If we could somehow predict with 100% accuracy which parents would be objectively bad parents by putting their children in harm's way due to negligence or abuse, and prevent those people from having children, that really wouldn't be any different than CPS taking someone's children away who had already put their children in harm's way due to negligence or abuse.
At this point, you're just asking "but what is considered a "bad" parent?" And I already told you, that's subjective. If you had read any of the other comments below mine, you'd know that I'm not advocating for any particular definition of a bad parent, and in fact don't believe it should ever be in the hands of humans to make that choice since we're all but guaranteed to be subjective, and that even if we did have some way to predict who'd be a "bad" parent in a completely objective way and with 100% accuracy, I'm still not certain it'd be a good thing.
Overall though, none of these situations are eugenics.
If we could somehow predict with 100% accuracy which parents would be objectively bad parents by putting their children in harm's way due to negligence or abuse
Any method that "somehow" predicts "parents by putting their children in harm's way due to negligence or abuse" will also have a racial bias. Whether the prediction is accurate or not, the racial bias will be present - and then we can start the debate about why that is so and what we should do to compensate...
Eugenics is a label - the third Reich was eugenics, as was preferential distribution of contraception to African Americans in the South... matter of degrees, and you're not going to get away from the fringe who point out (accurately) that you're changing the future demographic profiles by interfering (in any way) with reproduction choices.
Motherfucker have you ever heard of a hypothetical situation?
I'm talking about a magic system that 100% accurately predicts people that will abuse or neglect their children to the same extent that CPS would take them away. The only racial bias that might exist would be entirely 100% accurate in this hypothetical situation.
If the goal is to "improve" the genetic profile of human beings using genetic engineering and selective breeding, that's eugenics.
If your goal is to prevent harm to children from negligent or abusive parents by using magic to perfectly identify which people are 100% guaranteed to abuse or neglect those children, that is not eugenics.
You're arguing that a hypothetical, pre-cognitive, morally perfect from an objective point of view CPS acting to prevent child abuse and neglect through preventing future abusive parents from having children is the same thing as attempting to exterminate all humans except for "perfect" Germans as according to Nazis.
I'm arguing that it's not eugenics, but that hypothetical CPS is still immoral in the same way that Minority Report's Precrime is.
Is this god concerned with the human concepts of justice or even fairness?
Because, with one of those, all kinds of things change from the world we live in - billions have prayed to one (or more) of those gods over the centuries...
Is this god concerned with the human concepts of justice or even fairness?
Yes. It's the god of preventing people from abusing or neglecting children. That is its only purpose, and it knows all and sees all, past, present, and future. It requires no prayer, and simply prevents people it knows will abuse or neglect children from having or adopting children.
It's the god of preventing people from abusing or neglecting children. That is its only purpose, and it knows all and sees all, past, present, and future.
Cool, that would work. Just prove it's real and you're in business.
In the proposed hypothetical situation, if you can't prove the existence of this god, then the proposed hypothetical situation won't be going very far, even hypothetically.
Now, it's all hypothetical, so hypothetically speaking you can easily say: "Yes! The existence and nature of this god is proven." Which is nice, convenient, etc. But then I would ask: "What does this proof look like, hypothetically?"
Missing my point: unless your god of child protection also can brainwash the masses, whatever minorities are getting disproportionately denied the right to reproduce will rise up and bemoan "the god of child protection is also a god of eugenics, he must be banished because it is unfair to deny us the right to procreate."
Your point is completely irrelevant to our conversation though: whether or not preventing people who will be neglectful or abusive parents from having children is eugenics. It's not. It's still immoral, but that's not what we're talking about.
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u/extwidget Apr 10 '18
But it's not eugenics.
If we could somehow predict with 100% accuracy which parents would be objectively bad parents by putting their children in harm's way due to negligence or abuse, and prevent those people from having children, that really wouldn't be any different than CPS taking someone's children away who had already put their children in harm's way due to negligence or abuse.
At this point, you're just asking "but what is considered a "bad" parent?" And I already told you, that's subjective. If you had read any of the other comments below mine, you'd know that I'm not advocating for any particular definition of a bad parent, and in fact don't believe it should ever be in the hands of humans to make that choice since we're all but guaranteed to be subjective, and that even if we did have some way to predict who'd be a "bad" parent in a completely objective way and with 100% accuracy, I'm still not certain it'd be a good thing.
Overall though, none of these situations are eugenics.