[lbo-talk] PETA does brain science

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Jan 25 11:35:07 PST 2007


Doug quotes:

New York Times - January 25, 2007 <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/science/25sheep.html>

Of Gay Sheep, Modern Science and Bad Publicity By JOHN SCHWARTZ

-- snip ---

If the mechanisms underlying sexual orientation can be discovered and manipulated, Dr. Wolpe continued, then the argument that sexual orientation is based in biology and is immutable "evaporates."

The prospect of parents' eventually being able to choose not to have children who would become gay is a real concern for the future, Dr. Wolpe said. But he added, "This concern is best addressed by trying to change public perceptions of homosexuality rather than stop basic science on sexuality."

[WS:] This is a far more fundamental question that goes well beyond sexual orientation. In more general terms this the question whether it is justified to pursue knowledge that can be potentially used for unethical purposes - such as manipulation of sexual, physical, emotional or intellectual characteristics, eugenics, discrimination, or causing death.

It seems that a sizeable and very vocal subset of the US population (both on left and right) wants to ban such knowledge, e.g. the right wing assault on stem cell research or the left wing assault on IQ research. I see it is an expression of US anti-intellectualism.

My own position is that genuine knowledge is almost always justified, even if it can be potentially applied to unethical ends. In fact, almost every knowledge can be applied to unethical ends e.g. as an instrument of war. Therefore, if opposing knowledge with potentially unethical applications were to be a universal principle, all knowledge would need to be banned. This is absurd on its face, unless one is fundamentally anti-intellectual.

Unethical treatment of people is a normative proposition (or conduct) that does not logically depend on factual knowledge. The fact whether sexual orientation is natural or can be changed is irrelevant to question of discrimination against homosexuals - it is unethical to discriminate against them even if on the factual basis their sexual orientation is not "natural" i.e. can be changed. Likewise, it is unethical to discriminate against certain socio-demographic groups even if their abilities naturally differ from those of other of other groups.

Whether based on scientific knowledge of fact or not, discrimination is ethically wrong. Attacking the knowledge that is used to justify that discrimination is also wrong - and not a very effective way to combat discrimination.

Wojtek



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