A Research on Eugenics and its Desired and Undesired Concerns

International Journal of Economics and Management Studies

© 2019 by SSRG - IJEMS Journal

Volume 6 Issue 8

Year of Publication : 2019

Authors : Mahmoud Abbasi, Nasser Pouyan

10.14445/23939125/IJEMS-V6I8P121

How to Cite?

Mahmoud Abbasi, Nasser Pouyan, "A Research on Eugenics and its Desired and Undesired Concerns," SSRG International Journal of Economics and Management Studies, vol. 6,  no. 8, pp. 190-212, 2019. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.14445/23939125/IJEMS-V6I8P121

Abstract:

Sir Francis Galton (1812-1911) defined eugenics as the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally. Galton founded the sciences of eugenics and pub-lished Hereditary Genius (1869) and Natural Inhe-ritance (1889), and endowed a chair in eugenics at London University (Sebastian, P.130). He advocated encouraging those considered most highly bestowed to produce more children and discouraging the less fit from having children (Encyclopedia International, Vol.7, P.439). While eugenic principles have been practiced as far back in world history as ancient Greece, the modern history of eugenics began in the early 20th century when a popular eugenics movement emerged in the United Kingdom and spread to many countries in-cluding the United States of American, Canada, Germany, and most other European countries. In this period, the eugenic ideas were espoused across the political spectrum, and consequently, many countries adopted eugenic policies with the intend to improve the quality of their populations’ genetic stock. Such programs included both “positive” measures, such as encouraging individuals deemed particularly “fit” to reproduce, and “negative” measures such as mar-riage prohibitions and forced sterilization of people “unfit” for reproduction. People deemed unfit to re-produce often included people with mental or physi-cal disabilities, people who scored in the low ranges of different “IQ” tests, criminals and deviants and members disfavored minority groups. (Eugen-ics-Wikipedia, 1 of 22). From 1900, eugenics organizations were created in Britain, Scandinavia (a peninsula and a larger north European area as well), Germany, and the USA – for instance, the United Kingdom Eugenics Education Society founded in 1907. Through education and leg-islation they promoted “positive eugenics”, encour-aging the “fit” (the upper and middle classes) to have larger families, the poor and dregs of society should breed less. In Britain, the hope was to achieve this essentially by persuasion, but in the United States of America and Scandinavia the compulsory sterilization of defectives (including psychiatric pa-tients and the mentally deficient) was carried out on an increasing scale. In the decades following World War II, with the insti-tution of human rights many countries gradually be-gan to abandon eugenics policies, although some Western countries, among them the United States and Sweden, continued to carry out forced sterilizations. (Eugenics-Wikipedia, 1 of 22.)

Keywords:

Eugenics, Francis Galton, Nazism, ethi-cal comments, positive selection, and negative selec-tion.

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