Interesting. But is this special to genetic intervention? I could just as well imagine parents putting pressure on their children by saying, "I paid for tutoring, good schools, etc.!".
Interesting. But is this special to genetic intervention? I could just as well imagine parents putting pressure on their children by saying, "I paid for tutoring, good schools, etc.!".
Consider the following (true) story. Just yesterday, I happened to have a nice garden-party conversation with an optometrist and her husband. My wife and I are both myopic, myopia is highly heritable, so I asked her if there's anything we can do to reduce or delay the likely myopia in our 6-year-old daughter. She gave us a few tips (so far so good for your argument that we're already trying to "manipulate" our children's health outcomes as parents.)
Then she said: "Actually, my husband and I have really good eyes. So we told our daughter: "If YOUR eyes get bad, it's your fault! You have no genetic predisposition for this, so it's all on you!" She said this somewhat tongue-in-check, with with a firmness that sent chills down my spine. I felt sorry for their daughter. Surely myopia is not 100% genetically determined, so what if she does lose her 20/20 vision anyway?
If people think such thoughts, and are willing to say such things already in a scenario in which it *just so happened* that their child has "no genetic predisposition" for some mildly negative thing, just imagine what kind of pressure they might feel justified in exerting on their kids if they had also *put considerable effort and money* to shape the child's genetic make-up to prevent (or promote) traits of much greater consequence.
I have several other intuitive objections to the kind of eugenics that you seem to endorse, but just based on this line of thinking (kudos to @matt412956 for getting me started), I think I would at least want to put a line between selecting against those (few?) conditions that have a 1-1 correspondence with known genetic patterns (i.e. they have no other way of arising than the "faulty" genes, think Down syndrome) and everything else (so a definite "no" positive selection for altheticism or a "sunny personality".)
Maybe just in degree rather than kind. But I think most parents accept that no matter how much tutoring, schooling, etc., they give their children, genetics places at least some constraints on possible outcomes. If they've given their child every genetic advantage possible, what excuse does that child have for not living up to the parents' expectations?
well, in your example, the genes canтАЩt fully constrain the childтАЩs outcome, because otherwise there wouldnтАЩt be the possibility of the child disappointing the parents.
And even of the parents' don't feel this way, I could see the child internalizing it. In my case, I'm messy and disorganized and often don't follow through on things. This used to make me feel pretty badly about who I am as a person. But when I received an ADHD diagnosis as an adult, a lot fell into place. I don't love these parts of me, but I've also accepted that I just have to work harder or differently in these areas because of something out of my control. What happens when a child has been screened for every possible genetic disadvantage and still doesn't measure up to what they hope to be? I'm not saying this is a reason to prohibit or even discourage genetic screening, it's just a downside I didn't see addressed (and I'll admit I didn't read the article).
Interesting. But is this special to genetic intervention? I could just as well imagine parents putting pressure on their children by saying, "I paid for tutoring, good schools, etc.!".
Consider the following (true) story. Just yesterday, I happened to have a nice garden-party conversation with an optometrist and her husband. My wife and I are both myopic, myopia is highly heritable, so I asked her if there's anything we can do to reduce or delay the likely myopia in our 6-year-old daughter. She gave us a few tips (so far so good for your argument that we're already trying to "manipulate" our children's health outcomes as parents.)
Then she said: "Actually, my husband and I have really good eyes. So we told our daughter: "If YOUR eyes get bad, it's your fault! You have no genetic predisposition for this, so it's all on you!" She said this somewhat tongue-in-check, with with a firmness that sent chills down my spine. I felt sorry for their daughter. Surely myopia is not 100% genetically determined, so what if she does lose her 20/20 vision anyway?
If people think such thoughts, and are willing to say such things already in a scenario in which it *just so happened* that their child has "no genetic predisposition" for some mildly negative thing, just imagine what kind of pressure they might feel justified in exerting on their kids if they had also *put considerable effort and money* to shape the child's genetic make-up to prevent (or promote) traits of much greater consequence.
I have several other intuitive objections to the kind of eugenics that you seem to endorse, but just based on this line of thinking (kudos to @matt412956 for getting me started), I think I would at least want to put a line between selecting against those (few?) conditions that have a 1-1 correspondence with known genetic patterns (i.e. they have no other way of arising than the "faulty" genes, think Down syndrome) and everything else (so a definite "no" positive selection for altheticism or a "sunny personality".)
Maybe just in degree rather than kind. But I think most parents accept that no matter how much tutoring, schooling, etc., they give their children, genetics places at least some constraints on possible outcomes. If they've given their child every genetic advantage possible, what excuse does that child have for not living up to the parents' expectations?
well, in your example, the genes canтАЩt fully constrain the childтАЩs outcome, because otherwise there wouldnтАЩt be the possibility of the child disappointing the parents.
And even of the parents' don't feel this way, I could see the child internalizing it. In my case, I'm messy and disorganized and often don't follow through on things. This used to make me feel pretty badly about who I am as a person. But when I received an ADHD diagnosis as an adult, a lot fell into place. I don't love these parts of me, but I've also accepted that I just have to work harder or differently in these areas because of something out of my control. What happens when a child has been screened for every possible genetic disadvantage and still doesn't measure up to what they hope to be? I'm not saying this is a reason to prohibit or even discourage genetic screening, it's just a downside I didn't see addressed (and I'll admit I didn't read the article).