> By selecting against our “worst” genes, we may run the risk of losing our greatest gifts.
So why don't we assume that our children will have similar genes to us, and provide an environment that would have nurtured these particular set of genes?
Imagine (and this is a pure thought experiment for the sake of it) that you know with a fair percentage of certainty that any kid you would conceive would have highly sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies and thus likely affect society negatively. Does your choice to conceive become more than just personal?
I suppose that you're thinking that I would be worried about the harm that my child would do to other people; that I would sympathize sufficiently with a potentially (1-P_fair_percentage) non-existent group of strangers more strongly that I would take into consideration my own future negative feelings about parenting a psychopath.
On the scale that includes 'regard for my personal well-being' and 'my love for my children', the 'concern about others' specified in your scenario is very close to zero.
Although the converse doesn't hold: I'm confident that my children are going to be better than me in infinite ways and manners, and they're going to make the world a better place.
Before you have had any children, does the calculation include your love for your children? They don't exist yet and might never exist, so I can't see how a decision can be founded on love for them, before they exist. After they exist is another issue.
The love you have for your child is inexplicable and illogical. You may not know or understand the love you'll have for your child but I can guarantee (with reasonable certainty) that it will exist.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but they're just that -- exceptions.
I said nothing about the love I will have for my child. I was talking about the love I have now for children who do not yet exist. If they don't yet exist, it doesn't even make irrational sense to love them yet. At best, I love a vague image in my head of what I think having children will be like.
I'm saying that the love you have for your current child is the same (relatively speaking) that you'd have for future children.
I understand what you're saying but I guess I disagree that it matters. For example, if you want to have a child to experience the type of love we're talking about then you have a child.
No one's to say someone else shouldn't have a child and thus not experience that kind of love. That's really the point I was trying to make.
So why don't we assume that our children will have similar genes to us, and provide an environment that would have nurtured these particular set of genes?