The «Genetic Body»: Politics of Genetic Reductionism in Contemporary Natural Sciences

Abstract

Recent rapid developments in genetics result in gradual geneticization of human sociality. A number of studies aims to reduce significant forms of social behavior, such as political attitudes, to genetically conditioned predispositions. This paper addresses three key questions: 1) what is the scientific validity of these reductionist theories? 2) what can be inferred from the expansion of these theories about the changing relationship between the biological and the social? 3) what are the political meaning and consequences of these research programs? Instead of treating political issues from a genetic perspective, this paper adopts a political-philosophical view on genetics. It is argued that 1) the genetic accounts of politics result in naturalization of contingent social facts, such as liberal\conservative distinction; 2) perceiving body as genome produces a «substruction» of the lifeworld, a new mode of experiencing human being; 3) reduction of political conflicts to genetic variation operates as a strategy for externalization of political opponent, for othering that which is «fundamentally different by nature».