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THE POSSIBILITY OF LIBERAL EUGENICS: ABSOLUTISM OF MORALITY VS PARTICULARISM OF MORALITY // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2021. Issue 3 (29). P. 19-38

Questions of eugenics still remain relevant, which is not only due to the scientific appeal of the subject of the research, but also has a certain social and political subtext. Ethical communication includes a different number of opinions on this issue: their analysis is important for creating a system of moral requirements in comparison with the traditional, classical understanding of morality. In order to talk about the possibility of liberal eugenics, the author of the article sets two main tasks: 1) to determine what the concept “moral system” includes, isolating the boundaries of the action of morality (particularizing) or, conversely, making it universal in its prescriptions (absolutizing); 2) to establish whether eugenic “interventions” associated with genetic variability are possible in this regard, or they are unacceptable. In the course of solving the first problem, the author comes to the conclusion that the logic does not contradict the individual-perfectionist morality: my desire is realizable if it does not infringe on the interests of other people and does not cause them any harm. Consequently, the traditional (classical) understanding of morality, which claims to be universal and universally valid, has outlived itself, and in the context of applied research is unacceptable since moral norms are idealized and abstracted from a specific human life. Therefore, within the framework of the study of the second task, the author believes that moral reorientation is necessary. However, full legalization can lead to the blurring of the boundaries of ideas about good and evil, and, in the case of a paternalistic approach, morality should be based on the precautionary principle associated with responsibility to future generations, which in this case forces us to return to absolute moral restrictions. Human curiosity generates a desire for eugenic research: the author of the article, by analyzing the moral dilemmas presented in specific cases, demonstrates that despite the fact that eugenic prospects seem quite tempting, they are fraught with certain “pitfalls” that can have unpredictable consequences. Therefore, even if moral absolutism does not stand up to criticism, its power remains significant. There is no doubt that the moral permissibility of interventions in the gene structures of potential members of the community should have its own limits of “justification”: if universal criteria are developed, their number will increase over time because it is impossible to grasp and anticipate all the cases of a particular human life, and this will lead to the blurring of the boundaries of the morally permissible. Therefore, the particularism of morality, as a way out of the situation, is not a new moral system, but a kind of a negative belt of heuristics that helps to ethically justify each specific unique case in liberal eugenics. The necessity of semiotic diagnostics of the boundaries of the morally permissible in each unique case has been fixed.

Keywords: semiotic diagnostics of the boundaries of the morally permissible, ethical discourse, biomedical technologies, absolutist moral prohibitions, moral choice, moral risk, pater-nalism, traditional morality, consequentialism