Honor and Heredity: An Aristotelian Approach to Debunking Eugenics

Using philosophy to determine whether we should consider tech entrepreneurs to be best in all things.

Jan 14, 2023

ἀνεῖλεν οὖν ἡ Πυθία μηδένα σοφώτερον εἶναι.

Every generation of mankind has had doomsayers who herald an imminent apocalypse at the hands of ”moral decay.” It is difficult to measure the virtue of a society as a whole, but suffice it to say that enough of them have been conclusively proven wrong that historians have attributed their theories to other phenomena.1 Likewise, modern sophists have sunk their teeth into the debate and invented solutions to what may or may not be a problem. Business Insider wrote an article on one such tech investor who wishes to promote virtue through his own offspring. Malcolm Collins and his wife, Simone, have committed to support their children for the next 11 generations as long as they have 8 or so children because they believe their bloodline is naturally superior to others. Can virtue be inherited, though? If so, are tech entrepreneurs really the best that humanity has to offer? Both the parents and the publishers ought to have asked these questions before they published that article. Luckily, we can use the works of Plato and Aristotle to find the answers.

The Meno dialogue outlines Socrates’ effort to discern whether moral virtue is a teachable quality, an inheritable quality, a practicable quality, or something else entirely. Along their path, the pair bumps into Anytus, a future plaintiff against Socrates in the corruption trial. Anytus is a member of the aristocracy;2 his father, Anthemion, is humble and self-made. He has hired the best tutors for his son, so surely Anytus would be able to attribute his own morality to teaching or breeding. Socrates runs down a list of virtuous figures and their offspring to demonstrate the lack of renown between parent and child. Anytus, being proud of his stock, takes offense and flees. Unsurprisingly, Socrates has hit the nail on the head here.3 There are no alleles for virtuous traits; some shitty people raise good kids and some good people raise shitty kids. Our nationwide experiment with eugenics ended when Charles Lindbergh’s baby died and FDR entered the war. When the supposed “genetic superiority” of the Aryan race had to face the Americans, the British, the USSR, and the diverse armies of the North African theater, it buckled under the weight of its lies. According to the article, Malcolm Collins has named his children things like “Titan Invictus,” he must take the aesthetics of the Roman Empire very seriously. I would be curious to find out if that carries over to their teachings as well.

We have established that eugenics falls on its face in the context of the modern world, but so what? The more interesting question to ask, in my opinion, is why the Collinses hold themselves in such high regard as to assert his genes as superior. Simone herself has been diagnosed with autism–from a eugenic neurological standpoint, it already sounds like they have compromised. The article writes this off as a non-issue without exactly explaining why they aren’t concerned. Far be it from me to hold neurodivergence against someone, but it would be interesting to hear that justification pass the barrier of their teeth nonetheless. No, instead I want to take this article at face value and measure the virtue of the Collins household as they present themselves to the world. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics separates virtues into two categories: those that are great in abundance and those that straddle a line between vices of deficiency and excess. I noted a few of these negative qualities disguised as positives on my first pass-through, so I thought it would be prudent to list them here for all to see.4

A Deficiency of Wit. We call good humor in excess “bombast,” and we call its deficiency “monotony.” A national conversation has arisen in the last two decades over modern naming conventions. Strain between the generations have left the idea of inheriting a name from a beloved relative less palatable. Some celebrities in the last half-century rejected the medieval strategy of opening the bible to a random page and picking the first name they saw. Now, the common rabble have also adopted this view. Names like “Nevaeh” and “Apple” have received mockery from the media in previous years, but the issue is getting worse. “Titan Invictus” is somewhere off the deep end. In the 17th century, the Puritans used to pick “virtue names” for their children so as to not raise worship of the bible over their faith in God. Some that survive in common use to this day are names like Hope and Grace. The Latin word “Invictus” means, literally, “unconquerable” in English.5 This is neither a virtue nor a vice, it’s a neutral trait. To want to succeed in a mission, whether correct or incorrect, does lean a certain way though. Octavian, too, is just as silly. I’ve voiced my reservations about a blanket condemnation of Julius Caesar, which mainly hinges on his honesty about abdicating the dictatorship, before; Augustus was power-hungry from the moment the first dagger pierced his uncle’s toga. On a lesser note, the name choices are extremely bland and will be embarrassing for them to have to deal with in most social situations with their peers. At worst, it’s sinister; at best, it’s monotonous. The precise vocabulary for this entry is difficult to translate from the Greek. Indeed, most of the readily available translations of Aristotle are 70+ years old, and it shows in their word choice. I have tried to maintain some connection to the text where possible, but nobody uses the words “buffoon” or “boor” anymore.6 This is a virtue that this blog finds difficult to work inside of. The classics tends to be viewed as the epitome of the ivory tower, and it’s hard to get a laugh when citing Aristotle in casual conversation, but it should be readily apparent that singing the Monster Mash in a foreign language ought not be taken too seriously. Even in those articles, I tend to attempt to justify my choices with a bit more gravity than is due to them.
A Deficiency of Equanimity. We call equanimity in excess “envy,” and we call its deficiency “spite.” The term “embryonic selection” describes the process by which parents ask scientists to test their potential future children for certain negative traits, usually genetic diseases. The Collinses have taken this a step further and scored the embryos based on alleles for “mental aptitude,” areas that science isn’t even sure about, at sites with fewer scruples than the hospitals. This seems, to me, spiteful towards their own genetic deficiencies. I do not take umbrage with this practice because of any opinions on “ensoulment,” even if this were a matter that could be likened to abortion, this all occurs before most of the current bans would even be in effect. My objection is the same as the Ship of Theseus argument: how many facets of your fetus can you consciously change before it stops being your offspring? If a child is stripped of all its father’s genetic data, and has it replaced with ancestors higher up on the father’s family tree, what claim to it does the mother have? The early internet was filled with borderline racist jokes about children whose skin tones were darker than either parents’, usually at the expense of the fidelity of the mother. With gene editing programs like CRISPR, it’s theoretically possible to select for levels of skin pigmentation. Furthermore, what does all this say about the civil rights of an individual to have all this data changed without their consent? There is a substantial movement in the deaf community that rejects the use of cochlear implants.7 What we view as a cure for a disability, they see as a destruction of 205 years of culture. We may disagree with their assessment, but that is their decision to make as autonomous human beings. Do parents have the absolute right to change their children how they see fit? Where do we draw the line between humanity and property? This family seems to have made up its mind on the matter already.
An Excess of Self-Expression. We call truthfulness in excess “boasting,” and we call its deficiency “false modesty.” This bends my pre-established rules a tiny bit, but there is a link in the article to Malcolm’s report on how he proposed to Simone. Making an announcement about a major life event to strangers on Reddit already pushes a boundary, but having to write and publish an article to talk down to the people who responded negatively is beyond ridiculous. Online content aggregators like the Huffington Post pay people pennies per word to print stories they find on social media. There was no reason for Malcolm Collins to write this himself except to boast about his virality. In Aristotle, we see that there is a natural link between self-expression and modesty. If anything, the virtuous man tends to slightly understate his accomplishments rather than overstate them. Not only does this demonstrate a lack of good character, but it further diminishes the reputation of the subject. A person with truly grand accomplishments has no reason to brag, therefore those who do brag must not be accomplished people. On a lesser note, this point feeds into the virtue of good temper. Again, it seems like the impetus of this article was to get mad at “trolls,” and to defend his actions against naysayers. This isn’t necessarily worthy of its own entry, but it helps to round out the list.
An Excess of Grandeur. We call grandeur in excess “tackiness,” and we call its deficiency “stinginess.” In the previous point we discussed the existence of the article on Malcolm’s proposal, but we neglected to mention the proposal itself. This was by design; the spectacle was worthy of its own entry. He commissioned 18 different artists to propose to her “online,” by which he means (or claims to mean, depending on whether you trust his word) that he proposed in person and then posted these online as a public announcement. Frankly, I feel that this justification is even more tacky, all things considered. It has the showiness and pomposity of the gaudy public sports game proposal with none of the actual risk. In Aristotle, we see grandeur8 (or magnificence in many translations) contrasted with generosity (liberality), a virtue that I have no reason to criticize the Collins family over. The difference between the two is that the former is public-facing, while the latter can be exercised in private. This can be hard for the average citizen of the modern world to visualize: most charitable works from the wealthy either have tax incentives tied to it, or they are extremely tacky. We have already discussed the Vessel building in NYC as one such example of a poorly planned and executed public work, but dozens more have been commissioned by private citizens. There is an ongoing discussion about whether couples ought to host their weddings at former plantations, but the underlying question to ask is why there are so few alternative venues for middle class people to rent out. The rich broadly want to build things for personal or private use, which is tacky.
An Excess of Courage. We call courage in excess “rashness,” and we call its deficiency “cowardice.” Simone states in plain language that he wanted her to commit to having seven to thirteen children on their second date. I am hardly an expert on social conduct, but there are guidelines about how early one should broach sensitive topics like that. At best, it makes one seem desperate. This isn’t brave, it’s indiscreet and achieves nothing. Aristotle does not say that fear is good by any means,9 and therefore neither do I. It’s important to draw a distinction between suppressing fears in noble and ignoble situations. The fear of death is part of the human condition; anyone who says they don’t worry about what comes after this plane of existence is either enlightened or lying. Jumping into a burning building to save a child on the fifth floor may result in one’s death, but it is done nobly to save another’s life. Running through open traffic to get to your job on time disregards that same fear, although with less at stake. One situation is courageous and the other is stupid. When a man asks a woman about her opinion on children that early in a “relationship,” it shows that he values her baby-making capabilities more than her as a person. The couple explicitly rejects the Handmaid’s Tale model of dystopia in this article, but I fail to see a functional difference.
An Excess of Ambition. We call ambition in excess “Machiavellianism,” and we call its deficiency “laziness.”10 What does it take to raise a child? Recent reports suggest that the median monetary cost is around $18,000 per kid per year. To raise one child to 18 years of age, what we call adulthood, is $324,000. The Collinses have a stated goal of raising seven to thirteen children, depending on time and biological viability. At minimum, they’ve got a bill of $2,268,000 that somebody has to pay. That number may be inaccurate in some ways; their family has its own homeschooling lesson plan, so they won’t have to spend as much on education. Owning one’s own land also provides the opportunity to grow food, so they might not have to pay as much at the grocery store. On the other hand, what about the parts of life that money can’t buy? Children need undivided attention to build the connection to their parents that we call love. We don’t have an objective way to measure this aspect of development, but we all know kids whose parents can’t or don’t love them become stunted. How much attention does a child need? The average person sleeps about 7 hours a night, which leaves us 17 to play with. The Collinses are tech entrepreneurs and own their own businesses, which means they set their own hours. We’ll say they work the standard 40 hours a week, but they can schedule that time around their children’s private time and always work from home. 40/7 is about 5 hours, which leaves us with 12. Food preparation takes time, and these parents value health, so home-cooked meals are probably the default. If they do indeed have their own garden to grow food, that’s even more time dedicated to something else. God forbid if one of them has a soccer game at a field half an hour away and another has a dance recital an hour in the other direction. Sitcoms have been written about these problems facing families of four. It’s overambitious to think that you can just “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” in the modern world and raise a dozen well-adjusted people. Most Big Love lifestyles either have a tight-knit religious community to help out, or focus on quantity over quality. You can’t have it both ways.

Do I consider myself perfectly virtuous? No, far from it. I don’t think I have been in enough situations where I could gain or lose enough from these vices that I would consider my mettle tested. On the other hand, I’m not the one making the claim to genetic superiority in this discussion. I don’t expect any member of the Collins family to see this at any time, much less to respond, but I would want to know precisely why they get to label themselves as the saviors of mankind over anyone else. These breakdowns of the way people present themselves are fairly easy to do, and if my readership appreciates these, I will try to find some more eugenicists to belittle.

Honor and Heredity: An Aristotelian Approach to Debunking Eugenics

Using philosophy to determine whether we should consider tech entrepreneurs to be best in all things.

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