BIOETHICS OF HANDEDNESS: FROM EVOLUTION TO RESOLUTION?

Abstract

Departing from historical facts and speculations on the evolution of human right-hand dominance (including theories on the development of right-handedness and cultural and linguistic sequellae of such a phenomenon), the present work stresses the delicate problem of the traditional favouring of one particular subpopulation, escalating into a real eugenic practice present sporadically even in modern times. The major hypothesis of the paper would be that the problem of forced handedness had been neglected by (bio)ethical theory, practice, and literature, and that it was absolved only recently by the results of modern neuroscientific research on handedness. According to that hypothesis, ending the discrimination took too much time precisely because the initial lack of the problem insight, which certainly should invoke cautiousness for any potentially similar phenomena in the future.