Did some more reading today. I might write about inferring possibility from conceivability wrt Chalmers's zombie argument. I intended to write mostly about Nagel's bat paper and maybe take Chalmers's zombies and Jackson's Mary into account. In reading around the topic, I've gotten interested in this business about whether or not our being able to conceive of Chalmers's zombies means they're possible. I reckon they're logically possible, but I'll also reckon that's not enough, i.e., that they should be metaphysically possible. Anyway, I'll settle on a topic today or tomorrow, along with what I expect to say, and start writing on Friday.
Right now I'm just kicking it here at work. Wednesday is Socrates Cafe night here at the library and, having set up the eats and started the coffee brewing, I'm just waiting to see if anyone comes tonight. After tonight, we'll take a break for the holidays and start up again after the new year. I wonder what questions, if any, folks will have tonight. It's better when people come with their own questions bc then they're more interested in discussing it. If no questions tonight, maybe I'll bring up this NYT article about people selecting for things that are commonly considered disabilities (via unfogged).
Wanting to have children who follow in one’s footsteps is an understandable desire. But a coming article in the journal Fertility and Sterility offers a fascinating glimpse into how far some parents may go to ensure that their children stay in their world — by intentionally choosing malfunctioning genes that produce disabilities like deafness or dwarfism.
The article reviews the use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or P.G.D., a process in which embryos are created in a test tube and their DNA is analyzed before being transferred to a woman’s uterus. In this manner, embryos destined to have, for example, cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s disease can be excluded, and only healthy embryos implanted.
Yet Susannah A. Baruch and colleagues at the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University recently surveyed 190 American P.G.D. clinics, and found that 3 percent reported having intentionally used P.G.D. “to select an embryo for the presence of a disability.”
In other words, some parents had the painful and expensive fertility procedure for the express purpose of having children with a defective gene. It turns out that some mothers and fathers don’t view certain genetic conditions as disabilities but as a way to enter into a rich, shared culture.
Wow. This sounds like an obviously bad idea yet, the more I think about it, the more questions it raises. Is it very different from, say:
selecting for height, red hair, green eyes, etc.
selecting for IQ or musical ability
making other decisions for your child during its lifetime, e.g., religion, schooling, values, etc.
I tend to think it is very different from these. Selecting for appearance seems shallow, but it is the case that the more attractive people are, the more (of certain) advantages they receive. Parents making such selections might be trying to offer their children certain advantages. Of course, they might also think that curly red-haired children w/green eyes are the jam (and they are). But I imagine many such choices come with disadvantages, too. I don't know if selecting for red hair and green eyes means you also get the fair skin that often comes with that combination naturally, but fair-skinned, red-haired people are more susceptible to skin cancer. And very attractive people miss out on certain experiences bc they have things easier.
Selecting for talent or intelligence seems a bit different. If the child gains a certain talent or high intelligence - and no other thing is lost or diminished as a side effect - the parents are only adding a plus mark to their child's advantage/disadvantage scoresheet.
Given that there are probably relatively few people who use this screening procedure (compared to the number of people who just get pregnant and have their children w/o screening), people probably screw up their kids' lives much more frequently with what they do after the child is born. Doesn't make those screw ups okay; it just shows that lots of damage can be done to a non-selected baby.
The appearance selections are permanent. So is the talent and intelligence. All can be downplayed to varying extents, if the child wishes. The post-birth disadvantages: Some will be physical (perhaps due to neglect, poor nutrition, lack of health care, etc.) and cannot be reversed. Some will be psychological or emotional, which will take work to be reversed. I imagine the more severe screw ups of psychological or emotional nature may never be improved.
It seems like the parents in this article don't see their conditons as disabilities. I can see how it would be useful, important, meaningful, etc. to them to not see themselves as disabled. I think someone said 'differently-abled'. Okay, that works. But they're still different. And it's hard to be different. If it weren't so hard, they wouldn't be so appreciative of and attached to their subcultures, where they receive support, encouragement, friendship, validation, etc. I find it very hard to believe that they would choose for themselves to be deaf or a dwarf if they'd had a choice. I know some people say that they're glad they had cancer or some other serious thing happen to them bc it 'woke them up' or made them rethink their priorities or effected some other, positive change. Okay. Would they wish that same experience on another? Probably not. Not everyone would react or benefit to a serious negative experience the same way they did. Who knows if it would make their life even worse?
One thing that bothers me about selecting for things like deafness or dwarfism is that it's not adding anything to the child's situation. It's limiting, rather than broadening. A deaf/dwarf child will have a difficult time of life in the wider culture. They might do very well in the more narrow subculture, as their parents seem to have done well. But why a parent would choose to provide their child with such a pothole in life, I just don't know. Most parents want their children to do well, to have every advantage in life. And as much as I understand a deaf or dwarf person not considering their condition as a disability - why would they if they feel they've done well? - I feel uncomfortable with anyone making such a permanent, irreversible choice for another person. I also feel uncomfortable with disallowing such selections, although I wouldn't help someone make such a selection.
Right now, I'm thinking that, if I think about it some more, I might find some reasons for disallowing it. There's something that's bothering me that I haven't been able to quite figure out. I think it's got something to do with the idea (and I'm not saying these parents have it) that, if it's my child, I can select for whatever I want. First, there's the idea of making such a drastic decision for another person who has absolutely no say in the matter. Second, there's something about the primacy of the parent-child relationship here that strikes me as close to ownership. We talk about 'their children' or 'her son' or 'his daughters' or whatever, but that's not shorthand for 'she owns that boy' and so on. At least I don't think it should be! And, as one commenter to the unfogged post put it (paraphrasing here), 'just bc people get by without two legs doesn't make it okay to lop them off'.
Anyway, I check out unfogged regularly. It's a daily dose of, well, lots of things. I particularly enjoy ogged and Fontana Labs's posts. I love the way both write and Labs, in particular, provides some comic relief just when you least expect it. He has the recent post, Philosophy: the little bitch of the sciences, which you might enjoy along with the above-linked post and commentary about disability selection.
While I'm pimping websites, I also enjoy stuff on my cat. It's pretty straightforward: pictures of cats w/stuff on them. Sometimes the webmaster's captions are better than the pictures. Often, actually. I particularly enjoyed this recent post. For cat people only, of course; you cat-dissers won't understand.
Well, set me up and knock me down, but I think we've got a taker tonight. Toodles!
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