Conformity through Cosmetic Surgery

Individuals conform to many social norms, including those related to the body and its appearance. We style our hair, put on make-up, and do painstaking exercises to create the “right” bodily appearance, all without moral suspicion. ¹ We tend to believe, instead, that such decisions are personal, affect only the individual, and are therefore immune from public moral condemnation. ² But some individuals take more drastic steps to gain conformity—they have their bodies surgically altered to fit the norms of appearance. Proponents of cosmetic surgery may argue that it is merely an extension of other beauty practices, and therefore morally unproblematic. In this paper I will argue that it is, instead, a pernicious practice that threatens diversity. ³ My argument will focus on the connections between cosmetic surgery and the medical establishment, showing how the model of objective treatment is used to justify such surgeries. I will show how cosmetic surgery has been used to erase the physical signs of (non-white) race ⁴ and of mental retardation/disability ⁵ , often at the urging of surgeons who purport to be using an objective model of health to identify problematic features of appearance. Finally, I suggest that this conflation of health and socially acceptable appearance not only threatens diversity through the practice of cosmetic surgery, but may also usher in a form of “backdoor eugenics” ⁶ as we advance our genetic technologies. In other words, we may eliminate nondominant group traits via many instances of rational individual choice, without recognizing the broader effect such actions will have on society as whole.