Designing "Defective" Babies
by JoyAP and CNN are reporting today that the "New Eugenics" is already being deployed, per those Designer Babies that 'New Eugenicists' tell us will inevitably become the wave of the future. You know, those Barbie-girls and Ken-boys that activists for human rights are concerned will exacerbate prejudices and discrimination against less-than perfect human beings…
Creating made-to-order babies with genetic defects would seem to be an ethical minefield, but to some parents with disabilities — say, deafness or dwarfism — it just means making babies like them.
And a recent survey of U.S. clinics that offer embryo screening suggests it's already happening.
It appears that suddenly the ethical issues involved in designer babies have been turned on their head. Those who would eliminate genetic imperfection (thus diversity) are having to confront the idea that not everyone agrees on what it means to *be* perfect…
Cara Reynolds of Collingswood, New Jersey, who considered embryo screening but now plans to adopt a dwarf baby, is outraged by the criticism.
"You cannot tell me that I cannot have a child who's going to look like me," Reynolds said. "It's just unbelievably presumptuous and they're playing God."
Ah, yes. The "playing God" charge, turned against the very technology that has been promoted for the very purpose of "playing God" in the first place! It sort of looks to me like it never occurred to the 'New Eugenicists' that people might not go along with their personal Barbie/Ken ideals, and instead want to have children that are like themselves. Apparently some "disabilities" are not considered awful enough to eradicate from the human species by the people who have them.
A new wrinkle in the questions about what it means to be human, and who gets to decide. I look forward to some in-depth ethical analysis from folks like Wesley Smith at Secondhand Smoke on this one. I for one suspect that if the technology is to be ethically deployed to allow parental choice on the genetic particularities of their offspring, we're going to have to accept that not everybody sees Barbie and Ken as the height and breadth of *being* human.
January 20th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Has anybody else here seen the movie, Gattaca?
Comment by Bilbo — January 20, 2007 @ 1:05 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
I haven't, Bilbo. Can you give us a synopsis?
Comment by Joy — January 20, 2007 @ 1:11 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Gattaca is about a futuristic world, where "designer" babies are assumed to be superior, and get the best jobs and places in society. The hero, of course, is a non-designer baby out to prove he's just as good. Excellent movie.
Comment by Bilbo — January 20, 2007 @ 1:20 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Thanks, Bilbo. I saw a movie once where the same plot applied to clones (you could tell they were clones because they had no belly buttons). Forget the title.
I have known some deaf couples. They had children the old fashioned way, who weren't deaf. But those kids sure learned how to communicate in sign language! I have also known some small couples. Things can get pretty awkward in a home where the kids are twice the size of their parents, but it happens more often than not. Most of those couples, if you get into serious dialogue, would prefer small children. They don't generally consider themselves "defective" unless the abnormalities are significant enough to be crippling.
I think this opens up the 'missing' angle to the New Eugenics game plan. In order to prevent people from making design choices for themselves, you'd have to make it illegal to produce "defective" babies, which means you'd have to appoint someone to decide what counts as "defective." Once whole groups of people are defined as "defective," you do of course exacerbate discrimination against those who already exist.
…which would make the 'New Eugenics' no different from the old eugenics. We have already made social and ethical determinations about that.
Comment by Joy — January 20, 2007 @ 1:35 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Joy,
This reminds of the time a little while back when Dawkins said:
It would seem that the only proper response to these types of proposals is pure and total outrage, coupled with demeaning language of every sort. Such self-induced amnesia should not be tolerated.
Yet, we have to reason with the eugenicists and help them recover from their forgetfulness that eugenics leads invariably to genocide.
Your post here brings us full circle and leads us to ask if our apparent weaknesses are not also our strengths? What does adversity do to the human psyche? What do challenges call forth from the human person?
For example, if Beethoven did not have hearing deficiency, would he have been such a driven and successful musician? Or, without ALS, would Stephen Hawking be such a driven and prolific physicist?
Comment by Inquisitive Brain — January 20, 2007 @ 2:56 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
IB:
Very good point, IB.
Comment by Bilbo — January 20, 2007 @ 3:15 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Joy,
I guess I'm probably a "New Eugenicist", but I'm not opposed to these parents deciding their children's characteristics. The whole point of the New Eugenics is that there isn't some state or corporation dictating who is unfit or defective - instead, the parents decide which of their potential children will come into the world. I guess you could call it bottom-up eugenics, as opposed to the top-down eugenics of the Nazis.
I must admit I'm a little squeamish about the idea of parents selecting kids to be deaf or short, but this is simply an inevitable consequence of democratising genetic choice.
Comment by Mesk — January 20, 2007 @ 7:32 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
And any parent who wishes to bring a deaf child, or a child doomed to die from a horrendous wasting disease, into this world should be free to do so. But equally parents having IVF, given twenty embryos with a range of different genetic prognoses in terms of intelligence, attractiveness, and freedom from disease, should have the ability to choose which of those embryos they wish to bring into the world.
For what it's worth, I think the world creates enough adversity without us allowing millions of children to suffer needlessly from genetic disease in the hope that one of them will become a musical or mathematical genius.
Comment by Mesk — January 20, 2007 @ 7:39 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Mesk, Gattaca presents a "bottom-up" eugenics. If you've seen the movie, would you consider that a desirable society?
Comment by Bilbo — January 20, 2007 @ 7:40 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Inquisitive Brain:
Oh, dear! You've opened Pandora's box! We usually - a 'norm' - view these exceptional cases as "in spite of" rather than "because of." And I think that perception is correct. Beethoven was a musical genius before he went deaf, so when he went deaf he still knew what he was doing. Stephen Hawking was a mathematical genius before he was diagnosed with ALS. A good deal of science was dedicated solely to inventing ways to keep him alive and communicating, because it was already known how 'important' his brain may be.
Conversely, the deaf and small people I've known are just regular folks with shortcomings (haha, forgive me, Bill §;o"¢) like the rest of us. They master ways around them by mastering the means to making a living and being accepted for who/what they are. I don't have a problem with that, and don't discount their right to *be*.
But then, I've always thought the idea of a "Master Race" was just plain stupid. As well as contrary to everything that is the best of what we already are.
Comment by Joy — January 20, 2007 @ 8:11 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
I must admit I'm a little squeamish about the idea of parents selecting kids to be deaf or short, but this is simply an inevitable consequence of democratising genetic choice.
Where's the democracy in this choice? It looks like a parental electorate of two. The possibility of abuse almost demands regulation which is also a scary thing; the idea of governments regulating the genetic make-up of future genrations a troublesome prospect to me. Sounds like Brave New World without the courage part.
Comment by Bradford — January 20, 2007 @ 8:16 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Bradford:
Hasn't it always been a 'democracy of two'? Or is it traditionally the one? Discounting the third, since that became a 'right'…
Comment by Joy — January 20, 2007 @ 8:25 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Bilbo,
Gattaca is a great movie, but it's just a movie - and the society it depicts is in no sense an inevitable outcome of the technology of genetic screening. Any society that discriminates against people for irrational reasons is an unjust society, and is also (in democratic societies, at least) usually a fairly unstable state of affairs.
My view is simple: like it or not, genetic screening technology will be available and will be used ubiquitously within our lifetimes. It's as inevitable as the widespread adoption of mobile phones and the internet. Since the use of this technology by those who can afford it is inevitable, we as a society need to figure out how we will make access to this technology available to everyone, to use as they see fit.
Some will decide not to use it, as should be their choice. Their children should not be discriminated against simply because they are unscreened - but if they end up failing to achieve their dreams because they have a genetic heart condition, well that's the way it goes. The technology is not responsible for the fact that blind luck results in failures as well as occasional successes. Of course, there will be legislation to protect everyone from genetic discrimination from insurance companies and employers - but in the long run, those who were screened will tend on average to be better-paid and happier, simply because they tend to be smarter, prettier and healthier.
Many will use the technology to screen for children who are as intelligent and as attractive as their parents' genes allow. Some will screen for blue eyes and blonde hair; others for brown eyes and brown hair; others for dark skin and their mother's nose; other for a light dusting of freckles across their shoulders. Sometimes there will be fads - generations with an excess of kids with green eyes, just births in the USA in 2005 had an excess of kids called Jacob and Emily. But these will pass, and overall the pool of human genetic diversity will remain broad and shallow (with the exception of the lowered frequency of disease-suceptibility alleles).
Most will screen out diabetes, a predisposition to obesity and high blood pressure, a tendency to coat one's arteries in lipid, a high probability of sudden heart failure. Later, many (but not all) will probably screen out a predisposition to nervousness, to low self-esteem and risk of depression - but personality is only weakly heritable, so these conditions will persist regardless.
Will we lose a Van Gogh, a Beethoven? Almost certainly; but then the world probably lost at least one genius this week, in one of the 80% of pregnancies that end in unnoticed miscarriages. Overall, we probably won't reduce our genius-forming chances much, if at all - in fact by screening for genes that predispose to high intelligence, we may well substantially increase our yield of the sorts of pale, twitchy young men and women who drive humanity's ideas forward.
Either way, we won't stop it. Parents will want to screen their kids for exactly the same reason they want to send them to good schools, to keep them away from junk food and bad company, to immunise them against disease. All parents want their kids to achieve all they can, and not be held back by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, whether those arrows be environmental or genetic. There will be outrage for the first few years (just as there was for IVF), with politicians making righteous proclamations of genetic equality, and legislating moratoriums; then people will see the potential the technology has for their kids, and the opposition will reduce to a muttering, and then a quiet acceptance.
Comment by Mesk — January 20, 2007 @ 8:40 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
So tell me what we should do, Bradford - ban genetic screening altogether? That obviously isn't going to happen. Restrict it to only screening for "disease" alleles? Where does normal variation end and disease begin? Most would agree that mental retardation is a disease state, but the line between low IQ and mental retardation is arbitrary. And how are you going to restrict screening when millions of perfectly ordinary suburban families are already conceiving by IVF and screening their kids for disease by pre-implantation genetic testing, and (within a decade) the alleles for high IQ and attractiveness are just sitting there waiting to be screened for? If the people are clamouring for screening, is it democratic to stop them?
Parents have always had the final say on what happens to their kids, so long as they don't abuse them. It's pretty hard to depict what the deaf parents are doing as abuse - after all, they already had a 25-50% chance (depending on the condition) of having a deaf kid, and all they're doing is ensuring that the deaf embryos that would otherwise get flushed get implanted instead.
I agree that there should be legislation to protect against the ludicrous extremes (there are some things that I suspect would fall under existing child abuse legislation, but if not new laws would need to be enacted), and to ensure that unscreened kids are not discriminated against. But otherwise, democracy means butting out of parents' rational and compassionate decisions about how they want their kids to grow up.
Comment by Mesk — January 20, 2007 @ 8:55 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Good luck. That's like saying plastic surgery and trips to the health spa should be made available to everyone.
Last time I checked, more and moe kids have a problem with junk food and parents have to opt for crappy schools because they can't afford private schools. You think it's going to be different when parents can use IVF to genetically enhance their children?
The old eugenics used class differences as an excuse to promote their genetic and societal views. The new eugenics will work to enhance class differences as they promote their genetic and societal views.
Comment by MikeGene — January 20, 2007 @ 8:55 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
As you mentioned, we need strong laws against the use of genetic information for any form of discrimination. Second, you pass strong laws that prevent insurance companies (or the government) from refusing payment to treat genetic conditions. Third, you pass a law that gives parents plenty of room to sue clinics and biotech companies if they are unsatisfied with the results. Fourth, you place a special tax on the clinics that provide such services to fund a regulatory system that oversees the clinics.
Comment by MikeGene — January 20, 2007 @ 9:10 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Mike,
Yes, I agree that there is a great risk that screening will accentuate the gap between the haves and the have-nots, and I acknowledge that my desire for universal access is somewhat idealistic. However, given that genetic screening is inevitable, and that left to its own devices it will likely be priced highly enough to restrict its use to only the wealthy and upper middle-class, I can see no other way to prevent the genetic class divide from occurring.
Let me put it this way. In twenty years, the advancing age of mothers at first child will make IVF and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) quite routine. Those embryos will be screened for dozens to hundreds of disease-causing alleles and chromosomal abnormalities. At the same time, large genetic studies will have identified the alleles that contribute to intelligence and attractiveness, without increasing the risk of mental illness or other disease. Should we ban parents from adding these alleles to the screening list?
Realistically, even if we ban it for a year or a decade, eventually the social pressure will be so great that governments will yield. And when they do, unless there is specific intervention to prevent it, the use will be restricted to those who can afford it.
I suggest that initially subsidies be offered to parents who are already having IVF to cover the costs of PGD for known disease-causing alleles and also for a panel of well-validated alleles associated with all sorts of phenotypic traits, from IQ to hair colour (note that there are very few of these today, but there will be hundreds within a decade). Parents would be given complete access to the predicted traits of each of their embryos, and allowed to decide which should be implanted. Later, as IVF becomes more efficient and affordable, subsidies should be offered to largely (but not entirely) cover the costs of that as well, to any couple who wants it. In the meantime, government funding of research into IVF techniques (which is currently almost exclusively privately funded) should be increased.
Again, I agree that this is a rather utopian hope - we may see this in countries that already have good access to healthcare, but it's unlikely in the US. However, it's worth noting that countries that do institute this sort of program will be reaping the benefits in a generation's time, as the rates of genetic disease go down and the proportion of the population able to engage in skilled labour increases.
Comment by Mesk — January 20, 2007 @ 9:19 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Hi Mike,
For some reason my last comment is sitting in the moderation queue - could you approve it if you get a chance?
I think all of your suggestions are excellent, and would provide strong protection for parents who decide to utilise the technology, and also for children born without the use of the technology. Of course, they wouldn't address inequalities in access to the technology (not that this was your intention, of course). I personally think improving access to the services is important, but then my political views tend towards improving access to all forms of medical treatment.
Comment by Mesk — January 20, 2007 @ 9:26 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Oh, and finally (for the moment):
No, I don't think genetic screening will address any of the fundamental problems afflicting Western society. The class divide will need to be resolved in other ways (and it will need to be resolved one way or the other, if we want Western society to continue to exist).
My aim is to ensure that genetic screening does not simply become yet another tool to widen the class divide, because I don't think perpetuating this division is in the best interests of any of us. Instead, I would like PGD to become a way to ensure that the members of our society are as happy, healthy, bright and productive as they want to be, for the same reasons that I advocate improved access to health and education services.
Comment by Mesk — January 20, 2007 @ 9:36 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Hi Mesk,
I'm just far more cynical than you are. Without government coercion, PGD is never going to be used by all, if for no other reasons that most people will continue to have kids the old fashioned way. I appreciate the good intentions, but let us not forget that the proponents of the old eugenics had nothing but good intentions also.
Comment by MikeGene — January 20, 2007 @ 9:50 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Mesk:
I also know parents whose children came with Cystic Fibrosis (they got it fixed when it became apparent). They would have loved not to doom their children to lives of suffering, and would have availed themselves of the option if it were actually available to regular [uninsured, working class] people. I'd surely have nothing against that, though those kids were among the bravest and most loving I've ever known. An inspiration to those of us lucky enough to know and love them. Even as that love went 'elsewhere' along with them at the end of their time. "Too soon" in time.
If we were adept enough to screen out all too-short, too-tall, too genetically compromised humans from the gene pool, the gene pool would come up with novel forms of suffering. Many of which don't show up for years after birth. Will we then extend our infanticide option to 5-year olds? 10-year olds? Legal adults?
You can't prevent suffering by preventing only some births. The cure for suffering is to prevent ALL births. We could actually do that to ourselves, easier than we could ever have deployed enough nukes to do the job. Just engineer the food supply. We do that routinely right now, sans FDA review for approval. Patent the antidote and breed your Master Race. It'll be as extinct as the rest of us in a couple more generations.
IOW, the only sure-fire cure for the human condition is death. We already know that, and don't much look forward to it despite all our suffering. None of us is too sure what comes next. But it's only the comfortable (of those who think this is all we get) who are anxious to end the karmic cycles of everyone who isn't in their club. Rich people are notoriously bad breeders. Is anyone looking into the rationale of that?
Comment by Joy — January 20, 2007 @ 10:02 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Mike,
I agree that PGD will never be used by all, nor should it be. But right now more than 1% of live births in the US are the result of assisted reproductive technology of some sort. As the age at first baby increases, and the technology gets cheaper, that figure will rise dramatically. And given how straightforward PGD is, pretty much all of those kids will be screened in some way.
If you look at how paranoid parents are already about the risk of having a baby with a birth defect (and how willing they are to spend thousands of dollars performing tests to confirm that all is well), then couple that with increases in the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of IVF, you can easily imagine a society where IVF and PGD becomes preferable to natural conception. Certainly I would predict that we'll be seeing at least a small proportion of healthy, fertile parents conceiving in this way within the next two decades.
We all accept that good intentions can have double-plus-ungood results, so it will be important to ensure that the appropriate legislative protections are in place. But what we don't need at this stage is the ludicrous scare-mongering personified by Joy's post above, the notion that there is some ghoulish cabal of meddling scientists to whom "it never occurred… that people might not go along with their personal Barbie/Ken ideals, and instead want to have children that are like themselves." PGD is not the invention of madmen craving an army of cloned supermen, but rather the development of scientists and doctors seeking to avoid the unspeakable tragedies of genetic disease. And when PGD for non-disease traits becomes available, it will not be driven by the back-room deals of the miltary-industrial complex, but by the normal desires of parents to have children who have specific characteristics (usually happy, smart, healthy and attractive).
Comment by Mesk — January 20, 2007 @ 10:25 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Joy,
Our posts crossed in cyberspace, but thanks for demonstrating my point so beautifully. No, accepting PGD does not mean accepting the murder of ten-year-olds. It means selecting from a bunch of embryos which of them, probabilistically, has the best shot at a happy, healthy and productive life. Only a few of those embryos would ever have a shot at life anyway (regardless of whether they were conceived in a tube or a Fallopian tube). Is it somehow morally more correct to make that decision by rolling a die rather than using the best information available?
Of course humans will never eliminate suffering entirely, but we can do our best to reduce unnecessary suffering. That's what medicine is about, Joy.
Comment by Mesk — January 20, 2007 @ 10:37 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Mesk, "Only a few of those embryos would ever have a shot at life anyway."
How do you define life such that bacteria are "in" but embrios are "out"
Comment by bFast — January 20, 2007 @ 11:27 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
bFast,
I guess I was using "life" in a colloquial sense, rather than the biological definition. Perhaps I should have been more precise and said "conscious existence".
But for the record, I do believe human embryos are living things. I just don't think they're people.
Comment by Mesk — January 20, 2007 @ 11:55 pm
January 20th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
"People" possibly not. Homo sapiens, definitely. What if they are "people" but you just don't know it?
Comment by bFast — January 20, 2007 @ 11:57 pm
January 21st, 2007 at 12:05 am
I personally (heh) think that personhood requires a conscious awareness of oneself and one's surroundings. Embryos simply lack the cellular architecture required to possess such an awareness, in the same way that daffodils do.
Of course, there's no sharp divide between person and non-persons, but I think by any reasonable definition embryos can only really fall into the "person" category if we are also to include pretty much all cellular life - making the category too broad to be particularly useful.
Comment by Mesk — January 21, 2007 @ 12:05 am
January 21st, 2007 at 12:31 am
As a meat lover, I certainly don't mind seeing animals die. I am therefore quite happy to draw two great categories in life, human and non-human.
I wonder about the "conscousness" theory though. Watching my dog at play, I often wonder just how much thinking he does, how "conscious" he is. He certianly has a sense of excitement when I arrive home. Further, is it acceptable to do what you want with a person if you render them unconscious first? Or is it totally unacceptable to render a person unconscious?
Comment by bFast — January 21, 2007 @ 12:31 am
January 21st, 2007 at 12:44 am
Mesk:
…and donating the Unchosen for stem cell harvesting, eh? People who care and who can afford it already do this, Mesk. Nobody apart from them matters, except policy makers. Who often do not practice what they preach.
But despite the notorious breeding difficulties and/or choices of the affluent classes, there's no shortage of human beings on this planet. How and why the elite breeds (and how 'successful' it is at the project) is of minimal concern to the rest of us. Diana the Mythic Virgin Brood Mare was enough of a disgusting medieval elitist display to last a generation at least.
So long as you're not telling people how and why THEY must (or must not) breed, there's not an issue. You and I both know that's not what the 'New Eugenicists' have in mind, don't we?
Comment by Joy — January 21, 2007 @ 12:44 am
January 21st, 2007 at 1:10 am
bFast,
I see it as a spectrum with no sharp divide - bacteria and embryos have no real person status, adult vertebrates have more, most mammals more still, primates a tremendous amount, and humans the most. It's an anthropocentric view of the world, but I think objectively it's clear that humans are more consciously aware than bacteria, and other animals fall somewhere in between.
Since my person/non-person categories have no sharp dividing lines, my moral views towards the treatment of animals work on a sliding scale: I think people can pretty much do whatever they want to insects, but mammals should be treated humanely and killed quickly and without suffering, and I view chimpanzees as totally ethically equivalent to human children. I do eat meat, but I try to restrict it to stupid animals.
The unconscious human question is an interesting one. I think the strongest utilitarian counter-argument rests upon the notion that there is some continuity of personhood in such cases: when I go to sleep, I wake up the next day as the same person I was yesterday, so in some sense the mental structures that make me a person must persist throughout my unconsciousness. If this is true (and it makes sense to me) a sleeping or unconscious human must still be a person, and subject to the same rights as a conscious adult human.
Comment by Mesk — January 21, 2007 @ 1:10 am
January 21st, 2007 at 1:19 am
Joy, give me something more than vague intimations about a sinister plot to control the world's uteri, and I'll give you a sensible answer. Right now you're just churning out the same muttered cliches about the military-industrial complex that I could get from any fevered conspiracy theorist's over-decorated website. It's getting a bit tiresome, to be honest.
Comment by Mesk — January 21, 2007 @ 1:19 am
January 21st, 2007 at 2:14 am
bFast:
I've been a vegetarian for 30+ years. Mostly because I do care about animals (though I know they die, and have killed a few). I didn't eat them, I buried them. That's not religious, it's merely a choice we made. I've wondered if the folks who are so sure religious upbringing is child abuse would view a non-meat upbringing as child abuse too.
It's not that I don't know about life and death. I could kill what I had to kill to stay alive. Deal is, I don't have to kill. Don't have to buy into the death industry either. So we don't.
Mesk:
How predictable.
Comment by Joy — January 21, 2007 @ 2:14 am
January 21st, 2007 at 2:30 am
Mesk, if you have a sliding scale, based on some sense of consciousness or self-awareness, what does that scale look like during the human life-cycle. Psychologists question just how self/other aware an infant is. Is it more ok on your scale to kill an infant than it is to kill a mature chimp?
Comment by bFast — January 21, 2007 @ 2:30 am
January 21st, 2007 at 2:42 am
bFast,
Yes, ceteris paribus. However, I try not to make a habit of doing either.
Also, note that context matters: human infants tend to have families that get quite upset if you kill them. Chimps also grieve their dead, but to a lesser extent. Collateral damage needs to be taken into account as well.
Comment by Mesk — January 21, 2007 @ 2:42 am
January 21st, 2007 at 4:52 am
Mesk,
I remember when mobile phones were expensive, truly signifying a class divide, where only successful business men could afford to have one. Too bad no one thought of subsidies and extensive government-funded research back then. If they had, perhaps we one day could have had a society in which even high school students and single moms could afford a mobile phone. Imagine…
bFast,
Yes, an embryo belongs to the species Homo sapiens. But then again, so does a sperm cell.
Comment by Krauze — January 21, 2007 @ 4:52 am
January 21st, 2007 at 11:18 am
Krauze, a sperm cell is clearly of species Homo Sapien, but it isn't a complete homo sapien. Further, though a sperm cell could be said to be "alive" or "dead", it still would not be that difficult to compose a definition of life that includes bacteria, but does not include the sperm cell. I don't beleive that sperm cells contain replication technology, for instance.
Mesk, you have an interesting personal moral code. Do each of us have the right to our own personal moral code? If we live up to our own moral code are we then "good" moral people?
Comment by bFast — January 21, 2007 @ 11:18 am
January 21st, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I think Mesk subscribes to
I too would like Mesk to answer your question.
Says who? What defines "irrational"
BTW Mesk I want to say I find you to be one of my favorite posters…always have. I respect you greatly and have learned alot from you . We do not agree on many things but I have always found you to be polite and your postions generally well thought out so I am not trying to pick on you
Vivid
Comment by Vividbleau — January 21, 2007 @ 4:27 pm
January 21st, 2007 at 8:11 pm
… This is not an argument point, and is not supposed to be, however– I would not want to leave my children alone with Mesk, given his stated views. Wouldn't much want to live near him, either.
I follow the Horton theory of moral qualities– a person's a person, no matter how small.
Thank you, bFast, for your posts. I'm really too creaped out to be reasonable on that point. "Most will die, so let's kill more" just doesn't seem right to me.
Comment by Foxfier — January 21, 2007 @ 8:11 pm
January 21st, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Krauze and Mike,
On reflection, it's clear to me that my suggestion of government subsidies for PGD was poorly thought-out - I'd read it somewhere, thought it made sense, and repeated it without adequate cogitation. I need to give the matter more thought before I open my mouth about it again. Thanks to you both for your comments (and especially to Krauze for his rather withering analogy).
bFast,
Vividbleau has correctly surmised that my ethical system is largely utilitarian, although it's very much a work in progress.
I've actually just spent almost an hour writing and re-writing an extended answer to your question, but it's not apparent to me that my views are becoming any more coherent. However, let me summarise what I am confident of: I do believe that morality is subjective, but that it is also constrained by a shared, evolved moral code shared by pretty much all human groups. This code (not coincidentally) dictates the behavioural limits imposed by the need for humans to live in close proximity to one another in large social clusters.
In a sense, this shared, evolved moral system serves as an imperfect kind of "objective" (in the sense that it is nearly universally accepted) morality. I guess this means that individuals who follow it can be considered "good", while those (comparatively rare) individuals who reject it can be seen as "bad".
This evolved moral code, which religions and other moral systems merely serve to formalise and enforce, generally serves us well and prevents most anti-social behaviour. However, it falls down in three major areas: firstly, when an individual's short-term self-interest contradicts the interests of society, leading him or her to act in a fashion that harms others; secondly, in interactions between human groups, a form of interaction in which suspicion, hostility and violent aggression are selected responses; and thirdly, in dealing with many subjects (such as stem cell research) that our ancestors' brains were never faced with.
Human societies have developed laws, based on each society's moral consensus, to inhibit the consequences of the first weakness. We still struggle mightily against the second with no particular resolution in sight. No religion or ideology has been particularly successful in inhibiting inter-group aggression, and perhaps war and racism are powerful human traits that we will never overcome.
To deal with the third problem - complex, modern moral dilemmas - humans have developed appropriately large, complex and often rather arbitrary moral systems based on various potential sources of ethical guidance: alleged divine revelation and cold logic being the most popular (with the former having by far the lion's share of the market). Religion is the default human state, and is the major guide and enforcer in complex moral issues in almost all human groups (religion of course incorporates both logic and faith). Logic plays a role in the formation of legal codes in large societies. And for those that cannot or will not accept religious teachings as truth, logic serves as the only possible objective source of morality, although in practice it can be a tortuous and unreliable guide.
I'm not sure how well that answers your question, but thanks for asking it - my ideas on morality are still conflicted, so every conversation I have about it helps me untangle them!
Comment by Mesk — January 21, 2007 @ 10:10 pm
January 21st, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Foxfier,
Yes, my unfortunate habit of boiling and eating the heads of children has curtailed my baby-sitting business quite severely.
Comment by Mesk — January 21, 2007 @ 10:23 pm
January 21st, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Mesk, by your stated morality, you would find that moraly allowable if it were the only way to keep those of your mental development level alive.
Comment by Foxfier — January 21, 2007 @ 10:26 pm
January 21st, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Foxfier,
Yes, I would, if there were truly no other option. Of course, any moral system can be made to look abhorrent if taken to situational extremes.
Comment by Mesk — January 21, 2007 @ 10:57 pm
January 22nd, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Hi bFast,
"Krauze, a sperm cell is clearly of species Homo Sapien, but it isn't a complete homo sapien."
I disagree. A sperm cell is simply at the haploid (one set of chromosomes) stage of Homo sapiens' life cycle, where you and I are at the diploid (two sets of chromosomes) stage. But the diminutive size and short lifespan of the sperm cells makes us tend to forget that.
Not so in other organisms. In dinoflagellates (an algae), it is the haploid generation that is the dominant, with the diploid stage confined to an inert resting spore. And in many green algae, the haploid and diploid generations are equally distributed, making it hard to pin down one single form as the "true" representative of the species.
I should note that I think babies have more moral worth than sperm cells. But then again, I don't base my thoughts on ethics solely on taxonomic considerations.
Comment by Krauze — January 22, 2007 @ 4:13 pm
January 22nd, 2007 at 4:16 pm
I think bFast was trying to say that humans are organisims, sperm are cells.
Comment by Foxfier — January 22, 2007 @ 4:16 pm