Eugenics is an effort to play God

The argument

The objection to eugenics raised here is that it puts a judgment no one is qualified to make into the hands of people who have no neutral standard by which to make it — and that the consequences fall on everyone who does not match the resulting standard. The first premise is that the genetic composition of the human race should be left to nature rather than determined by parental preference. The reason is not reverence for nature as such but the nature of the judgment being asked for. The definition of perfection is subjective to each person, so it is impossible for anyone to truly decide what is best. There is no neutral standard available to appeal to, which means the choice being made is not between a better and a worse child but between one person's preference and another's. What follows is fragmentation. If parents can choose genetic traits for their children, the result is inevitably multiple standards of perfection rather than a single agreed one. And because perfection is subjective, people making these choices will be influenced by their own environment, culture and feelings. Preferences formed that way do not stay private: as they accumulate, they produce a culture's preference for one trait and a corresponding prejudice against another. That is where the harm lands. By playing God and creating what they prefer, parents foster an environment that looks down on the traits not selected — and the people who already live with those traits are the ones who bear it. The judgment that a characteristic is worth engineering away is also a judgment about everyone who has it. In extreme situations this could mirror the abuse of eugenics in Nazi Germany. Because eugenics is an effort to play God in this way, the argument concludes, the practice is unethical.

Premises

Counter-arguments

A person's preference of one trait over another does not necessarily mean that they have a prejudice against those that do not match them. While Nazi Germany was focused on eliminating groups of people as a form of discrimination and negative eugenics, this is not the case for someone that prefers a physical enhancement. Humans should be given the ability to genetically alter themselves through eugenic procedures such as gene therapy. If all of human life was left up to nature, this would eliminate the use of any medical practices that prolong life. Eugenics has the possibility of eradicating certain diseases and prolonging a person's life.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Leaving the body to nature is not a principle medicine follows anywhere else — vaccination, surgery and treatment for inherited disease all intervene in what nature would otherwise do — so the premise would rule out far more than it intends. [Rejecting P2] Preferring one trait does not entail contempt for its absence, and the premise does not distinguish selecting against a disabling or fatal condition, where the standard is not a matter of taste, from selecting for a cosmetic or social preference. [Rejecting P3] The comparison conflates a state programme of forced sterilisation and extermination directed at whole groups with a decision a parent makes about their own child; the wrongs of coercive state eugenics do not transfer to a voluntary choice merely because the two share a name.