“Eugenics talk” and the language of bioethics
- Stephen Wilkinson, Centre for Professional Ethics, School of Law, Keele University, Keele ST5 5BG, UK; s.wilkinson{at}peak.keele.ac.uk
- Received 19 May 2007
- Revised 24 July 2007
- Accepted 26 July 2007
Abstract
In bioethical discussions of preimplantation genetic diagnosis and prenatal screening, accusations of eugenics are commonplace, as are counter-claims that talk of eugenics is misleading and unhelpful. This paper asks whether “eugenics talk”, in this context, is legitimate and useful or something to be avoided. It also looks at the extent to which this linguistic question can be answered without first answering relevant substantive moral questions. Its main conclusion is that the best and most non-partisan argument for avoiding eugenics talk is the Autonomy Argument. According to this, eugenics talk per se is not wrong, but there is something wrong with using its emotive power as a means of circumventing people’s critical–rational faculties. The Autonomy Argument does not, however, tell against eugenics talk when such language is used to shock people into critical–rational thought. These conclusions do not depend on unique features of eugenics: similar considerations apply to emotive language throughout bioethics.
Footnotes
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Funding: Many of the ideas presented here arise out a project entitled Eugenics and genetics—the role of the concept of “eugenics” in contemporary debates about the regulation of genetic and reproductive technologies, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust’s Biomedical Ethics Programme. I am grateful for the Wellcome Trust’s support; the views in this paper however, are those of the author, not those of the Trust.
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Competing interests: None.
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Ethics approval: The empirical parts of my project were considered and approved by the Research and Research Ethics Committee, Centre for Professional Ethics, Keele University, in 2004.
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↵i Manipulation is a complicated and underexplored moral concept. For further discussion, see Kligman and Culver15 (pp173–97) and Rudinow16 (pp338–47).
