Plato and the Perfect Society
It seems that all societies are always striving for perfection. From the beginning of time, people have always worked to be the best. Sometimes, wars had to be fought. Other times compromises had to be made. But in the end, it all came down to one concept. Every community, every city, every nation was looking for perfection. In his Republic, Plato feels that he knows how to reach this ultimate goal. He suggests a society with the best government where all people are happy and everything is equal. Plato's Republic gives a method for reproduction in this infallible society. Plato's plan almost looks as though it is quite similar to the concept of eugenics in modern day society. Plato's idea of reproduction may become a reality; yet it is headed in a much more dangerous direction than Plato ever thought possible. Just as Plato felt so many years ago, government involvement is critical in this issue today. With recent developments in genetic research, the communities of today are in danger of eugenics. The human genome project is one reason for this. This project did an incredible thing. It coded for every single gene in human DNA. We now know what traits are linked with what genes. This is a wonderful discovery in t
This proposed privacy law is not the only solution. It almost completely ignores the idea of prenatal genetic tests. Parents will still be able to create the "perfect" child through gene sequencing. This is probably the biggest problem with this issue. Yet a privacy law would provide some type of solution. This country has to start somewhere and a privacy law would be a good place to do this. It is difficult to come up with one solution because the issue of eugenics is such a complex one right now. Since this is a country of freedom and liberty, the government has to be careful as to where it restricts people. The proposed law enhances people's freedoms rather than limiting them since everyone can choose who sees the code for their personal genes. However, many laws on this issue would cause much debate and protest. For instance, right now parents can discover if their child-to-be has a genetic disease or not. This has caused an increase in the number of abortions. Parents do not want their children to have anything less than a full life. If a law were passed that did not allow doctors to inform parents of this, many people would debate it. They may say that not only is it restricting abortion, but it is holding back vital information from the parents. This deals with people's personal lives which is always a touchy subject in countries where freedom is as important as it is in the United States. No one wants their personal lives interrupted by the government and they will fight to keep things that way. Yet in this case, government involvement is detrimental. It is true that basically every society experiences discrimination at some level or another. That could almost be considered a part of communities. They just come with discrimination. However, with Plato's method for reproduction, the injustice that people feel will only get worse. Plato has created a way to specifically point out certain qualities that make a particular person better than another. He has also determined ways to pass these qualities on. This only makes the discrimination much more abundant. In the same way, this would happen with the recent genetic advancements. Even the term eugenics in itself means "good at birth" promoting a discriminatory ideal. This society that may develop will be the same as Plato's, singling out certain qualities as best, but it will be so much more advanced that people will be able to look at specific genes to discriminate. Although from the beginning of time societies have contained some type of discrimination, these two methods of reproduction will merely intensify the horrible practice. Plato had the government involved in his reproductive lottery, and likewise, today's government should be involved in the issue of genetic tests. Plato put the administration in charge of this strange lottery. He ha
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1926
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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