The eugenic mind project / Robert A. Wilson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wilson, Robert A. (Robert Andrew)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Eugenics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Other Title:

MIT Press CogNet.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press, [2018]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Part science and part social movement, eugenics emerged in the late nineteenth century as a tool for human improvement. In response to perceived threats of criminality, moral degeneration, feeble-mindedness, and "the rising tide of color," eugenic laws and social policies aimed to better the human race by regulating reproductive choice through science and technology. In this book, Rob Wilson examines eugenic thought and practice--from forced sterilization to prenatal screening--drawing on his experience working with eugenics survivors.? Using the social sciences' standpoint theory as a framework to understand the intersection of eugenics, disability, social inclusiveness, and human variation, Wilson focuses on those who have lived through a eugenic past and those confronted by the legacy of eugenic thinking today.? By doing so, he brings eugenics from the distant past to the ongoing present.?Wilson discusses such topics as the conceptualization of eugenic traits; the formulation of laws regulating immigration and marriage and requiring sexual sterilization; the depiction of the targets of eugenics as "subhuman"; ?the systematic construction of a concept of normality; the eugenic logic in prenatal screening and contemporary bioethics; and the incorporation of eugenics and disability into standpoint theory.?Individual purchasers of this book will receive free access to the documentary?Surviving Eugenics, available at EugenicsArchive.ca/film.

Contents:

I Eugenic Activities: Probing Eugenics 1

1 Standpointing Eugenics 3

2 Characterizing Eugenics 25

2.1 The Short History of Eugenics 25

2.2 A Galtonian Start 27

2.3 Eugenics as Applied Science 31

2.4 Between Science and Social Movement 34

2.5 Eugenics, Race, and Ethnocentrism 36

2.6 Galton, Mental Abilities, and the Weak-Minded 40

2.7 Eugenics and the Mentally Deficient 42

2.8 The Long Past of Eugenics 46

3 Specifying Eugenic Traits 51

3.1 What Is a Eugenic Trait? 51

3.2 Research Publications 53

3.3 Popular Culture 59

3.4 Eugenic Laws: Marriage and Immigration 60

3.5 Sexual Sterilization Legislation 63

3.6 Alberta at the Legislative Margins 65

3.7 Institutionalization and the Social Mechanics of Eugenics 69

3.8 Mental Defectives and the Mentally III: Beyond Consent 72

3.9 Three Eugenic Traits: Syphilis, Huntington's, and Epilepsy 73

4 Subhumanizing the Targets of Eugenics 77

4.1 What Sorts of People Should There Be? 77

4.2 The Pursuit of Human Perfection and Life-Worthiness 79

4.3 Eliminating Defectives in Medicine's Short History 83

4.4 Tough Medicine in Postwar Alberta 86

4.5 Rational Ethics: Cognitive Disability in the Eugenic Now 88

4.6 Subhumanization and Standpoint's Complexities: Ashley X 93

4.7 Life-Worthiness and Human Variation 97

II Eugenic Variations: The Persistence of Eugenics 99

5 Where Do Ideas of Human Variation Come From? 101

5.1 Standpoint, Prosociality, and Human Variation 101

5.2 The Puzzle of Marked Variation 103

5.3 Four Initial Desiderata 105

5.4 Variation, Subnormalcy, and Categories of Disablement 106

5.5 Biopolitics and the History of Eugenics 110

5.6 Evaluating the Appeal to Biopolitics 113

5.7 Constructivism's Open Question and Further Desiderata 117

5.8 Conclusion 119

6 A Socio-cognitive Framework for Marked Variation 121

6.1 A Hobbesian Prelude: Born to Be Not-So-Wild 121

6.2 Sociality and Prosociality 122

6.3 Human Sociality and Its Cognitive Demands 123

6.4 Shared Intentionality and Collective Social Action 126

6.5 Sketching the Socio-cognitive Framework 128

6.6 Sorts of People, Normativity, and Marked Variation 130

6.7 Clarifying What First-Person Plural Mechanisms Are 133

6.8 Return of the Seven 136

6.9 Standpoint Eugenics in the Socio-cognitive framework 138

7 Back Doors, Newgenics, and Eugenics Underground 141

7.1 Newgenics 141

7.2 The Prenatal Back Door to Eugenics 143

7.3 Eugenic Subhumanization and a Continuing Preoccupation 148

7.4 Recasting Debate over the Expressivist Objection 149

7.5 Outing Eugenic Logic in Bioethics: Agar and Savulescu 152

7.6 Diversity and Neoliberalism 158

7.7 Eugenics as Private Enterprise 160

7.8 Eugenic Techniques of Silencing 162

7.9 Conserving Disability 163

8 Eugenics as Wrongful Accusation 167

8.1 Persistent Eugenic Pasts 167

8.2 Subhumanizing Tendencies and Procedural Indifference 168

8.3 An Appeal to Wrongfulness 171

8.4 The Case of Ritual Sexual Abuse 173

8.5 Beyond Moral Panic, Groupthink, and Evil's Banality 175

8.6 Herman on Witnessing and Complicity 177

8.7 From Innocent Bystander to Ally and Advocate 179

8.8 The Psycho-social Dynamics of Wrongful Accusation 183

8.9 Persistence Redux 186

III Eugenic Voices: Knowing Agency at the Margins 193

9 Knowing Agency 195

9.1 Marginal Knowing 195

9.2 Who Cares about Who Knows? 198

9.3 Cognitive Disability and Its Challenges 203

9.4 Vignettes and Voices 205

9.5 Epistemology Impoverished and Knowing Agency 208

9.6 The Politics of Epistemic Apartheid 210

10 Eugenics Unbound: Survivorship for the Subhuman 213

10.1 Standpoint Theory and Knowing Agency 213

10.2 Standpoint Agents for Class and Gender 214

10.3 Race, Lived Reality, and Group-Based Agency 217

10.4 Generalizing Standpoint Theory 219

10.5 Joint and Extended Action in Intellectual Disability 222

10.6 Intrinsic Heterogeneity and Sorts of People 225

10.7 Recovering the Voices of Eugenic Survivorship 226

10.8 Narratives, Stories, and Standpoint 228

10.9 Concluding Thoughts 231.

Notes:

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

ISBN:

0262343878

9780262343879

OCLC:

1016942034

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.