Is there a difference between positive and negative eugenics?

[sandandfoam]

What Dawkins proposes is that there is a big moral difference between negative and positive eugenics. As he explains it, negative eugenics is all about breeding bad things out – for example, certain hereditary diseases – and positive eugenics is all about breeding apparently good things in, such as athletic prowess or blond hair and blue eyes. “Intelligently designed morality would have no problem with negative eugenics,” Dawkins insists, going on to argue that the problem with positive eugenics comes about when it is state directed and government sponsored. According to Dawkins, that’s the bit the Nazis got wrong. But “just because Hitler wanted to do something is not in itself an argument against it”.

Source Nobody is better at being human, Professor Dawkins, least of all you | Giles Fraser | Comment is free | The Guardian

Is there a difference between positive and negative eugenics?

 

[LuisDantas]

Morally speaking? Certainly, although I would posit that government imposed negative eugenics are even worse than government imposed positive eugenics.

Nor is it necessarily a state or government that can impose breeding policies and make the matter invasive, either. Other social groups can do the same, as can abusive spouses.

But how voluntary, how intrusive and how informed the means for performing eugenics are makes far more of a moral difference, IMO.

 

[Quintessence]

The only difference I see is in how some particular human is deciding to spin or frame an idea. The outcomes are functionally analogous. There is no functional difference between saying you want to breed a disease out of a population (framing it in the negative) and saying you want to breed improved health into a population (framing it in the positive). Both have the same effect - changing the allele frequency of a population. Both are also grounded in transforming a population into something your particular value system deems to be a worthwhile goal.

 

[LuisDantas]

Sure, but the means employed ought to be have some moral weight as well, don't you think?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Is there a difference between positive and negative eugenics?

For people who understand genetics, yes.

 

[Quintessence]

Sure, but the means employed ought to be have some moral weight as well, don't you think?

The issue of means strikes me as an issue independent of how the question of eugenics is framed. The means used for either framing of this issue could be deemed ethical or unethical by various parties.

At any rate, mulling over the idea of eugenics overmuch doesn't have much this-world application. In order to actually make eugenics work - regardless of framing - it would require the passage of international laws and policies that would never stand against basic human rights declarations. In the event such laws were passed, they would be very difficult to enforce over a time period long enough to have the desired effect. We'd be talking about authoritarian enforcement of a policy for several generations. Hundreds of years. Given the volatility demonstrated by human history and human governance, I don't see that ever happening. I'm skeptical it could even happen for a small pocket of the human species. I just don't see how it would be possible to exert that degree of control over human reproduction and who breeds with who.

 

[LuisDantas]

It does not take laws to encourage eugenics of either kind.

They could perhaps help in keeping accurate statistics or, under the more nightmarish and authoritarian scenarios, in enforcing policies, but that is all.

 

[Quintessence]

For people who understand genetics, yes.

There are certainly some of us who understand genetics just fine who also understand that there is no functional difference between the two approaches. In either case, you're setting up a breeding program to change allele frequencies, and you're using a common set of techniques to do that. Would you care to actually explain the supposed differences you're seeing?

 

[Estro Felino]

What really astonishes me is that people are not scandalized if women decide to miscarry babies with Down Syndrome.

whereas they freak out when people decide not to have children because they belong to the Mediterranean race.

 

[LuisDantas]

What? There are people who do not want to have Mediterranean-looking children?

I assume they have vision troubles?

 

[Estro Felino]

What? There are people who do not want to have Mediterranean-looking children?

I assume they have vision troubles?

Of course. Do you think that most Swedes would breed with Mediterraneans?
They 'd rather die

 

[Kilgore Trout]

There are certainly some of us who understand genetics just fine who also understand that there is no functional difference between the two approaches. In either case, you're setting up a breeding program to change allele frequencies, and you're using a common set of techniques to do that. Would you care to actually explain the supposed differences you're seeing?

If you cannot see the difference between not passing along a specific, known, definable genetic anomaly which results in an expressed illness, and breeding people together for such vaguely defined things as "athletic prowess," then I don't really know what to tell you other than to crack open a few books on genetics.

 

[Quintessence]

It does not take laws to encourage eugenics of either kind.

They could perhaps help in keeping accurate statistics or, under the more nightmarish and authoritarian scenarios, in enforcing policies, but that is all.

To encourage? Sure, that doesn't take laws, unless we regard social norms as a type of informal law. In a fashion, all species practice "eugenics" when there is mate choice involved. They reproduce with individuals that have traits they value, and don't reproduce with ones that have traits they don't value. What is and isn't considered valuable is also influenced by overarching social norms. To get broad scale eugenics to actually work requires either remarkable unity in social norms (which we don't have) such that mating habits are driven towards a singular set of values (which we also don't have), or strict authoritarian control of reproduction. In short, while one can definitely encourage the practice of eugenics, effects beyond what we'd expect to see thorugh simple natural selection and evolution wouldn't happen without some very remarkable occurrences. That then begs the question: if you can't make a breeding program successful without a very remarkable and unlikely set of occurences, why bother with an ineffectual idea? Are there alternatives that could be put into play to greater effect?

 

[Quintessence]

If you cannot see the difference between not passing along a specific, known, definable genetic anomaly which results in an expressed illness, and breeding people together for such vaguely defined things as "athletic prowess," then I don't really know what to tell you other than to crack open a few books on genetics.

I wasn't talking about specifics. I was speaking to the overall philosophy and procedures that would be used for any breeding program. And if you can't see the overarching unity and pattern to that, I don't really know what to tell you other than to crack open a few books on genetics, and in particular, breeding programs.

 

[LuisDantas]

That then begs the question: if you can't make a breeding program successful without a very remarkable and unlikely set of occurences, why bother with an ineffectual idea? Are there alternatives that could be put into play to greater effect?

I don't think it is really that much of a challenge. All it takes is a strong marketing campaign.

 

[LuisDantas]

Of course. Do you think that most Swedes would breed with Mediterraneans?
They 'd rather die

Strange.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I wasn't talking about specifics. I was speaking to the overall philosophy and procedures that would be used for any breeding program.

Even speaking in that regard, there is a very clear difference between the two in that negative eugenics would simply remove a small percentage of people from the breeding population for one generation, thereby eliminating a specific genetic problem from the population-at-large. Positive eugenics would involve attempting to engineer the entire population over the course of many generations. So even avoiding genetics, or other specifics, there is a very distinct difference in the philosophy, goals, and procedures between the two types of eugenics.

 

[Quintessence]

I don't think it is really that much of a challenge. All it takes is a strong marketing campaign.

I feel that the ability of marketing to influence the behavior of the global human population - or even that of a single country or community - is being a tad overstated. One would need a very insular or sheltered community coupled with tight informational controls to eliminate counter messages and dissidents. Even then, dissent against the status quo, the message, the norm, would be inevitable.

 

[Estro Felino]

I don't think it is really that much of a challenge. All it takes is a strong marketing campaign.

Talking about marketing campaign, I think that it is not a secret that the Danish government promoted in the past a sterilization campaign for people with disabilities. If I am not wrong...even Mediterraneans could be vasectomized, if they wanted to

 

[Alceste]

To encourage? Sure, that doesn't take laws, unless we regard social norms as a type of informal law. In a fashion, all species practice "eugenics" when there is mate choice involved. They reproduce with individuals that have traits they value, and don't reproduce with ones that have traits they don't value. What is and isn't considered valuable is also influenced by overarching social norms. To get broad scale eugenics to actually work requires either remarkable unity in social norms (which we don't have) such that mating habits are driven towards a singular set of values (which we also don't have), or strict authoritarian control of reproduction. In short, while one can definitely encourage the practice of eugenics, effects beyond what we'd expect to see thorugh simple natural selection and evolution wouldn't happen without some very remarkable occurrences. That then begs the question: if you can't make a breeding program successful without a very remarkable and unlikely set of occurences, why bother with an ineffectual idea? Are there alternatives that could be put into play to greater effect?

^ This.