Human Cloning: Moral Arguments
Moral Arguments Against Human Cloning
A. Would the Use of Human Cloning Violate Important Moral Rights?
Many of the immediate condemnations of any possible human cloning following Wilmut’s cloning of an adult sheep claimed that it would violate moral or human rights, but it was usually not specified precisely, or often even at all, what the rights were that would be violated. I shall consider two possible candidates for such a right: a right to have a unique identity and a right to ignorance about one’s future or to an “open future.” The former right is cited by many commentators, but I believe even if any such a right exists, it is not violated by human cloning.
The latter right has only been explicitly defended to my knowledge by two commentators, and in the context of human cloning, only by Hans Jonas; it supports a more promising, even if in my view ultimately unsuccessful, argument that human cloning would violate an important moral or human right.
Is there a moral or human right to a unique identity, and if so, would it be violated by human cloning? For human cloning to violate a right to a unique identity, the relevant sense of identity would have to be genetic identity, that, is a right to a unique unrepeated genome. This would be violated by human cloning, but is there any such right? It might be thought there could not be such a right, because it would be violated in all cases of identical twins, yet no one claims in such cases that the moral or human rights of each of the twins have been violated. Even the use of fertility drugs, which increases the probability of having twins, is not intended to produce
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twins. However, this consideration is not conclusive (Kass 1985; NABER 1994). It is commonly held that only deliberate human actions can violate others’ rights, but outcomes that would constitute a rights violation if those outcomes if done by human action are not a rights violation if those outcomes result from natural
A. Would the Use of Human Cloning Violate Important Moral Rights?
Many of the immediate condemnations of any possible human cloning following Wilmut’s cloning of an adult sheep claimed that it would violate moral or human rights, but it was usually not specified precisely, or often even at all, what the rights were that would be violated. I shall consider two possible candidates for such a right: a right to have a unique identity and a right to ignorance about one’s future or to an “open future.” The former right is cited by many commentators, but I believe even if any such a right exists, it is not violated by human cloning.
The latter right has only been explicitly defended to my knowledge by two commentators, and in the context of human cloning, only by Hans Jonas; it supports a more promising, even if in my view ultimately unsuccessful, argument that human cloning would violate an important moral or human right.
Is there a moral or human right to a unique identity, and if so, would it be violated by human cloning? For human cloning to violate a right to a unique identity, the relevant sense of identity would have to be genetic identity, that, is a right to a unique unrepeated genome. This would be violated by human cloning, but is there any such right? It might be thought there could not be such a right, because it would be violated in all cases of identical twins, yet no one claims in such cases that the moral or human rights of each of the twins have been violated. Even the use of fertility drugs, which increases the probability of having twins, is not intended to produce
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twins. However, this consideration is not conclusive (Kass 1985; NABER 1994). It is commonly held that only deliberate human actions can violate others’ rights, but outcomes that would constitute a rights violation if those outcomes if done by human action are not a rights violation if those outcomes result from natural
References: Adams, M., ed., The Well-Born Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Brock, D.W., The non-identity problem and genetic harm, Bioethics, 9:269-275, 1995. Callahan, D., Perspective on cloning: A threat to individual uniqueness, Los Angeles Times, November 12, 1993, B7. Chadwick, R.F., Cloning. Philosophy, 57:201-209, 1982. Eisenberg, L., The outcome as cause: Predestination and human cloning. J Med Philos, 1:318- 331, 1976. Huxley, A., Brave New World, London: Chalto and Winders, 1932. Jonas, H., Philosophical Essays: From Ancient Creed to Technological Man, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1974. Kass, L., Toward a More Natural Science, New York: The Free Press, 1985. LaBar, M., The pros and cons of human cloning, Thought, 57:318-333, 1984. Levin, I., Boys from Brazil, New York: Random House, 1976. Macklin, R., Splitting embryos on the slippery slope: Ethics and public policy, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 4:209-226, 1994. McCormick, R., Should we clone humans?, Christian Century, 1148-1149, 1993. — — — , Notes on Moral Theology: 1965 Through 1980, Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1981. NABER (National Advisory Board on Ethics in Reproduction), Report on human cloning through embryo splitting: An amber light, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 4:251-282, 1994. Pollack, R., Beyond cloning, New York Times, Nov. 17, 1993, A27. Rainer, J.D. Commentary, Man and Medicine: The Journal of Values and Ethics in Health Care, 3:115-117, 1978. Turner, P.O., Love’s labor lost: Legal and ethical implications in artificial human procreation, University of Detriot Journal of Urban Law, 58:459-487, 1981. Verhey, A.D., Cloning: Revisiting an old debate, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 4:227-234, 1994. Weiss, R., Cloning suddenly has government’s attention, International Herald Tribune, March 7, 1997, 2, 1997. Studdard, A. The lone clone, Man and Medicine: The Journal of Values and Ethics in Health Care, 3:109-114, 1978.