Should we let evolution dictate how we treat disabled people?
Simply put, should we let evolution do what it does best which is filter out the weak?
Have we reached an intellectual summit over the reigns of evolution by allowing severely disabled people to live prosperously with taxpayer supplied checks? Or are we fooling ourselves because we are too unagreed and cautious on the ethics pertain to giving life rights to those who will always be physically or mentally defected from birth (be it down syndrome, klinefelter's syndrome, muscular dystrophy etc.)
Have we reached an intellectual summit over the reigns of evolution by allowing severely disabled people to live prosperously with taxpayer supplied checks? Or are we fooling ourselves because we are too unagreed and cautious on the ethics pertain to giving life rights to those who will always be physically or mentally defected from birth (be it down syndrome, klinefelter's syndrome, muscular dystrophy etc.)
Comments (51)
Sorry, i should of clarified. Disabilities of the kind that serve no positive influence. Mainly in the form of mental retardation. I only speak to physical disabilities insofar as they effect peoples mental/emotional wellbeing (as much as they enjoy their life and even want to live with what challenges they must face).
Quoting Pattern-chaser
Which in the case of disabled people isn't much at all really is it? Are they not like a parasitic drain due to our ethical hesitation?
exactly the type of comment i was looking for. It seems those restraints have only been loosened in the last few ages but the main point here is that evolution brought us to the point where we are able to relax its control over us. The fact it has enabled us to survive and thrive in itself means it is a system we should pay homage too, have respect for, for we owe it purely on the basis of it allowing our existence as we are currently.
I agree with you, I am committing a naturalistic fallacy here (yet so does every carnivore). However it is not a naturalistic fallacy when the methods nature uses itself have proven outcomes (such as millions of years of the death of failed species and the survival of the strongest species). In that sense it isn't just because its "natural", it is because it has a system that is legitimate. Not only that but it is responsible for our existence and that in itself deserves credit does it not?
Tell me how it is so though that by allowing the disabled to live the best lives they can, we are following our evolutionary imperatives literally better than any other creature on earth? You say it as if living to the best of their capabilities actually warrants any kind of enjoyable life. I used to be a carer and I can tell you first hand that most of their lives are spent in confusion (as to their circumstance) or seperation (from society) and warrants a higher intellect to stop such atrocities of human experience to take place.
Lifelong suffering from disability can be prevented yet you want to argue we ought not to intervene with our superior intellects (much in the same way judges do) to do what is in the interest of further "potential sufferers" purely because it follows an evolutionary imperative of ours? What evolutionary imperative is that?
But this betrays a basic misunderstanding of evolution. Evolutionary 'fitness' is only ever context-bound (to an environment), and the evolutionary record is paved with detritus of the millions upon millions of evolutionary 'failures' produced by evolution itself. There is no possible, coherent way of talking about evolution - in general - as a 'legitimate' system with 'proven methods'. [I]The majority[/i] of evolutionary history is a history of miserable failure.
This kind of thinking leads to mentions of things we're supposed to avoid on the internet. So I'll confine myself to shuddering with fright when I wonder which intellects are sufficiently "superior" to decide whether my own disability condemns me to euthanasia? Do you consider yourself up to this task? :chin: I'm afraid I don't. Sorry. :fear:
Yes, of course you're right. Stephen Hawking should've been drowned at birth, right? :fear: Because he was just a "parasitic drain" on society, right? :fear: Yeah, kill 'em all! :fear: :groan: :cry: :rage:
Stephen Hawking was afflicted later in life, but he is an illustration nevertheless of how misleading the term "disabled" can be.
Yes, but it is the outcomes of those failures that are the "proven" successes (humans being one of them). The proven method I speak of here is natural selection, it is a self evident feature that is dependant on failures of other species. Indeed the majority is a failure but proportions aside, we still exist. I also fail to see how this breaks any context specific to evolution.
However the real problem here lies in the gap between natural selection (letting all disabled people die from natural causes) and artificial selection (prohibiting their birth). Because it seems we really can't have any kind of natural selection going on without any human interaction (artificial selection) involved. But it would be close enough to the same outcomes of natural selection anyway so it is probably irrelevant (ie, all people with fully expressed muscular dystrophy in the jungle would die)
Quoting Pattern-chaser
Your statement is irrelevant if you see the post above yours:
Oh and btw, keep your emotions out of this.
It is readily apparent that a university professor is sufficiently superior than any given person with trisomy 21 (down syndrome). Need I say more?
The basic principle is, if they are able to maintain a positive wellbeing and a benefit to society then existence is allowed. Low level autism is completely out of the question in this argument, that should be very obvious by now and the fact you bring it up is just another fallacious appeal to pity etc.
Well, I was responding to @Pattern-chaser and making a general point rather than commenting on what you said. But your clarification is well-taken.
Not every university professor can maintain a positive sense of well-being and/or is a benefit to society and certainly not every given person with trisomy 21 is unable to maintain a positive wellbeing and/or is of no benefit to society. So, even by your own criteria of whose existence is allowed, the argument isn't sound.
But this is nothing but a tautology: all it says is that every evolutionary success is a success, and every evolutionary failure is a failure - right up until the point a failure becomes a success and vice versa. You can draw no conclusions from this, let alone the idea that successes are 'proven' - whatever that even means.
Quoting intrapersona
Properly conceived, the capacity for artificial selection is just another evolutionary result of natural selection, and does not in any way conflict with latter. The idea that there are some kind of preordained 'outcomes' of natural selection which are then interfered with is just more conceptual confusion: what is 'natural' is simply what is, and this includes any so-called 'gap' between natural and artificial selection. Natural selection simply does not have ends or goals - not even 'fitness', which is an incidental outcome of a wholly indifferent process.
By placing these quotes after one another, you make it look like I was responding to @Baden, when my post clearly quoted you. You really should be more careful.
After reading this particular thread’s OP, and the arguments in favor of it, I do believe that these may be an excellent example of what you were describing in your Transcendental Stupidity thread.
But I will propose that we start weeding out the weak, the sick, and the failures by deleting this thread. However, I am very firmly in favor of letting all who suffer from mental illness, even those with the apparent type of paranoid schizophrenia seemingly demonstrated in the OP live comfortably on government assistance.
Evolutionary biology now is often slotted into a role formerly associated with religion - as an account of human origins - but it is a mistake to project conclusions about what amounts to 'successfulness' on that basis; when you do, it always will sound very like eugenics or the justification of 'dog eat dog' capitalism on the basis of 'survival of the fittest'.
There are two OP's that I think are relevant - first by Richard Polt, a Heidegger scholar, and second by Antony Gottlieb, author of a popular history of philosophy called The Dream of Reason.
Anything But Human
It Ain't Necessarily So.
Ha! You’re too kind and gentle with the OP and thread! For it appears to be a theoretical question and philosophical proposition in roughly the same way that a tweed jacket, reading glasses, and a pipe placed on a fire hydrant appears to be a professor. Both are apt to be urinated on by passing dogs. I refute it thus: woof!
Also, evolution does not work as well as the post claims, and mathematical game-theorists have pointed this out. What may be best for an individual, may be a poor outcome for the population as a whole. A simple example is assume that the best time for a population of birds to nest is, I'm just making up a date here, March 15th. Now, what happens is a bird in that population has a genetic trait to start nesting on March 10th instead? It will gain an advantage because it will be able to select the best nesting site. But, what happens to the population of birds as a hole if that trait spreads throughout the population? The birds shall then be nesting earlier, which is sub-optimum for them. We see the same thing with trees. Trees have to spend more energy to grow taller to reach the sunlight, but, if all trees remained shorter, this would be a more optimum state for them.
This is one reason we see so many extinct species --- evolution does not always lead to optimum outcomes.
Therefore, the argument here is based on a faulty premise.
The significance of evolution is progress. Disabilities and other afflictions are ways in which our weaknesses/deficiencies are highlighted by nature. The end goal is that we should recognize them and deal with them appropriately. What the OP is suggesting is a distorted view of the idea of survival of the fittest. It fails to understand that humans without humanity or inhumane humans (who cannot express empathy, sympathy, compassion, etc.,) are 'diseased' or deficient in terms of human nature and it is through evolution that we have recognized the need to take care of the sick, disabled, etc. To suggest otherwise implies a retardation (perhaps, a disability).
Quoting intrapersona
Evolution filters out weaknesses not lives. The increase in the number of disabled people in productive fields both physical and intellectual, implies that we can learn to overcome inability in disability. Initially, way back in 'em days, we considered the disabled as failed human types and, in our ignorance, caused them a lot of suffering but, fortunately, presently, we have arrived at the realisation of how primitive that designation is. By incorporating deliberately directed and well-filtered human interactions with the disabled, we help them overcome the major limitation and threat which disability poses - social ostracism, which in turn leads to a larger host of issues. Finding ways to involve the disabled in all human activities has served as a therapeutic measure which has helped to counter some discomfitures. There is no doubt that the way to the future is through more integration and the outlook promises further success. Such is the true path of human evolution.
Isn't the statement, 'Disability is not inability!' a testament to our capacity to evolve?
Is it the severely disabled continuing to live that bothers you, or is the "taxpayer supplied checks"?
Paleontologists found a Neanderthal skeleton of an old adult who had skeletal deformities (severe osteoarthritis and molars missing, for instance) that would have prevented the individual from surviving anywhere close to as long as he did -- had it not been for the care of kin. This skeleton was from... roughly 45,000 years ago . As far as I know, this sort of discovery is very rare. The skeleton was part of what appears to be a deliberate burial rather than an accidental accumulation of bones. Plus, given where he was found, he was French.
Apparently, behavior running counter to the best advice of evolutionary policy is not new.
Evolution led us to be care-givers as well as perfect survivor specimens. Evolution doesn't have a plan. It just grinds along powered by random mutations. It's not heading anywhere. We are not the apex of creation, and evolution wasn't trying to get us there (unless you entertain some teleological ideas about the omega point, etc.).
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Anything that fails to survive and reproduce is weak regardless of physical abilities
I think there are some serious tautologies at work in some evolutionary paradigms. Fitness defined by survival is banal and vice versa unfitness. Also we are part of nature so anything we do is tautologously a part of nature. there are no natural laws for human behaviour that we have to follow humans are massively flexible and creative.
What I was saying was relating to what constitutes a sufficiently superior intellect to decide, not whether down syndrome people can be happy and a benefit to society because that is true, they can, albeit with limited abilities that we have and i think that is a source of pain for them because they are outcasted (regardless of our opinions).
What is proven is the system whereby success arise and failures fail. What is dependable about it is the testability of it due to its nature of repeatability. It isn't some abstract notion that has no relation to the world, these are physical processes that are measured by biologists. The fact that there are success grants the praise of those successes.
There is only one possibility on the horizon for our species, devolution.
Evolution is a theory about the origin of species. The 'idea of progress' is another matter altogether.
Not quite. We still don't know the origin of any life-form. What we have in the evolution theory is a guide as to how the first perceived, already present, life-form(s), origins unknown, provided the ingredients for the present known life-forms through a series of transformations based on adaptation and acclimatization to resources and circumstances. It's why I used the term progress since it's basically a theory of overcoming limitations and transcending events both favourable and unfavourable towards survival of life.
Can I just point out this is a really stupid understanding of evolution? That's not what fitness is.
Plagues continued after agriculture, and those who were most resistant to plague survived
Chronic diseases existed before and after agriculture and have continued to shape the species (very little that we can observe over a short period of time)
Agriculture sometimes fails to feed the people who practice it. Famine is a culling event.
Etc.
So what are these new traits humans have?
I highly doubt we have acquired new traits - de novo. Traits are generally developed from previously existing traits, or potentials. (Like, writing and reading uses traits previously existing.)
"Traits" might be to wide a concept for evolution over a relatively short period of time, but an example of a "trait" emerging would be this: Certain people in a particular area of Europe were not susceptible to Yersinia pestis, the plague-causing organism. Descendants of those people (carrying two copies of the mutation in question) were also highly resistant to HIV. When exposed to the HIV they did not go on to seroconvert or if they seroconverted, to develop symptoms of AIDS. (This mutation or something similar probably exists among some groups in Africa too, because there are some cases--prostitutes, for instance--who should have been infected, all things being equal, but were not.)
Maybe -- just speculating -- agriculture and urbanity required the existence of a (possibly new) trait that allowed for settlement and living among large groups of people. Neither our primate relatives nor our hunter/gatherer ancestors lived in large groups (more than 50 to 100). In a very short period of time, we shifted from mobile to settled people, from widely distributed to compacted populations.
Would stone age homo sapiens been able to live in New York, London, Calcutta, Tokyo...?
I don’t know if @bloodninja or @Andrew4Handel are referring specifically to it, but there are similar theories espoused by Daniel Quinn and others. That put basically posits that human evolution slowed dramatically with the advent of “totalitarian” agriculture, the process of turning all land into human food, and thus more humans. This would be more applicable the more absolute the agriculture in the area was. Quinn discusses it at the end of his novel Ishmael. His ideas kind of build to a point, so it’s a little difficult to “cherry-pick” one of his conclusions without his reasoned arguments.
But in a nutshell, he says that when humans remove themselves from the conditions in which they evolved, they cease to evolve. Or perhaps the evolution is greatly hampered. Maybe now humans are not so much evolving as selectively breeding, kind of like with dogs. :wink:
(Quinn’s ideas were discussed in this thread.)
Quoting intrapersona
Us, not them; the disabled don't get a say in this, because... they are disabled. They are not us. We are not disabled, despite wearing glasses, needing medication to reduce our blood pressure or surgery after that incident with the knee.
There is a nasty lack of self reflection in the OP that reeks of a lack of breadth of experience.
Together with the simple misunderstanding of evolution evident in the phrase Quoting intrapersona
Go read Martha Nussbaum. Get some experience of disability before you presume to discuss disability issues.
You disgust me.
I strongly disagree with this notion. But I’ll just address it in this way:
The Mike Tyson’s of the world can pulverize the world’s Einsteins; therefore we should let ear-biting boxers rule and do away with the Einstein’s (the guy had a weird kind of dyslexia or some such, which, naturally, is a disability). For evolution is about the culling of the weak.
Love is a weakness via which to manipulate others to one’s own will, say the unloving and self-proclaimed strong. Let all humans that love be enslaved by those who don’t till only the strong remain. For evolution is about the death of the weak.
Victims of rape were responsible for their own victimization, for they were not strong, say those rapists who are. Let all humans change into rapists or perish, for evolution is about the annihilation of the weak.
… And among this horrendously long list are those where born, or else become, disabled.
Um, nope; none of this sounds right to me. But it always was and always will be fodder for those who are waiting for the worms to come (a Pink Floyd reference). Whenever we are altruistic toward each other, we are strong; when we cull each other out, we become weak—this at the expense of a few who ultimately implode due to lack of social infrastructure. Or so evolution has selected to be the norm for social species. It’s why the “cheaters” among mankind that do things like bite off others' ears in a fair fight, lack love, or rape are not much liked.
Yes, evolution and ethics is a complex issue. Still, it’s not the ethics of a society verses biological evolution. Our ethics—with its cheaters and all—has evolved to so be. The only way to deny this is to deny biological evolution to begin with. And, to be clear, I do say this as someone who upholds something along the lines of an omega point.
Evolution operates through breeding, whether it's kind of choosy or a free-for-all (my favorite kind). I haven't read Quinn; is he a rivetingly good author?
The only conceivable way we could remove ourselves from the process of evolution is IF a) we had a complete understanding of which genes did what (understood the entire genome) AND b) tightly controlled breeding was directed toward precise goals (such as achieving the ideal human physical form along with brilliant intelligence and laid back personal affect).
Were we, a la Brave New World, to carefully redefine our species from one that evolved randomly to one that changed according to a very specific plan) we could say evolution (as it is understood, at least, had ceased to operate. Fortunately for us, we don't have anything even remotely resembling complete understanding of the human genome, and thus we do not have the information needed to precisely direct our future condition. In addition to not having highly detailed genetic knowledge, we also do not have a clear understanding of what our future in the cosmos should be. Our ideal physical form and intelligence would presumably be suited for a particular role.
Would a laid-back personality be a good thing? Not if in the future we had to fight alien species from "out there in space". Aggressive personalities would be more important. Whether ideal bodies would matter would depend on how we had to fight. Hand to hand combat? Quality bodies would be important. Robotic and death ray weapons? Intelligence would matter much more than muscle.
I haven’t heard it formally addressed by name so far in this thread, though it’s been more or less directly alluded to: sexual selection is an important aspect of biological evolution in all species in which sexual reproduction occurs. For humans, for example, were all women to solely choose type X males to have sex with, and where all men to likewise solely choose type X women to have sex with, then our species would biologically evolve to eventually consist of only type X people (together with the variations that naturally ensue due to givens such as non-lethal mutations, recessive alleles, and the like). What I’ve expressed is the extremely simplified version, and it does presuppose the reality of biological evolution. That said, for as long as humans will have sex via any mode of choice in who we have sex with, and for as long as reproductions occur via sexual intercourse, the species will continue its "natural"--and typically very gradual--biological evolution. But again, there are a lot of additional factors involved in this; as one among very, very many: that of changing contexts leading to different attributes being most beneficial and, hence, potentially attractive.
Think I'm just re-expressing what Bitter Crank has in mind, just in more formal terms.
Dont get me wrong, im not saying there is an ethical principle within evolution, that wouldn't make sense. There is only a "practical methodology" that is self-serving as forms the very foundations for survival
Quoting Wayfarer
eugenics requires human preferences for it to be called eugenics. natural selection only requires what is favorable in terms of survival.
this is the distinction between the two so it is incorrect to claim I am advocating eugenics as my "preference" isn't a preference at all, it is simply a realisation that these types of disabled people WILL not survive on their own under the conditions we have accustomed to evolve in, so why should we spend effort keeping them alive or allowing their life for no good reason (especially when a lot of their lives are miserable/confusing/painful etc).
On another note, it wouldn't be accurate to say evolution offers a form of eugenics either.
Quoting Wayfarer
But successfulness is something directly apparent in the world. survival (and to a lesser extent 'reduced suffering') in its own right isn't a conclusion i have projected out of my own desires, it isn't something like a choice of hair color. it is something "inherently" valueable to the organism and species removed from any personal preference. It is impossible to claim natural capacities of 'survival' a trait of eugenics. That is just a natural occurrence, not a preference.
This is where you have misunderstood the OP. It was about mental retardation and chronic disability that cause suffering. Not variation of intellectual abilities and character traits.
Quoting LD Saunders
It is true evolution doesn't always lead to optimum outcomes but it also doesn't favour negative ones either (at least in terms of survival) because eventually time causes them to disappear. One factor that always remains is if it is ABLE to survive, then it will. If it isn't, then it won't. The only reason disabled people are able to survive is because we have a (in my opinion) unjustified desire to keep them alive for some reason. Mainly brought about due to our fear of whether it is wrong to kill any innocent thing, and this of course may due to our violent history as a species and the changes that have come to be within our psychology over the last century.
It is through evolution we have recognized we need to take care of the disabled (caring for the sick is another matter entirely). But that doesn't necessarily mean that just because we have evolved to care for the disabled that that is a good thing purely because it arose from evolution. Evolution (as has already been mention) has both good and bad outcomes.
Quoting BrianW
it's a testament to our stupidity in thinking that seeing them as "capable" will ever actually make them be. How can you ever throw a full blown autistic person in the jungle and let them survive?
You want to claim that through our ignorance we have arrived at some new and improved paradigm shift that allows for disability to be "ok", yet it is self evident by its possibilities that it isn't. Granted for low level retardation then much of what you say IS true, and IS applicable. It is a good thing to remove social ostracism in such cases as they posses BOTH the capacity to offer a benefit to society and enjoy life. But for the retardations and chronic disability that i speak of that is a parasitic drain and a torture for the participant then it calls in to question our contemporary moral understanding as humans.
It is both, but only in the context of deficiency in money and therefore spent potential energy and also cost of suffering to the individual because we prolonged their life due to our ethical uncertainty (inherent public opinion that all life is good life).
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, i agree with all of that. It doesn't bear any argument against what I said. Survival is just a natural process, nothing more.
It doesn't NEED intention in order to weed out the weak, it does so with out it. Its just a natural process with causal reactions just like any other physical process.Not sure where intent got brought in to this.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Exactly my point.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Curious. Why so?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Good point. However all I am pointing out is how our choice to keep a disabled person alive when it is a cost to us, serves us no purpose and for the most part is not an enjoyable experience for them is not only completely contrary to good reason but contrary to what has enabled us to survive. All of this withstanding in nature and being a product of nature. So in that sense the naturalistic fallacy can be removed, albeit still 'appealing' to it.
Yeah, but just because it is a theory about the past doesn't mean it is not still occurring. There is even evidence that it is still occuring, both genetically and morphologically.
Do you want to point it out by just stating what you believe without any evidence or argumentation? Or should i remind you that you are on a philosophy forum *rolleyes*
You clearly didn't keep reading to see what encompassed the term disabled in this context. Furthermore i suggest you actually reply with arguments rather than vitriol. I would expect more from someone with 3.3k posts on here...
interesting, but how would evolution take place if humans never removed themselves from the conditions in which they evolved? It is kind of a non-starter.
Remember i said that this is about chronic mental retardation. Einstein I am sure would be smart enough to be able to stop mike tyson from doing that in one way or another, through the use of invention, money or control via spatial proximity. Physical power and mental power are not distinct in this context, nor is dislexia any kind of detriment to the survival of einstein.
It would be much more justified to kill the morally disabled as they are not just very often stupid but potentially dangerous. Whereas people with Down syndrome, for example, can and do lead happy and productive lives.
I first thought this discussion was some kind of devil's advocate or provocation. Now that it appears that you are actually proposing the genocide of a minority, I'm shutting it down.
(Edit: For the record intrapersona disagrees with my interpretation of his position. I stand by it. You can judge for yourself.)