Argumentative Essay On Eugenics

This is a discussion of how language structures our experience especially with relation to others. However, language is also not a sufficient principle since it is already invented. Context of time and history are important in language, therefore already invented words taken out of context are not sufficient for the conception of normal. So even though language helps express experience, its also not sufficient in defining normal. Traditional bioethics places the individual as the center point of health and medicine. Health is conceptualized with the autonomy of the individual and their choices rather than looking at other factors that might constitute the definition of health. Traditional bioethics chooses to secure the autonomy of individuals
whereas critical bioethics wants to understand the situation rather than just consent. Critical bioethics looks at the environment, social issues, and economic resources crucial to the lived experience of the individual in understanding normal conceptions of health. The individual experiences of humans are more important than the welfarist approach that traditional bioethics advocates for. Traditional bioethics hopes to create a general norm of health that can be applicable to everyone is society. However, according to critical bioethics this view can be harmful since situations and circumstances of all individuals are not homogeneous. By only applying weflare-ist approach to health and medicine the person looses personhood and autonomy. This approach disregards the consent and experience of the individual as a important part of health. Therefore, critical bioethics is better at understanding health. When looking at the experience of the individual, there is a better understanding of what the norm might be for that person thus resources can be better allocated. This allocation will create a more just society that understands beings as individuals with changing circumstances rather than a ideal conceptions that can be altered to what is the best fit for society. Eugenics and the enforcement of a normal body is in opposition to critical bioethics. Critical bioethics frays from the stereotype of a normal type since such conditions hide the body from an individual. The enforcement of a normal body type and the concept of a normal pushes totalitarian views that diminish individual autonomy. Critical bioethics hopes to challenge this is conception of normal therefore the definition of a normal body is not as vital in health as it is in traditional bioethics. By definition “the normal body” is understood as a biologically normal human nature. The normal body type is an ideal that may not be achieved by everyone. Therefore, by definition the normal body as functioning has the same functions for all beings. However, such views aren’t ethical in practice. These views place bodies under normal conditions which constrain the body as abstract conceptual ideal rather than individual with various special characteristics. The normal body function is seen as the normal body in harmony with the environment. Critical bioethics is against this normal body functioning since such arguments don’t acknowledge the lived experience of beings. Because not all lived experiences of the individual are homogeneous, its is important to distinguish between individual what is important to them. Which is why critical bioethics emphasizes the importance of lived experience of people. “The notion of normal species functioning seems to imply a statistical conception of “the typical” or most common—the statistical mode—it actually operates to indicate something more like the mean or average. Moreover, deviations from this average are negatively evaluated such that the guiding presumption is that “the more an organism diverges from the species average, the worse it will function” This definition of the normal, in Liberal Eugenics, is defines the body as the mean of all beings. The normal biological functioning body is defined as one that is normal compared to other bodies. Shared characteristics between bodies define the normal function. However, it can be challenging because deviations from the normal body type can still be functioning and adapting to the environment. Therefore, the definition of normal is challenging because not all body types need to be homogenous. Furthermore, not all divergences mean that the body or its functions will be worse off. The body can function effectively in the given environment without being the typical body in that environment. Therefore, eugenics is a challenge to critical bioethics.
Eugenics hopes to conceptualize the norm of a body so that enhancement and interventions can improve this norm. Eugenics calls for the application of enhancement medicine to alter the definition of norm. Eugenics has been the cause of enhancements in beings that changes the nature of being to be “super” and meet demands that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible. But this would mean that the body needs to have a pre-established norm that would apply to all beings which is inherently against critical bioethics. Enhancement in eugenics aims to be therapeutic to the normal conception of human nature however these would challenge the autonomous life of individuals. More so, deviations from the norm would call for enhancements which might not be the most beneficial. Eugenics hopes to establish interventions and enhancements that improve normal functions. This view is crucially opposed in critical bioethics. Critical bioethics focuses on phenomenology and the subject therefore the subjects relation to their environment and body is more important in medical practice. The plurality of lived experiences of beings is more important to critical bioethics. Individual choices and environment should be emphasized rather than enhancing the conceptual norm. Therefore, eugenics is incompatible with critical bioethics since it encloses the body in a specific box. Critical bioethics argue instead that enhancements made to normal bodies should include the social context of the
individual. Critical bioethics also highlight the lived experience of the body. The environment and experience of the individual body is given the most importance since its characteristics are important in understanding health. The body, individualistically is compromised of its own experiences that might not be completely open to everyone. Health is an example of this. Health is very subjective due to social circumstances that might define it. Health is often hidden since it is not something that is open to observable reflection from the outside. This lack of observable features of health are often not quantifiable as traditional bioethics would like it to be. Critical bioethics understands this therefore it focuses on the importance of subjectivity of health. The body cannot be rigorously defined by external criteria, there is a hiddenness of health that critical bioethics hopes to understand. Therefore, its important to look at the whole being in the context it is presented in and the lived experience of the person is an important aspect of that. The lived experience of the body also incorporates the pre-reflective involvements of the body. The body as subject is seen as one whose actions are its own. This is the experience of a being. Their actions are reflected through the process of their own thinking and reflection. The body is medium through which the world is experienced. Therefore, intentional actions create the world for beings through pre-reflective actions. Pre-reflective actions as described by Merlau-Ponty mean that, “If incorporated in one’s habitual body, one does not need to “think” in order to perform intentional actions. Motility should be understood as “basic intentionality,” and therefore Merleau-Ponty claims that the Cartesian “I think” should be replaced by the “I can” This I can of beings creates the subjective world they exist in. Therefore, experiences of beings are important in understand health and medicine since each individual experience is different. Lastly, the lived experience of the subject is also focused on autonomy of the subject. This autonomy is focused on the body individual function in such that it can act according to its best interests. Rather than comparing the body as normal compared to others, it is simply the autonomy of the body in acting to its environment. The actions of the individual are seen as the measurement for normal rather its rational capacities in general.