The Objectivist
Eugenics: Improving the Gene Pool
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
April 7, 2009
Eugenics is the idea that we can make the world a better place by improving human beings’ gene pool. It receives little press these days because it was abused by the Nazi and United States governments in the first half of the twentieth century. Despite this history, it is still worth pursuing.
The idea behind eugenics is that there are some inheritable traits that are good for society and some that are bad for it. High intelligence is good for society. Richard Lynn, a professor of psychology at the University at Ulster, has pointed out that it correlates with educational achievement, job performance, high income, and occupational status. In contrast, low intelligence correlates with low educational achievement (for example, dropping out of school), poor job performance, low income, and low occupational status. He notes that criminals have an average IQ that is significantly lower than the average person (92 versus 100). Intelligence is in large part inherited from one’s parents. Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, authors of The Bell Curve (1994), estimate that around 40% to 80% of one’s intelligence is inherited. Others such as University of California at Berkeley psychologist Arthur Jensen estimate that roughly 70% of one’s intelligence level is inherited.
Roughly, 2.7% of the population is developmentally disabled (mentally retarded). About 2.2% of the population is mildly retarded. Some studies indicate that only 20% to 30% of the retarded have full-time employment. One older study indicated that they constitute about 10% of the prison population, about four times their percentage of the overall population. In addition, of the ones who have children, a significant number are unfit parents. Developmental disability also has a significant genetic feature. One study indicated that if one parent is developmentally disabled, then 17% of their children will be so as well; if both are, then 48% will be so. As a group, they impose significant costs in terms of unemployment, welfare, and prison.
In addition, some destructive personality characteristics have a significant genetic component. People with psychopathic personalities have a tendency toward antisocial behavior. Many lack a conscience or the ability to control their behavior. The late Harvard psychologist Richard Herrnstein and Lynn both note that while people with this disorder are around 6% of the population, they constitute 60% of male prisoners, an even higher percentage of recidivist criminals, and a significant portion of drug addicts.
The argument for eugenics is that if we can make our country a better place by changing the gene pool and if doing so does not infringe on anyone’s rights, then we may, and probably should, do so. Among the means by which eugenic goals might be accomplished are through carefully controlling who gets to immigrate to America and by providing incentives for people with desirable genetic traits to reproduce. In the United States, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean immigrants have higher than average IQs and are vastly overrepresented in the professions and scientists. Similarly Jews constitute about 2% of the population and are overrepresented in the professions and intellectual elite. For example, at one point in time they constituted 27% of the Nobel Prize winners. Favoring them in immigration would likely have desirable eugenic effects. One country, Singapore, in the late 1980’s gave economic incentives, such as tax benefits, to better educated women and high earners to have children. This did increase the percentage of children born to more educated women (specifically, women who graduated from high school). State and federal governments might consider such a program.
If one is a libertarian, then the state should not pursue this goal. However, in a country in which the government has run amuck (for example, government at all levels will take 40% of all income produced this year), this concern is beside the point. Eugenic programs should be weighed against other social programs.
One way to see the desirability of eugenics is to consider programs that have eugenic-like effects. Some infertile couples pay women to donate their eggs. They pay a premium ($5,000 to $50,000) for the eggs of women from Ivy League and other elite colleges and often specify that the donors have high SAT scores and good college grades. This is obviously an attempt to get smarter children. Other couples have their fetuses tested for genetic problems such as Down’s syndrome, Tay-Sachs disease, Huntington disease, cystic fibrosis, and spina bifada and abort fetuses with these defects. On one study around 80% of Canadian women who found out that their fetuses had a serious genetic disorder aborted them. For couples that use in vitro fertilization, it is increasingly possible to screen embryos for genetic defects like Down’s syndrome and to implant ones without them. There are also advances made in inserting new genes into animals (gene therapy). It is hoped that the insertions can be used to treat those with genetic diseases and this has been done in some cases with humans. Many of the same reasons that make couples want to use this technology also make it a good idea for both charities and the state to encourage such practices for eugenic purposes.
The usual objection to eugenics is that it has been misused in the past. The United States forcibly sterilized over 64,000 people between 1907 and 1963. The Supreme Court in Buck vs. Bell (1927) permitted the forcible sterilization of the unfit and leftist Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson supported it. In Nazi Germany, the government slaughtered millions of Jews, Gypsies, gays, and others as part of a eugenic campaign. However, the use of atrocious means to achieve a goal does not make the goal bad, nor does it rule out rights-respecting means of accomplishing that goal. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker notes that what is wrong with these past programs is coercion, not eugenics. In addition, Richard Lynn points out that many other goals have been subject to misuse. Christianity led to the Crusades, the Inquisition, and countless other misuses and this alone does not show that it is false or bad. Just about every government that pursued large-scale genocide also had strong gun-control policies and many do not consider this history a good reason to get rid of gun control.
Eugenics is a policy that could help the United States by increasing the number of talented people and decreasing the people who place a burden on all of us through welfare, crime, and other destructive behavior. It is important that note that while eugenics is a goal worth pursuing, because many of the people with low-levels of intelligence and tendency toward criminality have genetic disadvantages they should be neither blamed nor considered unworthy of care and respect.
08 April 2009
Abortion & Christianity II
The Theist
On the Sending-Fetuses-to-Heaven Objection
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
March 16, 2009
My colleague The Objectivist argues that Christian pro-lifers are inconsistent in believing (1) that (many or most) abortions are morally wrong and (2) that all fetuses go to heaven. ("Christians on Abortion", Observer, March 19, 2009 ) How are these inconsistent? At first glance, they seem entirely consistent. The Objectivist's idea is that Christian pro-lifers must accept another claim, something like: (3) Any action which on the whole greatly benefits the recipient of the action is not morally wrong. Going to an eternally long, blessed life with God and his people is a benefit of infinite value. His idea is that dying early is bad, but that this harm is infinitely outweighed by the gain of heaven. (He's arguing from pro-life premises here, and assuming the fetuses are just smaller versions of the beings which later go to college, get married, etc.)
The Objectivist is correct about one thing: arguably, the three claims just listed cannot all be true. He's mistaken, however, in thinking that the Christian pro-lifer must accept (3). This third claim, I'll now argue, is false. Anyone, whether Christian or atheist, pro-lifer or pro-choicer, should reject it.
Thus, it doesn’t matter if (3) conflicts with (1) and (2).
Imagine a spoiled brat born to absurdly wealthy parents--call him Ritchie Rich. Ritchie's parents think he can do no wrong, and indulge his every whim. When he comes of age, Ritchie discovers a new interest--rape. His parents decide to enable their son's new hobby--whenever he commits a rape, a quick-response team swoops in, pays the victim one hundred million dollars and gives her a quick and painless shot that erases only her memory of the last hour. Add one more element to the story: Ritchie is known to be infertile.
Ritchie knows about this whole arrangement, and continues his career as a serial rapist. Is he doing anything wrong? Not according to The Objectivist. After all, while he's inflicting temporary harm on his victims, in every case he knows that he's also guaranteeing that his victim practically wins the lottery, and will suffer from no unpleasant memory relating to the rape. To the contrary, it is obvious that what Ritchie is doing is wrong. This is so, even if looking back on it, some of his victims are glad that they were victims (because they're enjoying their new wealth).
We should distinguish three ways a good thing can swamp a bad thing: outweighing, compensating, and morally justifying. Suppose your parents promise you summer camp, and then arbitrarily, for no good reason, break their promise. As a result, you happen to find a very enjoyable summer job. It may be that your getting this job outweighs the good things you would have gained from going to camp. But this doesn't compensate you for the broken promise, or morally justify your parents' promise-breaking. Again, perhaps your parents realize they've wronged you, and they ask if it'd be fair for them to double your allowance in compensation. You say yes. Here, the increase in allowance may outweigh your loss (of summer camp benefits), and may be a just compensation for said loss, although it doesn't make your parents' promise-breaking morally right. For an example in which a good swamps a bad in all three ways, suppose that you come down with appendicitis, and your parents force you, against your will, to have your appendix removed. Here, the good (avoiding further pain and complications) outweighs, compensates you for, and morally justifies your being forced into surgery.
Back to aborted fetuses. That you send little Freddy fetus to heaven probably outweighs the harm he suffers. His life is cut short, and importantly, he's deprived up the opportunity to freely decide what sort of person he will be, and in particular to decide whether he will be God's friend or enemy. He gets an infinite gain. But did he also suffer an infinite loss--of the one chance to control what sort of person he becomes? It's not easy to compare this loss with this gain. Let's grant, though, that his gain strongly outweighs his loss. Still, it doesn't follow that Freddy has been justly compensated for his loss, or that your action in aborting him was morally justified.
The Objectivist argues back, lamely, that in aborting Freddy you're saving him from certain...risk--that is, risk of wrongdoing, and ultimately risk of hell. The answer to that is that we all greatly value opportunities to control how our lives go and what sorts of people we become. Suppose The Objectivist decides to head to the store for more Doritos, but on the way to his car, a group of would-be do-gooders tackle him and hog-tie him with duct tape, on the grounds that driving is risky. It is, but he would rightly argue that he has the right to assume that risk, because he has the right to control how he lives his life. If he could talk, Freddy the fetus would say, "Me too!"
The Objectivist's argument is hopeless. If it were right, then not only would Christians be inconsistent in opposing abortion, they’d be inconsistent in opposing any kind of homicide whatever. Consider a church shooting, where, let’s say, a bitter (but not insane) ex-boyfriend enters his ex-girlfriend’s church and fires at anything that moves. Suppose all the victims are heaven-bound. Does anyone think that it is really inconsistent to believe this, and that the gunman did something morally wrong? Again, a husband, out of sheer greed, kills his wife to get her insurance, and (let’s suppose) knows she is heaven-bound. It is inconsistent to agree that she went to heaven and yet hold that the husband’s action was wrong? Gimme a break.
On the Sending-Fetuses-to-Heaven Objection
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
March 16, 2009
My colleague The Objectivist argues that Christian pro-lifers are inconsistent in believing (1) that (many or most) abortions are morally wrong and (2) that all fetuses go to heaven. ("Christians on Abortion", Observer, March 19, 2009 ) How are these inconsistent? At first glance, they seem entirely consistent. The Objectivist's idea is that Christian pro-lifers must accept another claim, something like: (3) Any action which on the whole greatly benefits the recipient of the action is not morally wrong. Going to an eternally long, blessed life with God and his people is a benefit of infinite value. His idea is that dying early is bad, but that this harm is infinitely outweighed by the gain of heaven. (He's arguing from pro-life premises here, and assuming the fetuses are just smaller versions of the beings which later go to college, get married, etc.)
The Objectivist is correct about one thing: arguably, the three claims just listed cannot all be true. He's mistaken, however, in thinking that the Christian pro-lifer must accept (3). This third claim, I'll now argue, is false. Anyone, whether Christian or atheist, pro-lifer or pro-choicer, should reject it.
Thus, it doesn’t matter if (3) conflicts with (1) and (2).
Imagine a spoiled brat born to absurdly wealthy parents--call him Ritchie Rich. Ritchie's parents think he can do no wrong, and indulge his every whim. When he comes of age, Ritchie discovers a new interest--rape. His parents decide to enable their son's new hobby--whenever he commits a rape, a quick-response team swoops in, pays the victim one hundred million dollars and gives her a quick and painless shot that erases only her memory of the last hour. Add one more element to the story: Ritchie is known to be infertile.
Ritchie knows about this whole arrangement, and continues his career as a serial rapist. Is he doing anything wrong? Not according to The Objectivist. After all, while he's inflicting temporary harm on his victims, in every case he knows that he's also guaranteeing that his victim practically wins the lottery, and will suffer from no unpleasant memory relating to the rape. To the contrary, it is obvious that what Ritchie is doing is wrong. This is so, even if looking back on it, some of his victims are glad that they were victims (because they're enjoying their new wealth).
We should distinguish three ways a good thing can swamp a bad thing: outweighing, compensating, and morally justifying. Suppose your parents promise you summer camp, and then arbitrarily, for no good reason, break their promise. As a result, you happen to find a very enjoyable summer job. It may be that your getting this job outweighs the good things you would have gained from going to camp. But this doesn't compensate you for the broken promise, or morally justify your parents' promise-breaking. Again, perhaps your parents realize they've wronged you, and they ask if it'd be fair for them to double your allowance in compensation. You say yes. Here, the increase in allowance may outweigh your loss (of summer camp benefits), and may be a just compensation for said loss, although it doesn't make your parents' promise-breaking morally right. For an example in which a good swamps a bad in all three ways, suppose that you come down with appendicitis, and your parents force you, against your will, to have your appendix removed. Here, the good (avoiding further pain and complications) outweighs, compensates you for, and morally justifies your being forced into surgery.
Back to aborted fetuses. That you send little Freddy fetus to heaven probably outweighs the harm he suffers. His life is cut short, and importantly, he's deprived up the opportunity to freely decide what sort of person he will be, and in particular to decide whether he will be God's friend or enemy. He gets an infinite gain. But did he also suffer an infinite loss--of the one chance to control what sort of person he becomes? It's not easy to compare this loss with this gain. Let's grant, though, that his gain strongly outweighs his loss. Still, it doesn't follow that Freddy has been justly compensated for his loss, or that your action in aborting him was morally justified.
The Objectivist argues back, lamely, that in aborting Freddy you're saving him from certain...risk--that is, risk of wrongdoing, and ultimately risk of hell. The answer to that is that we all greatly value opportunities to control how our lives go and what sorts of people we become. Suppose The Objectivist decides to head to the store for more Doritos, but on the way to his car, a group of would-be do-gooders tackle him and hog-tie him with duct tape, on the grounds that driving is risky. It is, but he would rightly argue that he has the right to assume that risk, because he has the right to control how he lives his life. If he could talk, Freddy the fetus would say, "Me too!"
The Objectivist's argument is hopeless. If it were right, then not only would Christians be inconsistent in opposing abortion, they’d be inconsistent in opposing any kind of homicide whatever. Consider a church shooting, where, let’s say, a bitter (but not insane) ex-boyfriend enters his ex-girlfriend’s church and fires at anything that moves. Suppose all the victims are heaven-bound. Does anyone think that it is really inconsistent to believe this, and that the gunman did something morally wrong? Again, a husband, out of sheer greed, kills his wife to get her insurance, and (let’s suppose) knows she is heaven-bound. It is inconsistent to agree that she went to heaven and yet hold that the husband’s action was wrong? Gimme a break.
23 March 2009
Abortion & Christianity
The Objectivist
Christians on Abortion and the Afterlife: Inconsistent Doctrines
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
March 9, 2009
Many of the leading pro-life groups are Christians. The pro-life position generally holds that abortion is wrong and should be illegal. One of the leading pro-life groups, Operation Rescue, is a Christian-activist group. The Catholic Church holds that abortion is a grave sin and excommunicates anyone who directly participates in bringing one about, assuming they knew of the penalty when they acted. Before he was the current pope, Cardinal John Ratzinger wrote that priests should tell politicians who support abortion that they should avoid taking communion or risk being denied the Eucharist. This is bad news for Joe Biden (D-DE), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Ted Kennedy (D-NY). Other evangelical and fundamentalist Christian organizations oppose abortion, as does the Mormon Church. These groups’ influence has led the U.S. Republican Party to call for a ban on abortion.
Traditional Christianity also accepts that some people go to heaven and some go to hell or are annihilated (cease to exist). The Bible repeatedly states that there is post-earthly existence and many will not be saved. Consider Matt. 13:49-50, 25:41, 25:46, Luke 13:23, and Matt. 7:13-14. The Catholic Church and some types of Protestantism explicitly accept that hell exists and is a bad place to reside.
The Catholic Church recently issued a report, approved by Pope Benedict, which expressed hope that unbaptized babies will be sent to heaven. The church is committed to a similar conclusion about fetuses because both fetuses and babies are created in the image and likeness of God and hence are sacred. This position makes a lot of sense. It is hard to believe that an all-loving person like God would send an innocent child to hell or annihilate her.
Compare this to the doctrine which holds that because unbaptized infants and fetuses are tainted by original sin, if they die unbaptized God sends them to hell. Just imagine the mean-spirited religious leader who would tell a heartbroken woman who recently lost a newborn that her child is wailing in hell and will do so until the end of time because she did not move quickly enough to have him baptized.
The problem arises when we combine the pro-life position with the above view on heaven and hell. The problem is that if traditional Christianity is true, then a person who aborts a fetus guarantees that it goes to heaven. If someone guarantees that a fetus goes to heaven, then she does a wonderful thing for it. If someone does a wonderful thing for a fetus, then her action is permissible. Hence, if traditional Christianity is true, then abortion is permissible. As a result, on pain of contradiction, traditional Christians cannot be pro-life.
Even if we assume that fetuses have rights, specifically human rights, and that abortion infringes on them, the infringement is still permissible. After all, we often think that it is okay to infringe on someone’s right when doing so prevents a tragedy. Consider the following. There is a car accident and a three-year-old black girl’s arm is cut off. If reattachment surgery doesn’t begin soon, she will permanently lose the arm. A bystander knows the only way to get the child to the hospital in time is to hotwire a parked car. The bystander knows the car owner and in particular that he is a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a vicious racist organization, and would never consent to allowing his car to be used to help the girl. Intuitively, it seems permissible to hotwire the car. A similar thing permits us to break into a storefront and steal a syringe of insulin if it is necessary to save a diabetic child’s life. In short, it’s okay to infringe on someone’s right when doing so prevents a horrific tragedy. Note that the worst tragedy that can befall someone is spending eternity in hell.
One objection here is that abortion is not similar to the above cases because it is not clear that the aborted fetus would have gone to hell. The fetus might have grown up and freely chosen Christianity. Still, we often praise people who act to reduce risk. If an emergency medical technician gives lifesaving shocks to a woman whose heart has stopped and thereby reduces her chance of permanent brain damage from 99% to 1%, we think that he did the right thing even though there is some chance the shocks weren’t necessary to prevent brain damage.
A second objection is that because our bodies are on loan from God, we have no right to take others’ lives, and this includes unborn children. One problem with this is that this would prohibit self-defense and defense-of-others killings (for example, consider the U.S. military). A second problem is that God must have a reason to prohibit persons from sending their unborn children to heaven; otherwise his prohibition is arbitrary. The fact that he owns their bodies is irrelevant.
A third objection is that if traditional Christianity is true, then sending persons to hell is morally permissible. If God may send people to hell, then he must have a reason not to send everyone to heaven. The objection continues, if God has a reason not to send everyone to heaven, then so do women and physicians. Hence, they should not try to send fetuses to heaven. This objection fails. Just because God may not do all he can to ensure human beings go to heaven, the same is not true for human beings. After all, God has the power to change individual’s thoughts and human beings do not. That is, when he acts, he interferes with human freedom in a way that differs from how human beings interfere with each other. The concern for freedom might explain why it would be wrong for God to kill monsters like Mao Tse-tung, Joseph Stalin, or Adolf Hitler, but why the same is not true for human beings trying to stop them.
Many Christians accept the pro-life position on abortion and yet hold that aborted fetuses go to heaven. These ideas are inconsistent. They ought to dump their pro-life stance.
Christians on Abortion and the Afterlife: Inconsistent Doctrines
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
March 9, 2009
Many of the leading pro-life groups are Christians. The pro-life position generally holds that abortion is wrong and should be illegal. One of the leading pro-life groups, Operation Rescue, is a Christian-activist group. The Catholic Church holds that abortion is a grave sin and excommunicates anyone who directly participates in bringing one about, assuming they knew of the penalty when they acted. Before he was the current pope, Cardinal John Ratzinger wrote that priests should tell politicians who support abortion that they should avoid taking communion or risk being denied the Eucharist. This is bad news for Joe Biden (D-DE), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Ted Kennedy (D-NY). Other evangelical and fundamentalist Christian organizations oppose abortion, as does the Mormon Church. These groups’ influence has led the U.S. Republican Party to call for a ban on abortion.
Traditional Christianity also accepts that some people go to heaven and some go to hell or are annihilated (cease to exist). The Bible repeatedly states that there is post-earthly existence and many will not be saved. Consider Matt. 13:49-50, 25:41, 25:46, Luke 13:23, and Matt. 7:13-14. The Catholic Church and some types of Protestantism explicitly accept that hell exists and is a bad place to reside.
The Catholic Church recently issued a report, approved by Pope Benedict, which expressed hope that unbaptized babies will be sent to heaven. The church is committed to a similar conclusion about fetuses because both fetuses and babies are created in the image and likeness of God and hence are sacred. This position makes a lot of sense. It is hard to believe that an all-loving person like God would send an innocent child to hell or annihilate her.
Compare this to the doctrine which holds that because unbaptized infants and fetuses are tainted by original sin, if they die unbaptized God sends them to hell. Just imagine the mean-spirited religious leader who would tell a heartbroken woman who recently lost a newborn that her child is wailing in hell and will do so until the end of time because she did not move quickly enough to have him baptized.
The problem arises when we combine the pro-life position with the above view on heaven and hell. The problem is that if traditional Christianity is true, then a person who aborts a fetus guarantees that it goes to heaven. If someone guarantees that a fetus goes to heaven, then she does a wonderful thing for it. If someone does a wonderful thing for a fetus, then her action is permissible. Hence, if traditional Christianity is true, then abortion is permissible. As a result, on pain of contradiction, traditional Christians cannot be pro-life.
Even if we assume that fetuses have rights, specifically human rights, and that abortion infringes on them, the infringement is still permissible. After all, we often think that it is okay to infringe on someone’s right when doing so prevents a tragedy. Consider the following. There is a car accident and a three-year-old black girl’s arm is cut off. If reattachment surgery doesn’t begin soon, she will permanently lose the arm. A bystander knows the only way to get the child to the hospital in time is to hotwire a parked car. The bystander knows the car owner and in particular that he is a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a vicious racist organization, and would never consent to allowing his car to be used to help the girl. Intuitively, it seems permissible to hotwire the car. A similar thing permits us to break into a storefront and steal a syringe of insulin if it is necessary to save a diabetic child’s life. In short, it’s okay to infringe on someone’s right when doing so prevents a horrific tragedy. Note that the worst tragedy that can befall someone is spending eternity in hell.
One objection here is that abortion is not similar to the above cases because it is not clear that the aborted fetus would have gone to hell. The fetus might have grown up and freely chosen Christianity. Still, we often praise people who act to reduce risk. If an emergency medical technician gives lifesaving shocks to a woman whose heart has stopped and thereby reduces her chance of permanent brain damage from 99% to 1%, we think that he did the right thing even though there is some chance the shocks weren’t necessary to prevent brain damage.
A second objection is that because our bodies are on loan from God, we have no right to take others’ lives, and this includes unborn children. One problem with this is that this would prohibit self-defense and defense-of-others killings (for example, consider the U.S. military). A second problem is that God must have a reason to prohibit persons from sending their unborn children to heaven; otherwise his prohibition is arbitrary. The fact that he owns their bodies is irrelevant.
A third objection is that if traditional Christianity is true, then sending persons to hell is morally permissible. If God may send people to hell, then he must have a reason not to send everyone to heaven. The objection continues, if God has a reason not to send everyone to heaven, then so do women and physicians. Hence, they should not try to send fetuses to heaven. This objection fails. Just because God may not do all he can to ensure human beings go to heaven, the same is not true for human beings. After all, God has the power to change individual’s thoughts and human beings do not. That is, when he acts, he interferes with human freedom in a way that differs from how human beings interfere with each other. The concern for freedom might explain why it would be wrong for God to kill monsters like Mao Tse-tung, Joseph Stalin, or Adolf Hitler, but why the same is not true for human beings trying to stop them.
Many Christians accept the pro-life position on abortion and yet hold that aborted fetuses go to heaven. These ideas are inconsistent. They ought to dump their pro-life stance.
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