Load up the big guns and blast away!
Ok, I think I’m finished with my Eugenics essay and I need help in reviewing it. Other than completely scrapping the draft, is there anything that you would like to point out? Better still if you guys could blast it to pieces. Abstract first, then the paragraph used for the essay, then the essay itself. Thanks!
Abstract
This essay’s motive is to examine Francis Galton’s reasoning behind not making a careful consideration of morality when discussing his ideas on eugenics in his essay ‘Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope and Aims’ published in The American Journal of Sociology Volume X; July, 1904; Number 1. The thesis of this essay is to prove that Galton’s ideas have noble aims but its argument is not sufficiently cogent in proving that the question of morality could be safely set aside in the deliberations of eugenics and ultimately proving that eugenics is in the best interests of society. While Galton may have a valid point in arguing that discussions concerning morality at such a preliminary stage are inconvenient to the advancement of eugenics, ignoring morality as a guide to the application of science is a bigger risk at hand. Also, Galton’s arguments based on elaborate analogy to the application of eugenics to society and the suggested desirable traits to be selected for are based on flawed cultural assumptions and unsubstantiated assumptions on character ‘qualities’. As such, the utopian view presented by Galton may be tempting but the reality is that Galton’s ideas would be impractical and would not necessarily result in tangible benefits to society due to poor characterisation of the methods of eugenics and its moral validity.
ANNOTATED PAPER 1: CLOSE READING
Name: Tan Huei Ming
Course Code and Title: UWC2101K Questioning Evolution and Progress
Lecturer: Dr. Andrew Leng
Paper 1: Close Reading
Date: 30th August 2006
Practicality of Galton’s Eugenics without Moral Considerations
EXTRACT FOR CLOSE READING
What is meant by improvement? What by the syllable eu in "eugenics," whose English equivalent is "good"? There is considerable difference between goodness in the several qualities and in that of the character as a whole. The character depends largely on the proportion between qualities, whose balance may be much influenced by education. We must therefore leave morals as far as possible out of the discussion, not entangling ourselves with the almost hopeless difficulties they raise as to whether a character as a whole is good or bad. Moreover, the goodness or badness of character is not absolute, but relative to the current form of civilization. A fable will best explain what is meant. Let the scene be the zoological gardens in the quiet hours of the night, and suppose that, as in old fables, the animals are able to converse, and that some very wise creature who had easy access to all the cages, say a philosophic sparrow or rat, was engaged in collecting the opinions of all sorts of animals with a view of elaborating a system of absolute morality. It is needless to enlarge on the contrariety of ideals between the beasts that prey and those they prey upon, between those of the animals that have to work hard for their food and the sedentary parasites that cling to their bodies and suck their blood, and so forth. A large number of suffrages in favor of maternal affection would be obtained, but most species of fish would repudiate it, while among the voices of birds would be heard the musical protest of the cuckoo. Though no agreement could be reached as to absolute morality, the essentials of eugenics may be easily defined. All creatures would agree that it was better to be healthy than sick, vigorous than weak, well-fitted than ill-fitted for their part in life; in short, that it was better to be good rather than bad specimens of their kind, whatever that kind might be. So with men. There are a vast number of conflicting ideals, of alternative characters, of incompatible civilizations; but they are wanted to give fullness and interest to life. Society would be very dull if every man resembled the highly estimable Marcus Aurelius or Adam Bede. The aim of eugenics is to represent each class or sect by its best specimens; that done, to leave them to work out their common civilization in their own way.
- from Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope and Aims by Francis Galton
Practicality of Galton’s Eugenics without Moral Considerations
In Galton’s treatise ‘Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope and Aims’, he argued in favour of setting aside issues of morality in discussing eugenics. For the uninitiated, eugenics is a scientific branch that dealt with influences that will improve the innate traits of a race and developing the race to the utmost advantage. Because eugenics have social applications, the moral ramifications would be immense, yet Galton chose to waive moral considerations when discussing eugenics. In this essay, the author would attempt to examine the second paragraph of Galton’s article and determine whether Galton is justified in ignoring morality when arguing in favour of eugenics.
Galton rationalised his actions in excluding morality from deliberation by elucidating the difficulties that would be encountered by eugenics as it attempts to improve society. He stated that it will entangle eugenists with ‘almost hopeless difficulties’ when considering whether a person is good or bad as a whole. He also recognises the fact that goodness or badness is not absolute, but relative to the current form of civilisation. Here, Galton is being vague with the notion of good and bad, indicating a lack of definite stand on classifying characteristics. Without proper definition, eugenics should not be allowed to proceed any further to avoid any tragic mistakes from being made. Since Galton admits that it is not a completely hopeless matter to untangle good from bad, time should taken in coming up with a proper definition before rapidly expanding the field of eugenics.
Granted, eugenics is a new scientific idea, so Galton may have a valid point in claiming that excessive moralistic considerations in eugenics could stifle its development. Usually, scientific developments are slowly cultivated with plenty of time for moral considerations, hence minimising the chances of potential misuse. However, Galton gives the impression that there is a sense of urgency in applying eugenics to society. This may be due to the perception of degeneration at work within Victorian society, which forewarns the collapse of the British Empire paralleling Lankester’s example of the Roman Empire’s collapse due to degeneration of Roman society. Given the cultural influences on Galton’s work, the sense of urgency is understandable, but it does not justify the modification of society without first examining the moral issues involved.
Besides that, Galton mentioned that ‘character depends largely on the proportion between qualities, whose balance may be much influenced by education’. Here, the characterisation of character is only qualitative but Galton did suggest that a systematic collection of facts be done to properly understand the conditions of eugenics later on in his dissertation. This is done for the purpose of determining the suitable characteristics present in parents to be selected for in eugenics. However, Galton did not reconcile the contradiction of the huge influence of education in the final state of character to the utility of eugenics. Education could not be regulated by eugenics, as it is a social issue rather than a biological trait to be managed. Not only that, he failed to be specific with the generic term ‘qualities’. For the purpose of this analysis, this author assumes that qualities refers to some physical trait that could be discretely classified as good or bad and both groups are mutually exclusive. Good is also assumed to be a beneficial trait, and vice versa.
An analogy was supplied in the form of a fable, where animals with intelligence and conversational ability attempted to elaborate a system of ‘absolute morality’. Curiously, Galton chose to confer cognitive capabilities usually associated only with humans to animals. As far as we know, animals do not talk and think in the way we do. This results in a high degree of artificiality for the analogy, making it hard to properly evaluate its usefulness in illustrating Galton’s points unless the species in the analogy is meant to be a direct substitute for human races. The author proceeds with the assumption that this is indeed the case.
Galton pointed out the difficulty of consensus on absolute morality due to different value judgements placed on physical characteristics by differing species. He assumed that decisions made on a consensus would invariably be right, which is doubtful. He thought that defining the essentials of eugenics is easy, as evident by statements that it was better to be healthy than sick, vigorous than weak and et cetera. Using Galton’s own example of sedentary parasites and its host, eventually the host will end up weak and the parasite vigorous. Therefore, it is actually not an easy task. Galton also envisions eugenics to represent the best of groups of people and then allow them to collectively form a common civilisation. But, if only a specific set of desired ‘qualities’ are selected for, it would create homogeneity given a uniform environment. This homogeneity would lead to a dull society, which in Galton’s view would be a negative.
Galton had a noble aim in trying to improve human society. However, it is too utopian and impractical in implementation. He is being hasty in arriving at his equations due to perceptions of urgent need of eugenics in society and had neglected morality. By doing so, he may be doing more harm than good. In conclusion, Galton may have erred in completely evading the issue of morality completely, overgeneralising certain aspects of his argument and not being careful in carefully defining the parameters to control in eugenics.
