Thursday, August 26, 2010

why are people against plastic surgery?

What's wrong with someone getting tasteful plastic surgery? There is something perverse about the worry that such an enhancement might give someone an unfair advantage. What makes this any more unfair than the natural advantage of being born with the right genes? It is true that we have a gut feeling that there is a real difference here. But this might be because we are drawn to value natural gifts, since these are the sorts of capacities that are passed on to one's children. We admire the natural and disdain the enhanced. People prefer natural beauty to hair implants and plastic surgery. These preferences might make good Darwinian sense and are difficult to override. But this doesn't make them fair.

We're genetically programmed to favor the natural over the fake; we have developed sophisticated truth-telling devices to determine whether one has the genuine goods or is faking it by employing the right signals. Having the signal is not important, because one can fake the signal, really possessing the qualities that would display such a signal is what matters, because that's what ultimately gets passed down genetically.


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