go a bit mad in certain situations.
Quoting thewonder
You'll always find people who believe in eugenics by another name, namely racists.
But as soon as you introduce the idea of improving a person, the slide to thinking in terms of superiority is not too far away. So it is a balance.
Obviously, as a social Darwinist doctrine, or as an idea that excludes all others are garbage, shouldn't even have to be refuted at all.
I don't want to be accusatory of you, as I don't think you the kind of person to do so, but it seems self-evident to me that, in practice, Eugenics can only, at best, amount to social murder. Should the United Kingdom adopt a such a campaign, what, then, can we expect from the British ruling class? Substitute the U.K. for any Western nation, and I will still beg the same question. No matter how well-meaning or minded, it can only reinforce social divisions and justify the deliberate effective elimination of sectors of society through either the removal of social programs or the creation of new ones.
Though I do wax conspiratorial at times, I doubt that it could be used for genocide. If we're going to speak of not contributing to the survival of people within contemporary society, what Eugenics just simply is, however, it is, at best, exceptionally naive to believe that it will result in anything other than social murder.
I fully support family planning, which kind of exclusively relates to people who have yet to be born. I also support a qualified right-to-die. Neither of those things, however, have anything to do with Eugenics. Eugenics is a sociological program designed to eliminate what it designates as "diseases" or "inferiorities" by eliminating what contributes to their survival, namely either the lives of the afflicted or their capacity to reproduce. Even in the latter sense, it's nothing but illiberal to enforce sexual repression upon people who suffer from genetic disorders.
If people want to advocate for family planning or the right-to-die, then, they ought to just distinguish between those things and Eugenics, which very explicitly did begin as a campaign of social murder under the auspice of scientific racism, among other things.
The only way that Eugenics can be salvaged is to turn it into something else entirely. At that point, why not just advocate for something else?
All of which is still besides the point, as the idea for this thread is to create a thought experiment to determine whether a theory can work in practice.
Well if by attempting to create a healthier baby leads to this kind of thinking, which I haven't seen yet, then there's an argument to be made that gene alterations should be limited only to preventing illness.
Quoting thewonder
Fine. I will shelf my "improving" babies comment. As it has not gotten to a point in which we can say that this the equivalent to eugenics.
Yeah. I agree, even those born with the worst of diseases should be able to live in as painless ways as is possible. Once someone is given life, almost regardless of the situation they are in, will want to continue living. And that is a right that should be very much respected.
Quoting thewonder
Sure.
But then what would be a hypothetical of a "gifted eugenicist" society look like? Like babies only born with IQ over 140?
Yeah, these types of scenarios won't convince anyone, except those who already think some people are inherently better than others.
What I am emphatically trying to point out is that this idea that Eugenics, referring to the sociological theory created by Sir Francis Galton, has anything to do with modern medicine, feminism, are the right to put an end to severe pain, is almost solely due to contemporary sophistry on the part of whom you could characterize as cosmopolitan "Thatcherites", i.e. a faction of the intellectual hegemony in the United Kingdom. This is only further compounded by gross misrepresentations on the part of the Catholic Church of stem cell research, the pro-choice movement, and voluntary euthanasia as being Eugenicist campaigns.
Scientists should obviously seek to prevent the spread of diseases. There are feminists who have argued in favor of Eugenics due to having confused it with either family planning or the treatment of genetic disorders. That just doesn't correspond to any historical reality. Julian Huxley was considerably more well-meaning than Sir Francis Galton, who absolutely did advocate scientific racism and can not be interpreted as not also advancing, at best, social murder, but did still advance the "sterilization of the genetically unfit" and outlawing their marriage. He reformed the field to be moreso concerned with the prevention of reproduction. I think that it's fairly clear that sterilizing people with genetic disorders in the interests of an ostensive purity is just kind of implicitly totalitarian, but, should anyone think that merely preventing them from reproducing isn't all that bad, I will ask as to just what it entails. That a person should succeed in having consensual sex almost always coincides with their success in some other aspect of their life. How, socially, we can discourage the "genetically unfit" from having sex is to prevent them from being successful in other aspects of their lives.
When I am certifiably "insane", what reason do I have to consign myself to failure? If you can not answer that question, then you can not convince me otherwise.
All of which is to say nothing of that Eugenics emphatically was a justification for the Holocaust and even became one for the systematic elimination of dissent in the former Soviet Union under Josef Stalin. When it is a basis for, at least, two out of the three most notorious mass exterminations in all of human history, why are we trying to salvage in the name of scientific progress, feminism, or the right-to-die? It'd seem to make a lot more sense to concede the rather obvious point and point out that those things are not analogous.
When a woman is called a "feminazi", it'd seem rather impolitic to defend Nazism. Because certain sets of the British ruling class happen to have a gift for rhetoric, however, there are some who think it wise to defend Eugenics, all of which is to say nothing of the obvious complicity within our contemporary intellectual hegemony or ploy to slander anyone in opposition to social murder as a reactionary Catholic, if not somehow tied to the provisional Irish Republican Army.
Quoting Manuel
The point of the thought experiment is to uncover as to whether or not the theory can be abused. The caveat, "to support Social Darwinism", is there to sidestep this debate on Eugenics. It's just designed as a litmus under the assumption that, if an idea can be misused, then, it will be.
The problem with defining Eugenics is that people don't believe that it is what is. It is a sociological campaign designed to systematically eliminate genetic inferiorities. That is explicitly what Sir Francis Galton, who coined the term, advanced. Outside of the full breath of their reason, however, people seem to think that it has something to do with modern medicine, feminism, or the right-to-die.
I think that this is indicative of a failure on their part not to comply with a tacit campaign of social murder undertaken by a faction of the intellectual hegemony of the West. I think this because of that A Brave New World is a dystopian allegory about Julian Huxley's sociological ideals. Huxley happens to be of the better interpretation of the campaign, which still fails to be humanitarian, if you will.
I have written my litmus question as follows, "Could a gifted Eugenicist suit (any given theory) to support Social Darwinism?" This is to sidestep the debate on Eugenics. The idea is that if a theory can be suited for a nefarious purpose, then it can't be assumed to work in practice.
Well this is (in my case now) abstract theorizing, but I think we should at least make the following distinction:
1) Those people for whom it might not be a good idea to have a baby from
2) The people who shouldn't have babies but had them anyway
The case of 1 would be along the lines of people that have rare genetic disorders that may guarantee a miserable life for there kids. Similarly those people who aren't in the condition to be able to take care of a baby at all, etc.
In no case do I think there should be a law to prevent 1. Or virtually no case that comes to mind. That's just life.
In the case of 2, we'd want to provide the best services available to prevent tragedies from occurring. There are existing laws that protect children, but these might need be amplified. How to do this is very hard, because it does enter and clash with privacy concern and over-reach of power.
Quoting thewonder
I don't think you should. Nor do I aim to convince you otherwise. I think you have abilities that compensate for whatever lack you may have. Many of the greatest artists were labeled "insane" too, so there's a lot of territory to explore as insanity covers many aspects of human behavior.
Quoting thewonder
Then I think you should modify the title of the thread or the gist of the OP, to something like: are there circumstances in which modifying humans or preventing diseases lead to consequences like eugenics, if taken far enough?
Or speak of a "gifted scientist", so as to not taint the discussion before it is had.
Because although now you are clarifying what you mean, in the OP it does seem as if you'd want someone to defend Eugenics in the social Darwinist vein.
I agree, but a lot of people are rather confused as to what it is due to reasons that I mentioned above.
The thought experiment is just a litmus to see if a theory can be misused, though kind of tacitly posits that any potential to do so will result in it happening.
I didn't know that.
I'm trying to explain that responsible parenting, including the choice of when to have a child, doesn't have anything to do with Eugenics. You, I think, are just confused, but there are intellectuals in this world who are not so confused and just kind of think that some people ought to be let to die. I am accusing them of having manipulated feminists into making family planning out to be analogous with Eugenics. It's confusing, but only due to the poverty of discourse in the United States.
Quoting Manuel
That's it's lie. That's what the Social Darwinists wanted people to believe. Genetic research isn't analogous to Eugenics as per what it turns out to be, which is just simply, at best, social murder. Huxley was kind of beguiled by it all too, though. Thus, A Brave New World.
Quoting Manuel
I don't want someone to defend it at all because I think it untenable. Including the "Social Darwinism" caveat is just to make it necessarily nefarious. The thought experiment is to test whether a theory is open to abuse.
What is a gifted Eugenicist?
Well.
I tried.
I'm not at you, but sometimes a spade is just a spade.
Quoting Wheatley
An intellectually gifted one. The idea is to ask whether a highly intelligent person could suit a theory to some nefarious purpose or another. I chose Social Darwinism because I happen to think it's pretty nefarious.
Yeah, computer simulation.
Now, I'm confused.
Considering fourth-generation warfare, I could see how the more benign concept of simulation, to prevent technological failure, could be exemplary of how the experiment could be apt, but I also don't know if you aren't calling it a "computer simulation", perhaps akin to Conway's Game of Life, or as an ender's game, if you will.
Create a computer simulation to show what happens to society if you employ eugenics.
That'd make for a good Sci-Fi novel, I think. A brilliant Eugenicist creates an irreversible algorithm to put his campaign into effect, only to find out that it has, in advance, been designed to prevent him from preventing his own systematic elimination.
The idea of the thought experiment doesn't really have anything to do with Eugenics, though. It's just kind of a worse-case scenario philosophy.
He could test eugenics on animals? Get rid of the "bad" fish in an aquarium.
It's not to find out whether Eugenics is nefarious. I think that it's nefarious. Because there is needless debate on its nefariousness, I have included the caveat, "to support Social Darwinism", within my original question, "Could a gifted Eugenicist suit (any given theory) to support Social Darwinism?"
The purpose of the thought experiment is to determine whether a theory is open to abuse. It think there considerable historical evidence to point to that, should a theory be, then it likely for it to be misused. The experiment, therefore, can be used as a litmus to determine whether or not it will fail in practice.
Say you like minarchism, for instance. You should ask, "Could a gifted Eugenicist suit minarchism to support Social Darwinism?" If the answer is "yes", then, we can't say for sure that minarchism will work in practice.
My fears, however, are that this experiment could fall prey to the trappings of Game Theory, namely the idea that "anything that can go wrong will go wrong" ,or prefer an overreliance on ideological purity. Anarcho-pacifism notably can't be suited to support Social Darwinism, but I only want to believe that it works in practice.
All that it really indicates is of the social risk involved.
Your professor might have in mind Watkins Confirmable and influential Metaphysics.
That is, if social darwinism has at it's core an uncircumscribed existential statement then it is neither confirmable nor falsifiable, and any set of observations may be made to fit.
SO does it? "Every human activity has a evolutionary explanation" is a fine candidate for an uncircumscribed existential statement. You can't possibly examine every instance of human behaviour to see if it has an evolutionary explanation; so it is unverifiable. But further, if for some activity you do not find a evolutionary explanation, it may well be that you are not trying hard enough; you cannot conclude that there is none. Hence "Every human activity has a evolutionary explanation" is both unverifiable and unfalsifiable.
All the more reason to drop Social Darwinism.
That sounds interesting, but both of us had accepted as given that social darwinism is bosh. He was just rejecting my reducto ad absurdum of Nussbaum. The way he put it led me to come up with this thought experiment.
Free market capitalism?? The eugenics can promote free market idealogy keeping in mind that a lot of people who can't compete (and he will deem them as "unfit") will die off. All done in support of Social Darwinism.
I wasn't able to follow the reductio - could you set it out?
Right, but the idea is to test theories that you wouldn't usually associate with, or in relatively close proximity to, social darwinism.
Say, the philosophy of Gaston Bachelard, for instance. If the philosophy of Gaston Bachelard can be used to support social darwinism, then, we can't assume for it be without social risk.
We agree that reducing suffering in relation to babies being born through slight genetic manipulations. And you've said that that's not social Darwinism. OK.
But the feminists you are speaking about are a minute portion of the feminist movement, like a fraction. So why would you pay attention to them?
I dont see this as a good objection to a theory. You can twist a lot of innocent theories to your menovelant means, not just social Darwinism. That's just a testiment to human creativity.
Sure, but it's still not relevant to this idea.
Nussbaum accepts Aristotle's division of zoe, what Giorgio Agamben claims became "bare life" to some cogency, but we can be favorable to Aristotle in describing as "domestic" life, and bios, or "politically qualified" life. Her capabilities approach is designed to cultivate eudaemonia, which she does just refer to as "happiness", and what capacity people have to participate within the political sphere in a highly inclusive manner. I intended to show that her theory could be used for the opposite purpose of only contributing to the quality of life of those already included within the political sphere, particularly those of status within it, via the potential interpretation of only further cultivating what capacities people already have.
I never wrote this research paper, though, as he shot me down about that idea.
The way in which he did, though, was invoke "gifted eugenicist", which I thought made for an interesting thought experiment for determining the social risk of philosophical ideas.
Well, it is not. Social darwinism is inextricably tied to scientific racism, classism, prejudice against the "insane", etc.
We're having a conversation as if by "national socialism" you think that I mean something other than Nazism. Sure, theoretically, you could have a nationalist and socialist state and it may not be all that bad, but what that is isn't national socialism. We occasionally call that "European socialism", "social democracy", or "evolutionary" or "reformist" socialism. Maybe it oughta have its own name, but what it just isn't is "national socialism".
By that a "spade" is "just a spade", I mean that what I have said about the eugenics debate is just what has happened and that what I have said that it is just is what it is. There's nothing for you to infer. That's just what I'm telling you has happened.
Doing so would be to restrict the flourishing of those who might be part of the political sphere; of those capable, yet prevented, from entering into the bios.
So for example Nussbaum recently used her arguments in favour of a gorilla being freed from a cage in which it had long suffered. Yet the gorilla is arguably not party to the bios.
Perhaps, but Plato, Nietzsche, and Marx, I think, are evidence of the potential misuse of philosophy.
Right, her idea is to bring everyone within bios, but I think that the very division of life as such is what allows for the exclusion of whomever from the political sphere. It's all in Homo Sacer.
For Nussbaum the division is based on capabilities; so presumably the Homo Sacer, though set apart, remains capable and hence entitled to moral consideration.
If you misinterpret them, yes.
Right, I'm not saying that Nussbaum would will my reducto ad absurdum. By that it is a reducto ad absurdum, it is intended to show that a potential consequence of her theory is antithetical to its mission. It's not an ad hominem. I'm not saying that she's a eugenicist. I'm saying that her theory can be used to justify the opposite of what she wants for it to.
...and they were misinterpreted to justify aristocracy, Marxism-Leninism, and Nazism.
The point of the experiment is to see if there is social risk to any given philosophy.
But it's not the philosophers job to worry about that.
Perhaps, I mean, I don't want to stifle anyone's creativity, here.
When we think of philosophy as historically tied to the advisory of sovereignty, though, and have many examples of its abuse, should we not feel a certain gravitas and assume, perhaps not in a way that considers this or that philosopher as all that culpable, a certain degree of responsibility? Ought we not to, as philosophy is to cultivate a way of life in some regards, consider the effect it will have on the world?
But there are philosophies right now that negatively affect the world, why not focus on them?. Hindsight is also 20/20, do you think Marx and Nietzsche could have known how their philosophy would affect the world the way they did?
I focus on them too much as it is. It doesn't do anyone too good to be all that good to be combative.
Consider if that Nietzsche or Marx had only thought about the gifted eugenicist. Maybe things would've turned out a lot better?
I don't know. It was just a thought.