I personally believe there is no way for them to succeed. If they were acting in good faith the actual incease in the number of intelligent people, who would recognize cruelty when they see it, would tear it down. If they acted in bad faith, which they most definitely would, they would fill the world with these idiots.
Intelligence doesn’t make you more ethical. If they “won,” the future intelligent people they created would still be raised by parents who believed in eugenics, and so they too would likely regard it as good.
So the ideas that their parents instilled are stupid and the “intelligent” person is stupid. So you didnt achieve a more intelligent society.
No, you’re missing the point: don’t conflate intelligence and morality. Eugenics isn’t a bad idea because it’s unwise (although, it is); it’s a bad idea because it’s unfair and takes people’s fundamental human rights away.
You’re contradicting yourself
You’re trying to make a moral argument but morality isn’t magically untethered from intelligence.
They aren’t contradicting themselves at all, you just aren’t understanding their point.
They are. They are making the claim that intelligence and morality are completely separate then immediately demonstrating how they are not. Unless OP is making the claim they are not intelligent and should be ignored…
But you’re the one that said they aren’t untethered. They didn’t mention anything about that…
Could you please share the quote where there was a contradiction? I’d be interested to see where they said that intelligence and morality are linked
Lol.
Sorry, I meant examples where they said that the two are linked. The example you gave was the opposite.
Apologies if I phrased it poorly.
There is no contradiction there. The “although, it is” simply acknowledges that eugenics is unwise; the point is that that isn’t what makes it a morally bad idea.
And there’s no magic going on. Morality and intelligence just aren’t the same thing and aren’t linked in any way. Smarter people are not necessarily more moral or vice versa.
That is just not true. Morals involve reason and logic. Take one ethics class. Take one single ethics class.
“eugenics is unwise”
Is a statement describing applying reason to derive a moral understanding.
You can have morals that use simple or flawed reason but that is indicative of low intelligence.
Yes, morals utilize reason and logic, but that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily more moral if you’re smarter. At best, it might mean that certain moral perspectives are easier to grasp if you’re smarter, but even if you grasp them that doesn’t mean you hold them.
No. It’s a statement asserting that eugenics has flaws and drawbacks that will ultimately prove detrimental to its own goal. This has nothing to do with the moral argument against it.
A single person can be immoral but that doesnt mean morality doesnt exsist. They acknowledge they are being immoral by not applying reason and are stupid to do so. Yes the individual can benefit from being immoral but we are talking about society, when referring to eugenics, which does not benefit from immoral behavior.
You seem really set on insisting that there’s a link between intelligence and morality, and at this point I don’t think I have the energy to disabuse you of that notion. Suffice it to say, you’re wrong on both the individual and societal levels. Much of the history of civilization is war, and involved in that comes conquest and reorganization of societal boundaries. Pretty much every society today is the product of a chain of wars. Are you going to say all societies are bad, just because there’s blood in their foundations?
The world isn’t as black-and-white as you’re painting it. Intelligence isn’t linked to morality and morality itself is more gray than black-and-white. That latter part is something you should definitely have learned in your ethics class.