Liberal eugenics is the study and use of genetic engineering to improve human beings, specifically in regards to biological characteristics and capacities.

The term liberal is used to differentiate it from the eugenics programs of the first half of the twentieth century, which were associated with racism, classism, and coercive methods to insure that genetic information was not passed on to another generation. The most controversial aspect of those programs was the use of "negative" eugenics laws which allowed government agencies to sterilize individuals with "undesirable" genes. Historically, eugenics is often broken into the categories of "positive" (encouraging reproduction in the designated "fit") and "negative" (discouraging reproduction in the designated "unfit"). Many "positive" eugenics programs were advocated and pursued in early twentieth-century eugenics programs, but the "negative" programs were responsible for the forced sterilization of hundreds of thousands of persons in many countries and states, and were contained in much of the rhetoric of Nazi Germany's programs of racial hygiene and ethnic cleansing. Advocates of liberal eugenicists generally do not favor sterilization except as a part of population control.

Liberal eugenics is conceived as being entirely "positive", relying more on genetic manipulation than on breeding charts to achieve its aims. It seeks to both minimize congenital disease and enhance ability, traditional eugenic goals. It is intended to be under the control of the parents, though the substantial governmental and corporate infrastructure required for genetic engineering may limit or steer their actual choices. Currently, tests have been developed to allow for "unfit" embryos carrying congenital diseases to be discarded.

The characterization of historical eugenics as being either "liberal" or "conservative" is somewhat problematic. The people who embraced eugenics in the early twentieth-century were primarily "progressives" (though not all progressives embraced eugenics), whom often (but not always) had what we would now consider very socially conservative ideals, but were confident in enacting socially active, governmentally involved methods, with a firm belief that what they were doing was "scientific" (a distinction which does not mold easily onto modern political categories). Beyond that, eugenics was a mobile philosophy which found support among many different political traditions, ranging from what we would today call staunch social conservatives to the most optimistic British socialists of the early twentieth century.

A key goal of liberal eugenics is to reduce the role of chance in reproduction. Joseph Fletcher laid the intellectual groundwork for liberal eugenics in 1974 when he described an alternative to reproductive roulette. His visions soon become a reality when in vitro gender determination became possible. The modern "liberal eugenics" movement is believed to have started in the 1990s. It is associated with the transhumanism movement, which espouses using all available technology to better the human species.

See also

• Bioethics
• Human enhancement technologies
• Reprogenetics

References

• Joseph Fletcher. The Ethics of Genetic Control: Ending Reproductive Roulette. (Doubleday and Company 1974)
• Nicholas Agar. Liberal Eugenics: In Defence Of Human Enhancement (Blackwell, 2004). ISBN 1405123907
• Erik Parens. Enhancing Human Traits: Ethical and Social Implications (Georgetown University Press, 2000). ISBN 0878407804
• Glenn McGee. The Perfect Baby: A Pragmatic Approach to Genetics (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997). ISBN 0847683443
• Allen Buchanan, Dan W. Brock, Norman Daniels and Daniel Wikler. From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
• Gregory Stock. Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future (Houghton Mifflin, 2002) ISBN 061806026X
• Osamu Kanamori. Relief and Shadow of New Liberal Eugenics (The University of Tokyo) Unpublished paper . [1]