LS Re: Eugenics


Dave Thomas (dlt44@ipa.net)
Fri, 16 Jan 1998 04:16:22 +0100


Bo,Hugo,Doug,

Bo, you get all the easy ones, don't you? ;-) This starts in on an area that
I've just recently started to give some though to, not eugenics per se, but
application of MoQ or more relevantly the consequences of applying MoQ. To
this point TLS has, by and large, been trying to get a handle on the basics.
Or to paraphrase Ayn Rand let's assume we have arrived at the point of knowing
Where am I? How do I know it? and what's left is, What should I do?

> The question I have, simply put, is, "Is eugenics moral?" Now it is
> > easily arguable that eugenics for racial
> > reasons is not, because useful ideas are lost. But what of the
> > mentally handicapped and retarded? Those who most likely will not
> > contribute to the intellectual quality in the least. It is
> > impossible for me to believe that these people must be lost. That
> > these people don't have a quality of their own. I hope you can help
> > me, because as of now I can't find an answer in Pirsig's works.

Dictionary
eugenics: 1. the movement devoted to improving the human species though the
control of hereditary factors in mating.

eugenic: 1. causing improvement of hereditary qualities of a stock. 2. of,
relating to, or improved by eugenics.

I don't think Pirsig addresses this directly but I seem to recall a possibly
related topic "the death penalty" for criminal acts which he says is not
moral, because of the loss of the potential "good" of that individual. So on
the surface one might think it safe to conclude he would say something similar
in applied eugenics when the "death penalty" is used as a method of
implementing it, ie abortions.

But let's set up a real world scenario moving on to eugenics as it is
regularly applied in many parts of the world, marriage blood tests for
detection of potentially serious birth defects in planned offspring. A couple
has done this, no potential was found, have concieved, and now tests indicate
a certainty of serious birth defects. What should they do? How can MoQ help them?

I agree with Hugo that when faced with these types of dilemmas we must look at
context and balance. But would go on to say that with MoQ we now have five
different frames of reference and at minimum 3 basic moral points of view with
which to balance the decision.

1. Does the choice effect freedom on the any or all of the four static levels?
If so, which way, pro or con. To what degree?
2. Does the choice on one level so dominant the other levels that it will at
some point harm or destroy the system.
3. Does the choice increase or decrease access to dynamic quality?

So, eugenics, in the context of the Social level dominating the Biological
level by saying immediate families must not interbreed, is moral. Because
that choice will limit the dynamic potential of having a larger and diverse
gene pool, the lack of which theatens overall system stabilty.

On the contrary, eugenics, in a similar Social dominating Biological context,
the Nazi attempt to purify the gene pool to fair haired, blue eyed, Arians, is
amoral. For exactly the same reasons. So the Zen answer applies.

But my guess is given the recent flurry of press surrounding cloning and
genitics that the student's question is more rooted in the world of; Should we
even be doing things like the Human Genome Project? In that this starts us
down another path of tinkering with highly complexed systems with little real
understanding of the long term consequences. The risk there I guess would be
the risk of too much dynamism. In which case you don't know until you get
there and it then may be too late.

So the next daunting task for TLS is to conjure up a framework for making
decisions on the application level which is as broad and dynamic as the basic
premise of the system.

Dave

--
post message - mailto:lilasqd@hkg.com
unsubscribe/queries - mailto:diana@asiantravel.com
homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:42:38 CEST