TEILHARD AND EUGENICS
An Article by Brian Cowan
"The History of Eugenics" Acrylic and Pastel on Canvas, 50"x68", Susan Erony, 1994
INTRODUCTION
On a few occasions Teilhard uses the term "eugenics" in his writings. His references to eugenics are brief and do not offer much in the way of an in-depth and systematic treatment of the subject. So far as I can determine, all of what he has to say directly about eugenics fails to fill even a dozen paragraphs. He does disclose enough, I think, to give us at least some indication of his thinking regarding the topic under consideration. Nonetheless, as I will also try to show, we do seem to end up with some inadequately answered questions, with some ambiguities arising out of his compressed discussion of eugenics.
WHAT DOES TEILHARD MEAN BY EUGENICS
The Jesuit thinker does offer a definition of eugenics when he tells us that he is using the word 'in its general and etymological sense of "perfection in the continuance and fulfilment of the species".' (1) This definition, as I understand it, refers to an ongoing process of improvement as regards both the prolongation and actualization of the human species. Teilhard is enthusiastic about such an ameliorative process. Indeed, he sees the possibility of a certain nobility in the pursuit of the betterment of the human condition. In this connection he writes:
'In the course of the coming centuries it is indispensable that a nobly human form of eugenics, on a standard worthy of our personalities, should be discovered and developed.' (2)
At this point the question arises as to what exactly is meant by a eugenics which is "on a standard worthy of our personalities". From a Teilhardian perspective I think at least part of the answer lies in the fact that human personality is reflective, is capable of sophisticated thought. It is the opinion of the Jesuit paleontologist that 'reflective substance requires reflective treatment.' (3) As he sees it, we humans are reflective substances or entities, and so, in accordance with our mode of existence which is that of beings endowed with cogitative personalities, we are capable of acting in a fashion appropriate to persons who think. Further, in his view, we do engage in action appropriate to our cogitative mode of existing when, with due regard to ethical considerations, we bring our powers of thought, of foresight, of planning to bear on our handling of the problems and challenges which confront us. Peoples of the early Neolithic age acted in an entire appropriate and worthy manner when they thought through, and carried out, engineering projects such as the digging of irrigation ditches which brought river water to their crops and so increased agricultural yields. Few of us doubt that our ancestors acted appropriately when they reflectively figured out the agricultural problem of how to efficiently bring water closer to their crops by constructing irrigation ditches. What Teilhard is saying, I believe, is that we who live today need to overcome our doubts that human beings are acting in a worthy manner when they reflectively and thoughtfully tackle an eugenic problem such as figuring out ways to optimize the global population numbers. From the Jesuit paleontologist's perspective the population explosion is a eugenic matter because it is one that is associated with "perfection in the continuation and fulfilment of the species".
Those of us who accede to evolution will agree, I think, that eyes evolved for the purpose of seeing, that ears evolved for the purpose of hearing, that genes evolved for the purpose of coding information and that neurons evolved for the purpose of transmitting and storing data, and so on and so forth. Why then should we hesitate before the proposition that thought evolved for the purpose of thinking, that is to say for the purpose of reflecting, deliberating, planning and opting vis-à-vis the challenges and opportunities that face our species. It is Teilhard's view that we are well advised not to hesitate when it comes to accepting the validity of this particular proposition.
Now, as the French Jesuit sees it, one of the functions of thought is to impose a certain control over what is more or less random. Neolithic irrigation ditches, the consequence of thoughtful planning, imposed some measure of control over water flow vis-à-vis fields of planted crops. Family planning, also a result of cogitative foresight, is, in our day and age, exercising some degree of control over the increasing world population. Teilhard's position is that thought emerged in the course of cosmogenesis, at least in part, for the purpose of imposing some level of reasonable control over a whole multitude of phenomena born of evolutionary forces. And among such phenomena are to be found those involving water flow and population growth. He speaks of
'the duty and the clearly-defined hope of gaining control (and so making use of) the fundamental driving forces of evolution.' (4)
In Teilhard's view we have failed, up to the present time, to exercise all that much governance over the more less haphazard unfolding of humanity on the surface of our planet. He writes: 'So far we have certainly allowed our race to develop at random, and we have given too little thought to the question of what medical and moral factors must replace the crude forces of natural selection should we suppress them.' (5)
I would now like to reflect on some aspects of the medical and moral factors which the French Jesuit foresees as having a role to play in controlling, to some extent, the future development of humankind. MEDICAL AND MORAL FACTORS
As Père Teilhard sees it, our application of medical and moral considerations is already beginning to put us in a situation wherein 'eugenics applied to individuals leads to eugenics applied to society.' (6) A present day example of what the French Jesuit seems to be talking about can be found, I believe, in connection with infantile Tay-Sachs disease, a genetically inherited childhood illness that involves a progressive destruction of the central nervous system and that ends in death usually before the age of six. For infantile Tay-Sachs disease to occur, in a child, both parents must be carriers of a defective, recessive gene that is unable to code for a particular life-sustaining enzyme called Hexosamindase A
On both medical and moral grounds an engaged couple, who, subsequent to genetic screening, find themselves to be each carrying the genetic mutation that is productive of infantile Tay-Sachs disease, may, among other options, decide to eschew marriage to each other or, if they do marry each other, to remain childless.
Now a decision by a couple, both of whom are Tay-Sachs carriers, not to bring offspring into the world can affect not only the two individuals forming the couple but also the larger social grouping in which that couple find themselves. How? Well, were the couple in question to produce children, each pregnancy would involve one chance in four of bringing to term a child afflicted with infantile Tay-Sachs disease. That is to say there would be a 25 percent probability that each baby born to the couple would turn out to be a very sick infant needing a great deal of attention and care, during his or her brief life, from society's health-care institutions. The medical/moral decision, apropos of reproduction, in the circumstances under discussion, is a decision that can affect not only individuals (e. g. the wife, the husband and any children they may bring into the world), but also society as a whole (e. g. via a tax funded, public health-care system).
Of course, Teilhard passed away long before a genetic screening program was made available to populations at risk of transmitting infantile Tay-Sachs disease to their offspring. But my sense is that he would approve of such screening. He would, I believe, regard it as one small step in the reflective process of replacing, with thought out programs, "the crude forces of natural selection" that, over the ages, have largely governed the development of the human zoological group. Further, I think he would view our ability nowadays to exercise some control over the incidence of infantile Tay-Sachs disease as one feature of the "nobly human form of eugenics" which he was advocating.
QUESTIONING NATURAL LAW ETHICS
If I have understood Teilhard correctly what he seems to mean by eugenics is the rational, reflective harnessing, in an ethical fashion, of the forces of nature which tend to impact unpredictably on the ongoing well-being and self-fulfilment of humankind. Further, he appears to be suggesting that the aim behind the thoughtful harnessing of these somewhat erratic natural forces ought to be that of orienting them in planned directions with a view to developing 'a reasoned organization of the earth.' (7)
The Jesuit thinker is aware, of course, that, in urging greater control over the natural dynamics which affect the human species, he is courting the disfavour of certain traditional, natural law moralists. As these moralists see it, the characteristic operations of an entity (including a human entity) disclose its divinely ordained nature. Further, these same conservative moralists state that it is unethical (because contrary to the ordinance or law which the Divinity has infused into nature) to rein in, alter or take control of the characteristic operations of natural entities. As pertains to the human zoological group, these cautious ethicists declare that, in terms of theology and morality, it is wiser and safer
'to leave the contours of that great body made of all our bodies to take shape on their own, influenced only by the automatic play of individual urges and whims.' (8)
There may be implied, in this traditional theologico-ethical stance, the notion that to take some sort of reasonable control of our future is beyond our abilities as human beings, and so we are better advised to leave that control to God who acts through the laws which govern the forces of nature. From the French Jesuit's perspective the motto of these natural law theorists is: 'Better not interfere with the forces of the world!' (9) Teilhard is unwilling to go along with the sort of conservative natural law moralism which we have just been considering. To his mind, such ethical thinking is faulty in that it erroneously brings us 'up against the mirage of instinct, the so-called infallibility of nature.' (10) From his perspective the forces of nature (be they instinctual or otherwise) are not infallible when it comes to our own best interests as a species, and so it is ethically appropriate, in some circumstances, for us to exercise some planned control over these forces. Further, certain aspects of this planned control, in his opinion, turn out to be ones that involve eugenics. One domain, from his standpoint, in which eugenics needs to come into play is the one which pertains to world population. Let's direct our attention to this topic now.
WORLD POPULATION
Writing in 1948, and relying on the demographic statistics available to him at that time, the Jesuit scientist states:
' ... after rising slowly until the seventeenth century, when it reached about 400 millions, the earth' s population began to shoot up again in an alarming fashion. It was 800 millions by the end of the eighteenth century, 1,600 millions by 1900 and over 2,000 millions by 1940. At the present rate of increase, regardless of war and famine, we must expect a further 500 millions in the next 25 years. This demographic explosion, so closely connected with the development of a relatively unified and industrialized earth, clearly gives rise to entirely new necessities and problems, both quantitative and qualitative.' (11)
Teilhard does not think we ought to sit idly by, face to face with a bourgeoning global population, saying to ourselves that nature, on its own, will take care of such problems as those associated with the escalating numbers of human beings and the low quality of life experienced by multitudes of these people. No, in his view, we find ourselves under the moral obligation of both facing the population problem and then doing our best to manage it. We need to ask ourselves, he tells us:
'How are we to prevent this compression of mankind on the closed surface of the planet (a thing that is good in itself, as we have seen, since it promotes social unification) from passing that critical point beyond which any increase in numbers will mean famine and suffocation?' (12)
It is hard to see how the sort of prevention which the Auvergnian Jesuit favours can avoid some sort of planned intervention in the spontaneous workings of human nature, an intervention which aims at artificially slowing down what he regards as a runaway birthrate. Interestingly, his stance here would seem to put have him at odds with his own Church which, in the 1940s (when the above passage was written) even more so than today, taught that any sort of intervention (except abstinence) for the purpose of controlling the birthrate is immoral. In any event, whatever measures (for example, the development of a societal culture which encourages family planning) we humans may opt for in order to slow population growth, such measures, in the eyes of the Jesuit thinker, constitute an aspect of eugenics.
INDIVIDUAL AND RACIAL EUGENICS
Teilhard encourages us humans to try to find a way
'to ensure that the maximum population, when it is reached, shall be composed only of elements harmonious in themselves and blended as harmoniously as possible together'. (13)
He goes on to advocate two ways of reaching this goal of a harmonious social order, and these involve what he calls "individual eugenics" and "racial eugenics". Let's proceed to consider his twofold approach in more detail. 1. Individual Eugenics:
For Teilhard, 'individual eugenics' involves 'breeding and education designed to produce only the best individual types'. (14) Perhaps worth noting, at this juncture, is the fact that, from his perspective, education can be considered a facet of eugenics. What is left unclear here what is meant by "the best individual types". We seem to be left wondering just what criteria are to be used to determine which individuals belong to the particular types in question. I do find myself disappointed by this lack of clarity.
2. Racial Eugenics:
As Teilhard de Chardin sees it, 'racial eugenics' involves 'the grouping or intermixing of different ethnic types being not left to chance but effected as a controlled process in the proportions most beneficial to humanity as a whole'. (15) His notion of the intermixing of ethnic types is clear enough, but what does he mean by the grouping of these types? Is there a hint of segregationism here? And who is to be in charge of deciding about, and controlling, the grouping and the intermixing? Again a lack of clarity seems to be apparent in what the Jesuit thinker is advocating, and this is disappointing to me. I am most reluctant to admit segregationist tendencies in the French Jesuit's thought because such tendencies would, in a serious way, run counter to one of his guiding principles -- that of human convergence. But I cannot deny that his assertion, apropos of racial eugenics is, at the very least, ambiguous.
Teilhard's goal in advocating individual and racial eugenics appears to be the promotion of a healthy humankind. We will now turn our attention to what he has to say on this topic.
A physician acts correctly when, by a variety of planned measures, he or she tries to improve the health of an ailing patient. So too, from Teilhard's perspective, does humankind as a whole act appropriately when, as its own doctor, so to speak, it endeavours to improve its collective health by a variety of planned measures.
He expresses his concern about the sickly state of the human species when he writes:
' ... the problem of building a healthy mankind already stares us in the face and is growing more acute every day. With the help of science, and sustained by a renewed sense of our species, shall we be able to round this dangerous corner?' (16)
The same worry about the insalubriousness of the human condition is articulated in the passage, from 'The Phenomenon of Man', which I cite below. 'It has been said that we might well blush comparing our own mankind, so full of misshapen subjects, with those animal societies in which, in a hundred thousand individuals, not one will be found lacking in a single antenna.' (17)
I must concede that I find myself unsatisfied with Teilhard's approach to individual and racial eugenics in the sense that, to my mind, it is overly brief, overly cursory and leaves not a few questions unanswered. As I see it, these unanswered questions, in addition to the ones alluded to earlier, include the following. - What, approximately, is the optimal human population number that we would do well to aim at in our demographic planning vis-à-vis planet Earth? - As regards individual eugenics, what are some of the appropriate modalities to be utilized as regards the breeding and the education which are mentioned?
- As regards racial eugenics what are some of the suitable modalities to be utilized as regards the grouping or intermixing to which allusion is made?
Also, apropos of the healthiness of humankind, my suspicion is that there are factors, not entirely within the domain of eugenics, that contribute to the many mental and physical ailments which beset quite a few members of our species, for example: - poverty,
- ignorance,
- malnutrition,
- dysfunctional/abusive families,
- dysfunctional/abusive governments,
- overcrowding,
- environmental pollution,
- non-hygienic living conditions,
- a shortage of affordable health care,
- chronic stress,
- economic exploitation,
- unemployment and under-employment,
- and so on and so forth.
SOME TROUBLING NOTIONS In 1937 Teilhard wrote an essay entitled 'Human Energy'. In it we encounter a paragraph in which, from my perspective, a number of troubling notions appear. At this juncture, let me quote part of the paragraph in question.
' ... the apostles of birth control ... have rendered us the service of opening our eyes to the anomaly of a society that concerns itself with everything except the recruitment of its own elements. Now eugenics does not confine itself to a simple control of births. All sorts of related questions, scarcely yet raised despite their urgency, are attached to it. What fundamental attitude, for example, should the advancing wing of humanity take to fixed or definitely unprogressive ethnical groups? The earth is a closed and limited surface. To what extent should it tolerate, racially or nationally, areas of lesser activity? More generally still, how should we judge the efforts we lavish in all kinds of hospitals on saving what is so often no more than one of life's rejects? Something profoundly true and beautiful (I mean faith in the irreplaceable value and unpredictable resources contained in each personal unit) is evidently concealed in persistent sacrifice to save a human existence. But should not this solicitude of man for his individual neighbour be balanced by a higher passion, born of the faith in that other higher personality that is to be expected, as we shall see, from the world-wide achievements of our evolution? To what extent should not the development of the strong (to the extent that we can define this quality) take precedence over the preservation of the weak? How can we reconcile, in a state of maximum efficiency, the care lavished on the wounded with the more urgent necessities of battle? In what does true charity consist?' (18)
There are, I believe, unclarified points in the foregoing passage which can leave us puzzled and concerned. Let's consider three such points by way of the three questions which I ask below. 1. What is meant by ethnical groups which may be fixed and unprogressive, and what are the criteria for identifying them? 2. Which are the racial or national areas that may be less active than they could be, and what are the criteria for identifying them?
3. Who, physically or psychologically, is incurably disabled enough to be considered one of life's rejects, and what are the criteria for identifying him or her?
In my opinion, it is to be regretted that Teilhard has not given us greater clarification here. I am loath to attribute to him an exclusionary outlook, an outlook that excludes certain ethnic, racial or national groups from full and equal participation in the human commonwealth because such a standpoint would seem to fly in the face of one of his key tenets -- that of the unification, confluence and convergence of the human zoological group. Further, the exclusion of the gravely and incurably ill from the best possible care available to them, on the grounds that they constitute life's rejects, is something that appears to run counter, in a serious way, to the Jesuit thinker's views on the importance, within the terrestrial noosphere, of human affinity, love and solidarity. So, again, I repeat that I do wish he had accorded more clarity to these troubling points and notions. At the end of the paragraph, from 'Human Energy', which I partially quoted, Teilhard asks: "In what does true charity consist?" In another essay of his, written in 1929, in the course of discussing charity or the love of neighbour, he writes:
'Love of our neighbour would wither were it to lose that flower of compassion from which sprang the rich harvest of the Hospitallers and the nursing orders; but it needs to give itself a more solid structure in some passionate attachment to the collective work of the universe. We have not only to ease but to develop; not only to repair but to build. For our generation, love of mankind can have but one meaning, to devote oneself with all one's energies and all one's heart to man's effort.' (19)
Applying this notion of devoting oneself to humankind's effort makes a strong case, I believe, not for excluding less active and less progressive groups of people from humanity's evolutionary advance, but for working cooperatively with them so that they might become more active and more progressive. A point we need to bear in mind when thinking about this topic is the fact that not a few groupings of human beings are less "evolved" than others because their development has been deliberately curtailed, by dominant political and economic powers, as a matter of policy -- the policy of imperialism or of colonialism, for example. Likewise, it seems to me that Teilhard's thoughts about devoting ourselves to the common human effort can encourage us to adopt a philosophy of inclusion, to the degree this is possible, vis-Ã -vis the gravely and chronically disabled. As I see it, if we permit ourselves to view those who are severely and incurably crippled in mind or body as life's rejects, we run a real risk that we will be led to relate to them with less support and respect than is their due.
I must admit that I am much more comfortable seeing Teilhard in an inclusionary light than in an exclusionary one. I am happier reading passages of his which seem to stress the bringing of all people fully into the human fold than I am reading passages which might hint at excluding some groups or individuals. Some lines of his which, like the quote about neighbourly love cited above, do appear to emphasize inclusion are the following.
'If men could love one another, if they could reach the pitch of loving, not with the love of husband for wife, of brother for brother, of countryman for fellow-countryman, but of element for element of a world in process of convergence, then the great evolutionary law that ever since the beginning of the earth has continually caused more spirit to appear upon more complexity, would operate again with new vigour.' (20)
AN ETHICALLY APPROPRIATE CONTROL
In an essay which he wrote in 1951 the Jesuit thinker asserts that the time has come to, among other things,
'lay the foundations of a technics (both biophysical and psychological) of ultra-evolution'. (21)
Further, from his perspective, these technics should aim, both 'in general research' and 'in eugenics', at the goal of producing 'an ultra-arrangement of the noosphere.' (22) As Père Teilhard, sees it, then, eugenics, along with science in general, has as one of its legitimate objectives the arrangement or organization of the noosphere in an ultra or advanced fashion. Now to arrange or organize is to exercise a measure of control over what is arranged or organized. We will recall that, for the Auvergnian Jesuit, the term "eugenics" means "perfection in the continuance and fulfilment of the species". At this point, it seems to me, a major question arises: that of what is ethically appropriate and what is ethically inappropriate when it comes to the measures or controls we are to put into place for the purpose of perfecting or improving the human species. Unfortunately, the Jesuit paleontologist's treatment of eugenics is so brief that, so far as I can tell, he does not offer us very much in the way of detailed help in responding to this question. However, in the light of his overall outlook, I would like to suggest three eugenic (using the term in Teilhardian sense) approaches which I think he might regard as ethically appropriate as well as three which, to my mind, he would view as morally unacceptable or, at least, dubious. I wish to stress that these are my personal views as to what Teilhard's approach might be, and, of course, some list members may disagree with me on this point or that. I have no problem with any such disagreement.
At this juncture a moment of reflection on what we regard as ethically appropriate or inappropriate may be warranted. I do not believe we can deny that our insight into what is morally right and wrong is an insight that evolves. Some examples:
- The ancient Carthaginians, like the Aztecs of old, considered that it was right and pious to offer human sacrifices to their gods. Virtually no one holds a similar ethical view today. - Some two centuries ago a number of devout Christians held that that vaccination against smallpox was a serious offence against the moral law. These Christians claimed that carrying out the immunization procedure was reprehensible because it interfered with God's plan. The claim was made, even in learned ecclesiastical circles (23), that if, from all eternity, the Divinity had willed someone to sicken, and perhaps die, from smallpox, any physician who practiced vaccination against that disease was carrying out a serious transgression against the divine will. At the present time most of us are convinced that a deliberate refusal to arrange for the immunization of our offspring against the common preventable diseases would constitute a serious ethical failure on our part.
- Many Victorians believed that it was a sin to ease the pains of childbirth with anaesthetics. This thinking began to change significantly when, in 1853, Queen Victoria, during labour, accepted chloroform from her physician, Dr. James Simpson. In our day and age, hardly anyone objects, on ethical grounds, to the use of anaesthetics during childbirth.
- Well into the nineteenth century, not a few Jews, Christians and Muslims were satisfied that slave ownership was morally acceptable. Nowadays, as we know, none of these religions sanctions slavery.
In our present era, pretty well everyone admits that human sacrifice and slavery are wrong. Further, almost everybody acknowledges that there is nothing morally reprehensible about vaccinating people against diseases or about using anaesthetics to ease the pain of childbirth. Those, in times past, who, apropos of the moral issues we are discussing, regarded as right what most of us consider to be wrong and who regarded as wrong what most of us consider to be right were, the majority of us will agree, mistaken no matter how honestly and sincerely they held to their points of view. It is worth our while, I believe, to keep this observation in mind as we ponder the six examples which we will shortly encounter. People of tomorrow, standing, so to speak, on our ethical shoulders, may well see farther than we do as they gaze out upon the moral landscape. In any event, let us now turn to our examples. FORMS OF EUGENICS WHICH TEILHARD MIGHT WELL REGARD AS ETHICALLY APPROPRIATE
1. Family Planning:
A couple may take the decision to limit the number of their offspring to, say, two or three, as opposed to producing, say, a baby a year for ten or more years. This couple may reason that, by so limiting the size of their family, they will have a better chance of, among other things, assisting all of their children to a acquire a reasonable education, than would be the case were they to produce ten or more children. Our couple here may be influenced by the ethical notion that the quality of the offspring which they send out into society is more important than the mere quantity of the said offspring
Such a couple will perhaps also see themselves as acting in a socially responsible manner as regards the world population situation. They might, for example, agree with Teilhard de Chardin when he states that 'we are beginning to be too numerous to share the earth between us' and that '"living space" is running out.' (24) Producing two or three children, as opposed to ten or fifteen, in the eyes of our couple, may appear as the ethically appropriate thing to do in order to make a small contribution to slowing down what they consider to be a population explosion on our globe.
2. Genetic Screening:
A couple who consider themselves to be at some risk of passing along to their offspring such genetically inherited maladies as infantile Tay-Sachs disease or cystic fibrosis (25) may consider that they are morally obligated to undergo genetic screening for these maladies. If such screening discloses that both parties to the couple are carriers of either of these genetically inherited diseases, the parties, may, among other options, decide to remain childless so as to avoid a one in four chance that any child born to them will suffer from the ailment of which each party is a carrier.
3. Gene Therapy:
In the not too distant future it may become possible to replace defective genes, in human gametes, with healthy ones. By so doing, it might be possible to prevent the genetic transmission of such maladies as beta thalassemia (26) or Canavan disease (27). In that this sort of gene therapy has, perhaps, the potential to prevent the emergence of grave ailments, many of us will, I think, consider that the use of this sort of therapy, as ethically approriate in some circumstances.
FORMS OF EUGENICS WHICH WOULD BE ETHICALLY UNACCEPTABLE, OR AT LEAST DUBIOUS, FROM TEILHARD'S STANDPOINT
1. Promoting the Decline or Extinction of a Particular Human Group:
Here I am talking about what amounts to genocide such as that practiced, in the twentieth century, against the Armenians by the rulers of the Ottoman Empire, against the Ukrainians by Stalin and against the Jews by Hitler. These genocides, as well as others, are pretty well universally condemned from an ethical standpoint.
2. Enforced Sterilization:
Most of us will balk morally at the suggestion that consideration be given to cutting off state welfare payments to mothers receiving social assistance unless they agree to be sterilized subsequent to the birth of their second or third child. The requirement of sterilization as a condition for continuing to receive social assistance would, in the eyes of many, constitute a violation of human reproductive rights.
3. The Use of Gene Therapy for Frivolous Reasons:
Not a few persons would consider gene therapy on human gametes to be immoral if it were done for such frivolous reasons as determining hair or eye colour.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Teilhard's treatment of eugenics is cursory and abbreviated. What he seems to mean by eugenics is the thoughtful and ethical harnessing of the forces of nature for the purpose of promoting the future well-being of human species. He stands in opposition to the views of certain conservative natural law moralists who are of the opinion that, as regards humanity's future, the forces of nature should be allowed to run their course free of interference from human beings. There are some troubling notions which arise in the course of his brief remarks about eugenics, notions, for example, about "unprogressive ethnical groups" or about perceiving severely disabled persons as "life's rejects". It is to be regretted, in my opinion, that the Jesuit thinker did not clarify these notions which, at first glance at least, appear to run counter to his overall philosophy of human convergence and solidarity. He provides virtually nothing in the way of concrete examples of eugenic practices which he regards as appropriate and inappropriate ethically. Due to this lack, I have tried to offer three examples of eugenics (as Teilhard defines the term) that might meet with his ethical approval and three which, I believe, he would find morally unacceptable or, at least, dubious.
Notes:
(1) 'The Directions and Conditions of the Future', in 'The Future of Man' (Harper & Row, 1969), p. 243 (In footnote # 5).
(2) 'The Phenomenon of Man' (Fountain Books, 1977), p. 310.
(3) 'Phenomenon', p. 310.
(4) 'The Convergence of the Universe', in 'Activation of Energy' (Harvest Book, 1970), p. 295.
(5) 'Phenomenon', p. 310.
(6) 'Phenomenon', p. 310.
(7) 'Phenomenon', p. 310.
(8) 'Phenomenon', p. 310.
(9) 'Phenomenon', p. 310.
(10) 'Phenomenon', p. 310.
(11) 'The Directions and Conditions of the Future', in 'Future', pp. 242-243.
(12) 'The Directions and Conditions of the Future', in 'Future', p. 243.
(13) 'The Directions and Conditions of the Future', in Future', p. 243.
(14) 'The Directions and Conditions of the Future', in 'Future', p. 243.
(15) 'The Directions and Conditions of the Future', in 'Future', p. 243.
(16) 'The Directions and Conditions of the Future', in 'Future', p. 243.
(17) 'Phenomenon', p. 310.
(18) 'Human Energy', in 'Human Energy' (Collins, 1969), pp. 132-133.
(19) 'The Sense of Man', in 'Toward the Future'
(Harvest Book, 1975), p. 33.
(20) 'The Rise of the Other', in 'Activation', pp. 71-72.
(21) 'A Major Problem for Anthropology', in 'Activation', p. 318.
(22) 'A Major Problem for Anthropology', in 'Activation', p. 318.
(23) In this connection we may quote the words of the learned Protestant divine, Rev. Timothy Dwight, who served as president of Yale University from 1795 to 1817. Rev. Dwight is on record as stating: 'If God had decreed from all eternity that a certain person should die of smallpox, it would be a frightful sin to avoid and annul that decree by the trick of vaccination.' [Cited in John Shelby Spong's book, 'Why Christianity Must Change or Die', (Harper Collins, 1999), pp. 7-8.]
(24) 'The Rise of the Other', in 'Activation', p. 64.
(25) Sufferers from cystic fibrosis possess a defective gene which leads the body to produce excessive mucus or phloem which clogs the lungs and causes serious respiratory difficulties. The thick mucus secretions can have adverse effects on other bodily organs as well. More than 50 per cent of cystic fibrosis patients die before reaching the age of eighteen.
(26) Beta thalassemia, a blood disease, is the consequence of a genetic defect which results in an inadequate production of haemoglobin, a protein that permits the red blood cells to transport oxygen and carbon dioxide. A child suffering from a more severe form of this ailment may have to depend on ongoing blood transfusions for his or her survival. Sufferers from this malady, particularly in its severer forms, may die from it, or from complications arising from it, prior to the lapse of a normal life span.
(27) Canavan disease is a rare inherited neurological disorder involving the degeneration of the brain. The white matter in the brain gets replaced by tiny fluid filled spaces giving the brain a spongy consistency. Symptoms of the illness include mental retardation, poor motor skills, paralysis, blindness and deafness. Death usually occurs before the age of ten.
Posted at 16 Dec 2003
