Posted by
KWG on Tuesday, May 06, 2008 3:29:43 PM
Great strides are constantly being made in biology and genetics that further clarify the everpresent discussion of what makes a man: nature or nurture? Is man born with personality traits primarily ingrained or is it the life experience that shapes who we are?
Increasingly, we learn that it's both. The genes that we're born with are not written in stone, just a way of predisposing us to certain things. For example, there's a gene that is related to addictive behaviors. Just because you have this gene, it doesn't mean you'll definitively be a smoker or a crack addict. It may, however mean you have a higher likelihood of indulging in some of these behaviors. Same goes for creativity, diet, breast cancer, hell, they've even discovered a gene that predisposes someone to being a morning person or a night person!
Some of the most stark examples have been what are called "twin studies." Scientists will take twins that have been separated at birth for whatever reason (not unethically forcing them apart for the sake of science, but just studying what has resulted from natural circumstances), and study their evolving behaviors in personality. Shockingly, the twins will be very similar twenty years later despite the radically different lives they have lead.
It's exciting and interesting stuff. However, the further down this road we go, the more dangerous the implications for public policy and law. Does knowing these things change our outlook upon resource allotment in society? What shall we do about redistribution if people are simply predisposed to making mistakes in their lives?
John Rawls' theory of justice, one that leftist philosophers (and, subconsciously, many progressive politicians) wholeheartedly endorse, was once derisively termed "luck egalitarianism." If we have as much as half of our personality determined at birth, does the state have a duty to fix these things? Should we as a society order our legal and bureaucratic system around aiding those who have been dealt a bad hand in life? What if what we were to call life-losers can scientifically have a rationale for their lot in life? What about the converse? Are we not obliged to supply those with superior genes a basic safety net because they've been given everything at birth?
Simply put, even if all of these are scientific facts, the must be ignored in public policy. Despite the hard luck that people may be given by their genes, if we were to attempt to order society in a way that takes all of this into account we'd start to enter a dystopian warped future. Our society must treat people as if we operated with a tabula rasa. Otherwise, discrimination would absolutely become all too real in every sense of the word.
America is the land of opportunity. If we were to use any kind of genetic starting point as a reference for redistribution or judgment, it would cease to be so.