First- I’m not trying to rehabilitate murder, forced sterilizations or nazis. “Nazi eugenics” still has the word “Nazi” in it, which so far as I’m aware, no one is trying to rehabilitate.
Second- there is a case study for rehabilitation of a word, euthanasia. Euthanasia is associated with Nazis but now the word euthanasia is used in bioethics and public conversations freely for the practice of allowing people to die who are experiencing tremendous suffering. So far as I’m aware the rehabilitation of the word euthanasia has not resulted in people being more inclined to recommend the murder of the ill or disabled. Rehabilitation of the word euthanasia has instead resulted in a better conversation and provisions around the fate of people who are suffering.
Edited to add: This comment fails to reckon with the possible benefits of rehabilitating the word eugenics. When the word is used against reproductive technologies, individual reproductive choices and behavioral genetics it stifles conversation, debate and progress.
Looking at the agree votes it seems that
mostmany people think a different word should be substituted for eugenics. I pointed out the problems with this in the piece, that eugenics already has a definition that both encompasses Nazi atrocities and things that most people agree with. And other words, like reprogenetics, liberal eugenics and procreative beneficence haven’t caught on. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that many reasonable people decide to phase out ‘eugenic’ and instead use a word like epilogenics (like @aella suggests here.) How would that work rhetorically?EA Bioethicist: Depression costs a huge number of QUALYs so I suggest the government subsidizes polygenic screening of embryos for depression for people who have suffered from depression and who are going through IVF.
Critic: That’s eugenics.
EA Bioethicist: Yes, technically it is. But we don’t use that word anymore. It’s actually “epilogenics” because people have free choice.
Critic: The fact that it also qualifies as a word you just made up doesn’t stop it from being eugenics.
This is a toy example but what if we freely used the word eugenics to describe all the things that it describes rather than putting a new label on just those things we agree with (without getting into the fact that it’s difficult to draw a bright line between coercive and non coercive interventions)?
EA bioethicist says the same thing about depression screening as above
Critic: That’s eugenics.
EA Bioethicist: Yes. But eugenics also encompasses many things you probably endorse, like genetic counseling for people with debilitating genetic diseases and laws against close relatives having children etc. So, “that’s eugenics” isn’t, by itself, an argument against my position.