tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post5084847892956963607..comments2023-10-10T08:02:18.073-04:00Comments on Rationally Speaking: A new eugenics?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-41024992876068582482011-01-30T20:50:37.199-05:002011-01-30T20:50:37.199-05:00How can anyone think we have not been practicing e...How can anyone think we have not been practicing eugenics since birth control became an option for women. When was the last time you saw a fundie at the Harvard wedding chapel? Or a Harvard grad at a Southern Baptist wedding. The only thing wrong with the cartoon is she is has already picked out the suitor for which she will kill the contraceptive. Usually after a long courtship in which she examined how he would fit into her tribe and provide for the children he sired. I will trust the picky female over the white coat any day to make the right choice.J'Carlinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11811626573349505654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-61636723300144600652011-01-29T13:31:32.905-05:002011-01-29T13:31:32.905-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Baron Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04138430918331887648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-83670419304040375322011-01-29T08:41:52.368-05:002011-01-29T08:41:52.368-05:00But designing babies is to treat them as objects, ...<i>But designing babies is to treat them as objects, not as human beings, and there are a couple of strong philosophical traditions in ethics that go squarely against that</i><br /><br />Not to mention the societal cost of the sort of eugenics already practiced in China and India -- the selective abortion of female embryosMichel S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/18276434692621679521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-17207624190099478312011-01-28T23:41:06.685-05:002011-01-28T23:41:06.685-05:00Baron P,
"Not OK, because at some point in t...Baron P,<br /><br />"Not OK, because at some point in the evolution of a social species the processing of information as meaningful and instructive was learned and communicative functions evolved accordingly, and have not ceased to evolve."<br /><br />I'm not sure I accept that premise. Some communicative functions are inherited and not learned--they are present from birth. I don't know how you can prove that all communicative function was learned at some point and that none of it arose biologically. How, exactly, are you defining communication?<br /><br />"Not OK, not only because this stems from the false premise that instincts can bypass the learning process, but because whether or not they could or did is irrelevant to the functional objectives and benefits of culture."<br /><br />I'm not sure how you are using "culture" anymore as you refuse to define it. "Culture" has no functional objectives (it's a process, not a thing), so I'm a little confused by what you mean.<br /><br />"But here you are really making my point, not yours, because to say never seems to be saying that no part of language is inherited."<br /><br />That's exactly what I'm saying. No part of language is inherited. The capacity for language, however, is.<br /><br />"And my objection was and is that the function by which we construct language has become instinctive and heritable"<br /><br />Capacity for language ≠ language.<br /><br />"No, it can't, unless your sensory apparatus is infallible and capable of interpreting the reality of nature to a certainty."<br /><br />If I shine a light at you, I am communicating my presence. There is no symbolism inherent in that communication. You may attribute symbolic or metaphorical meaning to it, but it can be a meaningful communication without symbolism. Symbolism ≠ meaning.<br /><br />"And to represent desire by pointing to its object is the using of that object as a symbol that is meant to draw an abstract inference."<br /><br />What is the abstract inference? Pointing is a gesture, it is non-symbolic. The object being seen by you as a symbol is due to factors other than the actual gesture. In other words, the gesture itself is not symbolic, even if you assign symbolic meaning to the object that is being pointed to.<br /><br />"Fine, keep it within anthropology, but we're not just talking about humankind here, which as I recall was an original objection of mine. "<br /><br />And I originally challenged your view that non-human animals (particularly ants) have culture, which is a particularly human trait that so far has not been found in other species (though, as I said, there is some debate that crude forms of culture exist among non-human primates).<br /><br />"And I believe I have shown why I think you are wrong there and where. You can't eliminate meaning from communication on the basis that it is somehow not as advanced as language, and therefor cannot have contributed to the evolutionary development of culture."<br /><br />Again, I'm not eliminating meaning from communication, I'm saying that not all communication is symbolic, and not all communication is learned, which means that communication cannot be used to indicate culture as it is defined in the social sciences, particularly anthropology. I never said communication hasn't contributed to the development of culture, by the way. I said it is not indicative of culture.<br /><br />Obviously we are just operating with very different ideas of what constitutes meaning, symbolism, language, communication, and culture. I doubt we will come to an agreement on these issues.<br /><br />Finally, you have completely avoided answering my question. I really am interested in your view that ants have culture. You have not defined what you mean by culture and what the criteria are in your view. It seems to me that you are conflating social with cultural (society and culture), but they are not the same thing. Are you using them to mean the same thing?Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14584362605521491577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-2311576224064521802011-01-28T21:37:57.004-05:002011-01-28T21:37:57.004-05:00Part 2:
"The child pointing at the toy is a c...Part 2:<br />"The child pointing at the toy is a communication of a desire. The point does not represent something abstract, like a letter in the alphabet or the country of the United States. Nonsymbolic communication is more concrete than language and is limited to the immediate environment. Symbolic communication and language don't have those limitations."<br /><br />Making a line that differentiates the symbolic from the non-symbolic as a way to separate out the meaningful is in my view to create a false dichotomy. When it comes to the very fluid nature of meaning, one is not the alternative to the other. <br />You are of course attempting to sort out language as opposed to communication, which again has no relevance to the use or non-use of culture as a repository of meaningful information. <br />And to represent desire by pointing to its object is the using of that object as a symbol that is meant to draw an abstract inference. <br /> <br />"Granted, there are many debates about communication versus language; however, at least within anthropology, they are separated. (We often refer to Charles Hockett's design features of language to draw distinctions between the two.)"<br /> <br />Fine, keep it within anthropology, but we're not just talking about humankind here, which as I recall was an original objection of mine. <br /><br />"My original point was that language is indicative of culture, but communication is not because communication is more broad and not always symbolic, while culture is a learned, shared, symbolic process of meaning-making."<br /> <br />And I believe I have shown why I think you are wrong there and where. You can't eliminate meaning from communication on the basis that it is somehow not as advanced as language, and therefor cannot have contributed to the evolutionary development of culture.<br /> <br />"I'll finish by asking you this: you originally proposed that ants have culture. What do you mean by that? How are you defining culture? How can you tell that they have it?"<br /> <br />Because they are surviving as a society with almost incomparable efficiency.Baron Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04138430918331887648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-9439165400661835272011-01-28T21:36:02.108-05:002011-01-28T21:36:02.108-05:00Will writes as quoted and I respond,
"There a...Will writes as quoted and I respond,<br />"There are three basic criteria that must be met in order to call something culture: It must be learned, shared, and symbolic (or, culture cannot be inherited, individual, and non-symbolic). One out of three or two out of three is not good enough."<br />OK so far, which does not rule out (yet) that ants cannot have a culture.<br />(And lets not restrict our understanding to the traditional views of cultural anthropology when dealing with evolutionary biology for example.) <br />"Some communication is learned; some communication is not learned. I agree, to say communication is never learned is ridiculous, but to say that communication is always learned is equally ridiculous."<br /><br />Not OK, because at some point in the evolution of a social species the processing of information as meaningful and instructive was learned and communicative functions evolved accordingly, and have not ceased to evolve.<br /><br />"So, communication cannot be a factor in deciding whether or not something is culture, as it can be learned or inherited." <br /><br />Not OK, not only because this stems from the false premise that instincts can bypass the learning process, but because whether or not they could or did is irrelevant to the functional objectives and benefits of culture.<br /><br />"And even if I were to grant you that all communication is symbolic, it is still sometimes inherited and, so, cannot be a determining factor as to whether something is culture."<br /><br />Not OK, because again the heritability of some aspect of communication is irrelevant to the use of culture as a repository for the type of information to be learned that would not otherwise be heritable. Learning is continuous and the above would include what the social group has learned in the ongoing process of adapting to an ever changing environment, for example.<br /><br /> "Now, you say that I am wrong when I say that language is never inherited. I challenge you to find a child that begins speaking fluently in a language without learning it. Yes, we inherit the capacity for language, but we do not inherit language itself."<br /><br />But here you are really making my point, not yours, because to say never seems to be saying that no part of language is inherited. And my objection was and is that the function by which we construct language has become instinctive and heritable, and yet the needed function of our culture is pass on the more immediate developments of how we've learned to use that function effectively.<br /><br />"You are conflating symbolic with meaning." <br /> <br />Yes, as symbols are meant to stand for something else. They are metaphorical, just as words are. <br /><br />"Something can have meaning and not be symbolic."<br /> <br />No, it can't, unless your sensory apparatus is infallible and capable of interpreting the reality of nature to a certainty.<br /><br />(It seems I need to continue with part 2 here.)Baron Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04138430918331887648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-43856902574073356972011-01-28T19:17:09.175-05:002011-01-28T19:17:09.175-05:00Baron P,
I apologize if my posts are unclear. Let...Baron P,<br /><br />I apologize if my posts are unclear. Let me try to clear things up a bit.<br /><br />There are three basic criteria that must be met in order to call something culture: It must be learned, shared, and symbolic (or, culture cannot be inherited, individual, and non-symbolic). One out of three or two out of three is not good enough.<br /><br />Some communication is learned; some communication is not learned. I agree, to say communication is never learned is ridiculous, but to say that communication is always learned is equally ridiculous. So, communication cannot be a factor in deciding whether or not something is culture, as it can be learned or inherited. And even if I were to grant you that all communication is symbolic, it is still sometimes inherited and, so, cannot be a determining factor as to whether something is culture.<br /><br />Now, you say that I am wrong when I say that language is never inherited. I challenge you to find a child that begins speaking fluently in a language without learning it. Yes, we inherit the capacity for language, but we do not inherit language itself.<br /><br />You are conflating symbolic with meaning. Something can have meaning and not be symbolic. The child pointing at the toy is a communication of a desire. The point does not represent something abstract, like a letter in the alphabet or the country of the United States. Nonsymbolic communication is more concrete than language and is limited to the immediate environment. Symbolic communication and language don't have those limitations.<br /><br />Granted, there are many debates about communication versus language; however, at least within anthropology, they are separated. (We often refer to Charles Hockett's design features of language to draw distinctions between the two.)<br /><br />My original point was that language is indicative of culture, but communication is not because communication is more broad and not always symbolic, while culture is a learned, shared, symbolic process of meaning-making.<br /><br />I'll finish by asking you this: you originally proposed that ants have culture. What do you mean by that? How are you defining culture? How can you tell that they have it?Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14584362605521491577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-89369733927757047222011-01-28T16:18:57.748-05:002011-01-28T16:18:57.748-05:00Will, you keep moving the goal posts here and it&#...Will, you keep moving the goal posts here and it's an avoidance tactic which benefits neither of us in the end. <br />Communication is at some point learned, and at some later point may become instinctive (and instincts later augmented by learning and so forth). Newer findings about babies and their instinctive grasp of language rules means to me that at least some of our own instinctive language processes have evolved from learned experiences. <br />And in any case your very argument that communication is "not always" learned was obviously based on the premise that it's "sometimes" learned. Because we both know that to say communication is never learned is ridiculous.<br /><br />And in the context of whether use of language connotes use of the culture that necessitates its learning, your argument is pointless. You cannot successfully determine that language at some point has not come from learning, and that learning has not come from culture.<br />So you end by saying: "Language is always learned, never inherited." Wrong when it comes to humans, so that offers proof of nothing when it comes to bacteria or other social species of life, or comes down to distinguishing communication from language. <br /><br />And why was that kid pointing to the toy in any case? If it was a meaningless gesture, then it was not communication. If it had meaning, then the toy was symbolic of that meaning. If, as I suppose, the toy was wanted for itself, all toys of course are symbols of the thing that makes you want them. <br />There are also arguments out there as to why all gestures are based on symbolic patterns shared by the particular species that must understand the gestures, but I'm only willing at this juncture to point that out and not explain it further.Baron Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04138430918331887648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-28578944908974436252011-01-28T14:15:51.256-05:002011-01-28T14:15:51.256-05:00Baron P,
Communication may or may not be symbolic...Baron P,<br /><br />Communication may or may not be symbolic, but it's not always learned. (I don't agree that communication is always symbolic. For example, a child pointing to a toy is a non-symbolic gesture that communicates the child's want.) The example you provided from the TED talk is not learned, it is inherited, which makes it explicitly not cultural. Language is always learned, never inherited.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14584362605521491577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-57656473165208590912011-01-28T12:46:20.802-05:002011-01-28T12:46:20.802-05:00And Will, as to what you argue is not language, be...And Will, as to what you argue is not language, because it's not symbolic, here's a quote from a TED talk by Bonnie Bassler:<br /><br />"What I hope you think, is that bacteria can talk to each other, they use chemicals as their words, they have an incredibly complicated chemical lexicon, that we're just now starting to learn about. Of course what that allows bacteria to do is to be multicellular. So in the spirit of TED they're doing things together because it makes a difference. What happens is that bacteria have these collective behaviors, and they can carry out tasks that they could never accomplish if they simply acted as individuals."Baron Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04138430918331887648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-88315460647723540472011-01-28T12:44:46.423-05:002011-01-28T12:44:46.423-05:00Will, all communication, if you accept that it occ...Will, all communication, if you accept that it occurs at all, is symbolic.<br />And now you say "only humans have fully-developed culture" as compared to the "rudimentary form" of culture of primates. Which assumes that our culture has no further room for development I suppose - but if you didn't assume that, then you might consider that all cultures are at a certain stage of development, and the first stage was the one where social lives originated.Baron Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04138430918331887648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-20347945551961009662011-01-28T12:40:39.783-05:002011-01-28T12:40:39.783-05:00cc, I don't actually think a lot of people cho...cc, I don't actually think a lot of people choose their mates with eugenics standards in mind. If they do, they are a bit on the cuckoo side, and yes, potentially demeaning their partners and their children.<br /><br />As for whose dignity gets affected, the child as well as the parents. And yes, people can diminish their dignity because of their own choices.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09099460671669064269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-43126428601263923702011-01-28T12:15:19.213-05:002011-01-28T12:15:19.213-05:00"cc, where did you get the idea that I said t..."cc, where did you get the idea that I said that it is not okay to choose characteristics outside of sexual selection?"<br /><br />I was referring to these "superficial traits" that you reference. Do you view mate selection for these superficial traits in the same way? Perhaps most people do not choose their mates like this, but I gather that most people will also not have designer babies. I think that the same people who look for very specific traits in a mate like: a blonde hair blue eyed wealthy male over 6 feet tall, may also be the same people who choose a blond haired blue eyed baby who is likely to be tall. Why is one any worse than the other?<br /><br />Also demeaning human dignity is not well defined. Whose dignity is demeaned? Is it the child who is chosen, or will dignity be demeaned for those who are not customized to their parent's specifications? If I chose my child's eye color (which I would never do), would I value that child any less? I can not imagine that to be true.ccbowershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11686910795750392419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-22026230206889203202011-01-28T07:28:41.105-05:002011-01-28T07:28:41.105-05:00Thameron, no problem. But surely you didn't th...Thameron, no problem. But surely you didn't think I was making a religious-type exceptionalist argument for humans? I simply think that some quantitative biological differences are great enough that for all effective purposes they set a qualitative boundary.<br /><br />And I don't think my position leads to a raft of unanswerable questions. We, the collective humanity, gets to make moral decisions, because we are the only on the planet capable of doing so. And we do it precisely by engaging each other in discussions like these, where we provide reasons for our positions.<br /><br />athenmccombs, I never understood why so many people think that certain paths of action are inevitable. Human beings can make decisions, including the decision to steer away from certain paths of action because we deemed them unethical.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09099460671669064269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-45678870939913415392011-01-28T06:51:49.812-05:002011-01-28T06:51:49.812-05:00I thought this was very interesting. I think that ...I thought this was very interesting. I think that in the future this will inevitably happen. Our population is reaching 7 billion (Carl Sagan accent applied) people. Those post-apocalyptic books and movies come to mind when considering this step. It seems to me our society, especially others around the world are becoming more willing to push the "ethical" envelope and challenge the value we place on humans, etc. Personally, I think designer babies is disgusting, but that does not mean it is wrong or disgusting. The reason why people are not keen on eugenics is due to a genetic fallacy, as mentioned in the man post. I truly believe it is all relative despite our emotionally-laden values expressed when debating topics such as eugenics. Give it time. It will happen.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-54251399075662980952011-01-27T23:52:29.650-05:002011-01-27T23:52:29.650-05:00Baron P:
Behaviors exhibited by ants may or may n...Baron P:<br /><br />Behaviors exhibited by ants may or may not be learned and shared, but they are not symbolic, which means that their learned and shared behavior is not cultural, but social.<br /><br />According to the way culture is used in anthropology, only humans have fully-developed culture, although there is some debate about whether or not some animals (mostly non-human primates) have a rudimentary form of culture.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14584362605521491577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-23985261998403382782011-01-27T23:25:54.142-05:002011-01-27T23:25:54.142-05:00Will said,
"Culture is learned (not instinct...Will said, <br />"Culture is learned (not instinctive), shared, and symbolic."<br />I agree, especially that it's not instinctive. Organisms could not learn from experience if all anticipated problems to arise in anticipated changes in environments were pre-solved strategically by the pre-acquisition of instinctive strategies that didn't require any tinkering or upgrading - or that were expected to be tinkered with successfully by lucky accident. <br /><br />But since all that's presumably impossible, an organism, let alone one of the societal variety, would likely not have found existence except in a purely static environment. So as Massimo might say, it just happens that organisms supplement their instincts by a trial and error process of learning. And all organisms communicate in one form or another which seems to facilitate the learning and the application of those lessons strategically. Lessons which include rules and regulations by the way. (And some of which by my reckoning do in time become instinctive.)<br />And then there's the problem of replicating that learning when they double and redouble their cellular structures for survival purposes (or for the survival that "just happens" if they do that). As even I can understand that memories that have not been encoded somehow in their genes stay and die with them. <br />But unless all such organisms die at once, shared memories of experience will persist in the surviving bodies to be communicated by example to their progeny. There's a lot of stuff in the literature as to how this is accomplished, and see Bonnie Bassler's work in particular for some credible examples.<br />But then you say, "Communication is not indicative of culture; language, however, is."<br />And of course if that's true, ants as well as most other animals have no culture.Baron Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04138430918331887648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-38105076500618075532011-01-27T22:00:15.855-05:002011-01-27T22:00:15.855-05:00Massimo,
>Yes, of course, to some extent. But ...Massimo,<br /><br />>Yes, of course, to some extent. But for one thing the sperm donor, unlike the baby, is an adult human being capable of making his own ethical decisions. Besides, commodification comes in degrees, some of which are more acceptable than others, I think.<<br /><br />Yes, of course. I agree. However, to me that is quite different from the idea of dictating traits for a baby. When a woman (or couple) choose from various sperm donors, even if they wish to choose based on trivial traits, we can already assume that the donor has consented. However, there's no guarantee that this choice will have any desired effect on the child.<br /><br />So I don't see any reason to consider choosing traits of sperm donors as being unethical or undesirable. Especially since a parent could do the same thing without a sperm bank, by just finding a willing person in the flesh. Granted, that's not how most people choose their mates, but even if it was, I wouldn't presume it to be necessarily wrong.<br /><br />There seems to be a distinction between simply selecting for initial conditions (choosing a mate) and manipulating a process already in motion (genetic modification of existing embryos). This might explain why some people have problems with GM foods, but regular selectively bred crops are fine. I don't know.<br /><br />Still, my point is that I have to disagree with the notion that a blind choice sperm bank would be more ethical or moral than one that allowed donor selection.Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16056166353550626776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-56317186068647578792011-01-27T21:54:46.899-05:002011-01-27T21:54:46.899-05:00My apologies Massimo. I will attempt to filter ou...My apologies Massimo. I will attempt to filter out the sarcasm and leave the salient points intact. I just have a strong reaction to the kind of language that tries to separate humans from the other animals because it is very often used by the religious. i.e. human beings have souls and animals do not. Just because humans are at one end of the spectrum doesn't mean we aren't on the spectrum. <br /><br />So as I understand it humans are moral agents because their brains are capable of constructing models of reality with predictive power of the results of their actions and most animals cannot do that is that correct?<br /><br />I think that view just leads to a raft of unanswerable questions. Questions like who gets to decide what is moral and what isn't? Clearly such standards will not be derived from supernatural sources and there will be no final arbiter to appeal to for resolution.<br /><br />It is much more concrete to see things not in terms of morality but rather in terms of strategies and success. A strategy is either successful or it is not (or possibly partially) and by success I mean things like leaving more descendants and gaining a greater control over matter and energy. Obviously such strategies will need to take into account the inherent characteristics (desires and fears) of the participants. At least there there would be something you could measure.<br /><br />I think your stance on this particular eugenics issue is unnecessarily alarmist. Human beings are already a commodity to an extent. We are already assigned a value according to physical and mental characteristics we did not choose.<br /><br />If I recall correctly there is also good data to substantiate the fact that attractive children receive more attention from their parents so we could reasonably expect that if parents can make their children more attractive then they will give them more attention and I think most would agree that would be beneficial.<br /><br />I don't think the fear of marginal additional human commodification outweigh the parents freedom to choose.Thameronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05056803143951310082noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-603297483257037002011-01-27T21:29:53.328-05:002011-01-27T21:29:53.328-05:00Baron P,
How do you justify the application of cu...Baron P,<br /><br />How do you justify the application of culture to ants? Culture is learned (not instinctive), shared, and symbolic. I'm not entirely sure that ants fit the definition. Communication is not indicative of culture; language, however, is.Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14584362605521491577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-21979398177924488992011-01-27T20:41:03.772-05:002011-01-27T20:41:03.772-05:00cc, where did you get the idea that I said that it...cc, where did you get the idea that I said that it is not okay to choose characteristics outside of sexual selection? Genetic markers for disease are a perfectly acceptable reason for selecting against a mate, and they wouldn't necessarily be available without modern genetics. I simply objected to superficial choices, like eye color, on the ground that they commodity, and hence demean, human dignity.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09099460671669064269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-90004640992206548572011-01-27T20:30:53.199-05:002011-01-27T20:30:53.199-05:00I am a bit uncomfortable with the appeal to nature...I am a bit uncomfortable with the appeal to nature as a form of argument here. Zest's comment above is an example of the naturalistic fallacy, and is a logical fallacy. In fact some of Massimo's arguments are awfully close. For example, choosing a mate's characteristics for reproduction is OK, but it is not OK to choose characteristics oustide of sexual selection? Perhaps, but the "why" has not been answered here sufficiently. If the argument is that people don't really choose mates that way... that is an assumption that should not go unchallenged. I'm not sure that the same people who would choose to pick their child's eye or skin color would not also pick their mates using the same thinking. It seems to me that the only difference is the degree of certainty that those characteristics will be past on and the mechanism of this selection. The latter is close to the naturalistic fallacy, and is not a great "argument."ccbowershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11686910795750392419noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-77929698422082391822011-01-27T13:07:24.910-05:002011-01-27T13:07:24.910-05:00Very informative write-up. In my opinion, another ...Very informative write-up. In my opinion, another argument against designer babies is that one should not unnecessarily interfere with the course of nature. Like you mentioned that curing certain genetic diseases adds to the overall wellbeing hence it is necessary. But interfering with normal biological processes just for the sake of choosing aesthetically preferred offspring is undesirable from a naturalists point of view. If something goes wrong in the case of necessary interference then one can argue that it was a dictate of necessity. But if the human agency makes an error in the latter case then such an agency is to be blamed for its failing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-17615802702037600952011-01-27T13:02:13.768-05:002011-01-27T13:02:13.768-05:00"Are you suggesting that ants are self-consci..."Are you suggesting that ants are self-conscious and therefore morally responsible?"<br />To those such as E.O. Wilson who study the comparative behaviors of ants versus people, it would seem that on the level that ant cultures occupy there is a form of moral responsibility imposed on ants as individuals. Morality is a cultural phenomenon, and arguably all species that communicate in some fashion have cultural bonds.Baron Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04138430918331887648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15005476.post-90682571621031525942011-01-27T11:00:04.540-05:002011-01-27T11:00:04.540-05:00SJK,
good question. No, I can't see any princ...SJK,<br /><br />good question. No, I can't see any principled difference there, which means I would consider a selection from an orphanage a type of commodification. (Again, however, as in the case of the sperm bank, the orphanage should let prospective parents know of any serious problem with the child, in terms of either physical or mental health).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09099460671669064269noreply@blogger.com