Eugenics: Positive and Negative Selection

The distinction between positive and negative eugenics is perhaps the best-known distinction that has been made between forms that eugenics takes. Roughly, positive eugenics refers to efforts aimed at increasing desirable traits, while negative eugenics refers to efforts aimed at decreasing undesirable traits. Still, it is easy to fall into confusion in drawing and deploying the distinction in particular contexts. Clarity here is important not only historically, but also for appeals to the distinction in contemporary discussions of “new eugenics” or “newgenics”. Positive vs Negative Eugenics: The Basic Distinction The basic idea behind the distinction is relatively easy to convey. Eugenics aims to use science for human improvement over generations by changing the composition of human populations; it does so by favouring the reproduction of certain sorts or kinds of people over others. That favouring could take the form of facilitating the reproduction of some—those with desirable traits—or it could take the form of inhibiting the reproduction of others—those with undesirable traits. The first of these is positive eugenics; the second is negative eugenics. Historically, positive eugenic measures have included promoting the idea that healthy, high-achieving people should have children, or have larger families; introducing institutions and policies that encourage marriage and family life for such people; and establishing sperm banks where eugenically desirable traits, such as intelligence, are criterial either for donors or are listed as present in the donor for users to consider in their choices. Negative eugenic measures have included immigration restriction based on putatively eugenically undesirable traits, including race, nationality, and ethnicity; discouragement or prohibition of marriage and family life for those with eugenically undesirable traits; and sexual segregation, sterilization, and euthanasia of those with such traits. Origins of the Distinction Even before coining the term “eugenics” in 1883, Sir Francis Galton had focused his eugenic gaze on the putative heritability of desirable traits, like intelligence and good character, in his book Hereditary Genius (1869). Around that same time, eugenic ideas in North America that arose through the eugenic family studies, beginning with Richard Dugdale’s The Jukes (1877), were focused on undesirable traits, such as pauperism, insanity, and alcoholism. The obstetrician Caleb Williams Saleeby originally drew the distinction between positive and negative eugenics at the beginning of Part II of his Parenthood and Race Culture: An Outline of Eugenics (1909), where he turns from the theory to the practice of eugenics. However, Saleeby here says of these two forms of eugenics, simply that the “one would seek to encourage the parenthood of the worthy, the other to discourage the parenthood of the unworthy” (), noting that positive and negative eugenics are complementary and manifestations of the very same principle. As is made clear earlier in the book, Saleeby sees himself as following Galton’s lead in a number of ways. First, Saleeby sees negative eugenics as being of increasing importance as a practical measure, and in light of this, goes on to articulate the sorts of people who fall under the heading of the “eugenically unworthy”. As Saleeby lists them, these are the deaf and dumb, the feeble-minded, the insane (including the “epileptic insane”), and the criminal. Second, with the appeal to “encourage” and “discourage”, there is an emphasis on the role of education in both positive and negative eugenics, particularly with respect to parenting ability and heredity, which Saleeby himself considers to be distinct aspects of the eugenic worthiness and unworthiness of individuals. These two points elucidate several broader features of early 20th-century eugenics. This first shows that it was not simply people with certain traits who were subject to eugenic measures, but certain sorts of people. Each of the sorts of people that Saleeby lists is taken by Saleeby to pick out people in virtue of a hereditary trait. But Saleeby himself makes clear in his extension of positive and negative eugenic measures to cases beyond these that the distinction applies to “worthy” and “unworthy” traits more generally. The second illustrates that the distinction between positive and negative eugenics is orthogonal to questions of state sanctions, compulsoriness, and reproductive autonomy. Thus, even negative eugenic goals do not require, and in fact may be more readily achieved through, educative, quasi-voluntary, or even voluntary means. #NikolaysGeneticsLessons #ohnGreen #hankGreen #EugenicsTedTalk #EugenicsCrashCourse #Eugenics1920s #EugenicsDocumentaryPbs #EugenicsDailyDoseDocumentary #Eugenics1920sAmerica #EugenicsAmericanExperience #EugenicsPbs #EugenicsDocumentaryNetflix #dailyDoseDocumentary #dailydosenowcom #eugenicsMovement #forcedSterilization #selectiveBree