Issues in Ethics | Page 9

edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica has this to say:
"Darwin's description of the process of natural selection as the survival
of the fittest in the struggle for life is a metaphor. "Struggle" does not
necessarily mean contention, strife, or combat; "survival" does not
mean that ravages of death are needed to make the selection effective;
and "fittest" is virtually never a single optimal genotype but rather an
array of genotypes that collectively enhance population survival rather
than extinction. All these considerations are most apposite to
consideration of natural selection in humans. Decreasing infant and
childhood mortality rates do not necessarily mean that natural selection
in the human species no longer operates. Theoretically, natural
selection could be very effective if all the children born reached
maturity.
Two conditions are needed to make this theoretical possibility realized:
first, variation in the number of children per family and, second,
variation correlated with the genetic properties of the parents. Neither
of these conditions is farfetched."
The eugenics debate is only the visible extremity of the Man vs. Nature
conundrum. Have we truly conquered nature and extracted ourselves
from its determinism? Have we graduated from natural to cultural
evolution, from natural to artificial selection, and from genes to
memes?
Does the evolutionary process culminate in a being that transcends its
genetic baggage, that programs and charts its future, and that allows its
weakest and sickest to survive? Supplanting the imperative of the
survival of the fittest with a culturally-sensitive principle may be the
hallmark of a successful evolution, rather than the beginning of an
inexorable decline.
The eugenics movement turns this argument on its head. They accept
the premise that the contribution of natural selection to the makeup of

future human generations is glacial and negligible. But they reject the
conclusion that, having ridden ourselves of its tyranny, we can now let
the weak and sick among us survive and multiply. Rather, they propose
to replace natural selection with eugenics.
But who, by which authority, and according to what guidelines will
administer this man-made culling and decide who is to live and who is
to die, who is to breed and who may not? Why select by intelligence
and not by courtesy or altruism or church-going - or al of them together?
It is here that eugenics fails miserably.
Should the criterion be physical, like in ancient Sparta? Should it be
mental? Should IQ determine one's fate - or social status or wealth?
Different answers yield disparate eugenic programs and target
dissimilar groups in the population.
Aren't eugenic criteria liable to be unduly influenced by fashion and
cultural bias? Can we agree on a universal eugenic agenda in a world as
ethnically and culturally diverse as ours? If we do get it wrong - and the
chances are overwhelming - will we not damage our gene pool
irreparably and, with it, the future of our species?
And even if many will avoid a slippery slope leading from eugenics to
active extermination of "inferior" groups in the general population - can
we guarantee that everyone will? How to prevent eugenics from being
appropriated by an intrusive, authoritarian, or even murderous state?
Modern eugenicists distance themselves from the crude methods
adopted at the beginning of the last century by 29 countries, including
Germany, The United States, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Venezuela,
Estonia, Argentina, Norway, Denmark, Sweden (until 1976), Brazil,
Italy, Greece, and Spain.
They talk about free contraceptives for low-IQ women, vasectomies or
tubal ligations for criminals, sperm banks with contributions from high
achievers, and incentives for college students to procreate. Modern
genetic engineering and biotechnology are readily applicable to eugenic
projects. Cloning can serve to preserve the genes of the fittest. Embryo
selection and prenatal diagnosis of genetically diseased embryos can
reduce the number of the unfit.
But even these innocuous variants of eugenics fly in the face of
liberalism. Inequality, claim the proponents of hereditary amelioration,
is genetic, not environmental. All men are created unequal and as much

subject to the natural laws of heredity as are cows and bees. Inferior
people give birth to inferior offspring and, thus, propagate their
inferiority.
Even if this were true - which is at best debatable - the question is
whether the inferior specimen of our species possess the inalienable
right to reproduce? If society is to bear the costs of over-population -
social welfare, medical care, daycare centers - then society has the right
to regulate procreation. But does it have the right to act discriminately
in doing so?
Another dilemma is whether we have the moral right - let alone the
necessary knowledge - to interfere with natural as well as social and
demographic trends. Eugenicists counter that contraception and
indiscriminate medicine already do just that. Yet, studies show that the
more affluent and educated a population becomes -