The Hanover Collaboration

Saletan just posted an article about gender selection that reminded me a lot one I wrote.

In retrospect, my position was insufficiently nuanced to completely answer Bill’s question, so I’d like to clarify it.

I think that all the stated techniques are “okay” which should be interpreted as “should be left legally permisable.” From the context it should be clear that there is an ordering of preference going increasing from later abortions up to special condom. I guess you could say that this preference is “moral”. I like to think though that my system of ethics is more straightforward than that though.

So let me briefly write out Tom’s system of Ethics, (TSE).
Assume there is some global function (subject to restrictions that are beyond the scope of this article) that assigns values to various outcomes. An action’s “goodness” would simply the expected change of this global function. However, we cannot globally agree on this function.

Assume that we can somehow establish “robust consensus” on some convex family of functions. Any action with expectation greater or equal to zero for some function in the interior of this family is “permisable.” We can define a partial order such that an action is “better” if and only if there does not exist a function in the family which contradicts this preference. But this is not a full order, and certain preferences will be left to personal measurement.

We could try to define universal goodness in terms of measures over this family, but that’s what I would call “hide the potato”—agreeing on measures will be no easier than agreeing on a global objective.

I’m hoping we can have a heated series on eugenics in the coming weeks or months.

I was recently reading [hard version] that there are still as many as 50 million missing women in Asia. And that got me thinking.

Let’s say there is this couple. They want to have a child of a particular gender. This is undeniably normal. Whatever their motivation, it isn’t particularly relevant at this junction. Suppose I invent a condom that differentially lets the correct “gendered” sperm through. Or maybe slightly more realistically, I create a spermacide jell through which one type passes more easily than the other. Is using that okay? If our couple uses such a thing, have they done something wrong?

If so, who is hurt? How strongly must the couple want that gender to offset the damage? In other words, how much disincentive should the government apply in their “gender choice tax”. Should that tax be progressive? Should it be a prohibition?

If not, how about instead of the special condom, they go to a lab where they have the sperm spun and filtered. Is that still okay?

How about they use IVF and pick?

How about they do it the old fashioned way but get an abortion if it doesn’t turn out right? (to keep it fair, let’s assume no safety risk to the mother.)

How about the woman has the kid, and they give it away if it doesn’t turn out right?

My opinion, all of them are okay. The baby market isn’t the most efficient but it’ll work. The abortion one is suddenly much better because we can now tell at 5 weeks

Now let’s suppose that the culture within which our couple lives prefers one genger over the other. Suppose further that the couple’s preference is in the same direction as that of the culture. Repeat all the same questions. Now I think we might need to have a progressive incentive. (Progressive so there isn’t as large of an economic correlation).

But is it really important that we maintain the 1 to 1 ratio? Is 49/51 worse than 50/50? Even in the extreme case, at some point, scaricity is going to increase the price of the other gender until people start producing them. In fact, such a system stands to decrease discrimination by increasing the value of the less-apreciated gender. Remember the idea of a dowry? If girls outnumber boys 10 to 1 I could easily imagine it coming back.

I’ll leave the ethicists to their fear. I’m not sure which kind I want. Maybe a boy would be more fun. I’ve heard they are easier too. Yeah, I think I’m going to pick boy. Have any of you guys decided yet?