Saturday, April 25, 2015

Eugenics: Then and Now

                The idea of Eugenics became increasingly popular in the late 1800s into the early 1900s.  The idea that humans could create the perfect society free of disabilities and diseases was appealing to a great deal of people; in fact the term eugenics comes from the Greek roots for “good” and “generation.”

People tended to think that they were paving the path to a brighter future, and the benefits of eugenics far outweighed the costs.  That is, until people saw how far some were willing to take it.  Hitler’s eugenics program is the reason why the word “eugenics” has such a bad reputation.  Instead of simply trying to remove disease, and any imperfections within society, Hitler was attempting to create the “Master Race,” which involved weeding out anyone and everyone that did not meet the standards that Hitler set.

  Hitler would stop at nothing to create the perfect race of humans, and that eventually led to the deaths of over six million people.  What Hitler was doing was obviously morally wrong, but does that make eugenics morally wrong?  Hitler’s idea of eugenics involved sterilization, euthanasia, and even cold blooded murder a large portion of the time; but eugenics does not necessarily have to be so extreme. 

Eugenics takes place in our society today in the form of genetic screening.  Although it has not been applied on a large scale, or required by any means, it is becoming more prevalent in the world, and especially in the United States.  However, this does not involve sterilizing, or killing anyone, so it is heavily preferred over Hitler’s methods. 





 How long this version of Eugenics lasts honestly boils down to two questions:
    1. How far are people willing to take it?
    2. What is deemed socially acceptable?

Our methods are not directly hurting anyone, so people are generally satisfied with the idea, but do we know the consequences of our actions? Are we prepared to deal with the consequences of our actions if there are any?  Could genetic screening lead to something better or worse?  It wasn’t until years after people were using eugenics that they realized that it is not morally acceptable so really, only time will tell.  

http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/eugenics-still-present-in-the-u-s-today/

3 comments:

  1. A post from CoPhi, of related interest: http://cophilosophy.blogspot.com/2015/04/eugenics.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. 3rd post on GMO use and the ethics behind it.

    Sterling Porter

    In this post, I hope to more to explain my opinions and philosophical standing on the use of GMO, rather than just information on it. GMO’s are, by themselves, a good thing for the human race. Most concerns behind them stem from the fact that the GMOs come from a giant “bigwig” company, Monsanto. People tend to hate on Monsanto, and whether the claims people make are true or not, I doubt the general public will ever know. That, in itself, is also a problem. As far as the scientific end of Monsanto goes, mandates should be put it that force Monsanto and other companies like it to be more transparent in their studies and findings. To the public, because Monsanto fights against such procedure, as well as the mandatory labeling of GMOs, it seems like they are hiding something. Most likely, they are not hiding anything, but just trying to keep their profits and stocks as high as possible. I don’t blame them for that, it is a sound business decision right now, but I think in the future it may come to bite them back. This is the age of free information, and companies like Monsanto need to realize that.
    On the subject of using GMOs for third world countries, I think this should be the main goal for the future of GMO research. Most (if not all) of the world’s hunger problems stem from the third world countries, where GMO science has made almost no headway yet. This is probably again, because GMOs are a business, and there isn't much money outside of grants and government funding for helping third world countries. If we were to create crops that could survive the reduced conditions found in those places, it wouldn’t be a sound business decision, but it would be a sound moral decision that could benefit humanity.
    I believe that the largest problem of using GMOs is that we do not have enough regulation or required testing to accurately predict their effects in the world. In the U.S., most people think that the FDA regulates everything that we eat, but the truth is that the FDA does not have many mandatory requirements for GMOs, to the point that they are close to being unregulated. Most processed foods, unless they are labeled as certified organic, probably contain some sort of GMO, which is a bit scary just on the regulation front. In fact, Monsanto claims that over 7 trillion GMO meals have been eaten, which they use as a statistic for how safe they are. I am 95% percent with them there, but I would at least have been able to make the decision of whether or not I ate GMO by myself. In the U.S., if you don’t want to eat a certain type of food, such as gluten or something due to allergies, it is easy to avoid because of labeling that the FDA enforces. If the FDA would crack down on GMO labeling and testing, me and the rest of the country would probably feel a lot better about eating GMOs.

    ReplyDelete
  3. 3rd post on GMO use and the ethics behind it.

    Sterling Porter

    In this post, I hope to more to explain my opinions and philosophical standing on the use of GMO, rather than just information on it. GMO’s are, by themselves, a good thing for the human race. Most concerns behind them stem from the fact that the GMOs come from a giant “bigwig” company, Monsanto. People tend to hate on Monsanto, and whether the claims people make are true or not, I doubt the general public will ever know. That, in itself, is also a problem. As far as the scientific end of Monsanto goes, mandates should be put it that force Monsanto and other companies like it to be more transparent in their studies and findings. To the public, because Monsanto fights against such procedure, as well as the mandatory labeling of GMOs, it seems like they are hiding something. Most likely, they are not hiding anything, but just trying to keep their profits and stocks as high as possible. I don’t blame them for that, it is a sound business decision right now, but I think in the future it may come to bite them back. This is the age of free information, and companies like Monsanto need to realize that.
    On the subject of using GMOs for third world countries, I think this should be the main goal for the future of GMO research. Most (if not all) of the world’s hunger problems stem from the third world countries, where GMO science has made almost no headway yet. This is probably again, because GMOs are a business, and there isn't much money outside of grants and government funding for helping third world countries. If we were to create crops that could survive the reduced conditions found in those places, it wouldn’t be a sound business decision, but it would be a sound moral decision that could benefit humanity.
    I believe that the largest problem of using GMOs is that we do not have enough regulation or required testing to accurately predict their effects in the world. In the U.S., most people think that the FDA regulates everything that we eat, but the truth is that the FDA does not have many mandatory requirements for GMOs, to the point that they are close to being unregulated. Most processed foods, unless they are labeled as certified organic, probably contain some sort of GMO, which is a bit scary just on the regulation front. In fact, Monsanto claims that over 7 trillion GMO meals have been eaten, which they use as a statistic for how safe they are. I am 95% percent with them there, but I would at least have been able to make the decision of whether or not I ate GMO by myself. In the U.S., if you don’t want to eat a certain type of food, such as gluten or something due to allergies, it is easy to avoid because of labeling that the FDA enforces. If the FDA would crack down on GMO labeling and testing, me and the rest of the country would probably feel a lot better about eating GMOs.

    ReplyDelete