For the sake of this debate, please define 'ethics' in terms of the Golden Rule. Or, if you have another theory of ethics, please make that clear before you state your specific opinion on human cloning.
2007-03-13 09:57:47 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
I see no ethical dilemma in human cloning. It will however present problems in courts when they try to bring about DNA evidence.
2007-03-13 10:05:48 · answer #1 · answered by DimensionalStryder 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you are using the "golden rule" than cloning is a matter of personal choice and not subject to ethical considerations.
I can clone myself as much as I want and since I am not interfering with the rights of others to do the same, there is no moral or ethical problem.
Most people get hung up on the "soul" thing. If I clone myself too much does my "soul" get fuzzy. Does my clone have the same rights that I do? Since my clone wasn't born, he will have no rights. Since the soul doesn't exist, he will have no soul to worry about.
At this point most people get a little squimish and start coming up with all sorts of rationales as to why cloning is wrong.
Eventually someone is going to start cloning humans, and if we treat the clones the same way we treat our animals, we may indeed end up with a clone rebellion.
That is many centuries away, if we survive that long.
2007-03-13 10:11:33 · answer #2 · answered by zaphodsclone 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Human coning is no less ethical than invitro fertilization or making a baby "the old-fashioned way". A cloned human is still a human. There is no ethical consideration except in the fact that the uneducated and bigotted would treat them as somehow different than any other human. Coning implies no genetic manipulation, it is merely getting an adult/specified cell to start replicating.
2007-03-13 10:07:59 · answer #3 · answered by Huggles-the-wise 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I am assuming that your ethical golden rule (or the golden rule as I myself would define it) is 'do to others as you would have them do to you' - paraphrasing of Confucius
You could possibly conceive that it is harmful to an entire person because
a: it will provide it with genes that are already aged therefore giving it a shortened lifespan and an older genetic age than lived age
b: Give it the psychological disadvantage of knowing what its genetic counter part di/did not achieve and either giving it huge goals to meet/surpass, expectations that it may not want and pressure of failure dependant upon the genetic original.
However parts cloned for a person do not interfere with anyone else and are therefore exempt from the golden rule.
2007-03-13 10:10:37 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well that is too broad the way it is stated. Do you mean an entire human being? Well, I do not believe entire human beings should be cloned. However, I do not see a problem with cloning your own organ for transplant.
2007-03-13 10:02:32 · answer #5 · answered by genaddt 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I would say the better question is given the technology becomes available, is it avoidable?
2007-03-13 10:03:07 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋