Dan Brock, "Cloning Human Beings," 1998
- TWO TYPES OF ARGUMENTS CONCERNING CLONING
- One: Rights (to clone or not to be cloned)
- Rights give a presumptive claim that can't be overridden because
the benefits of doing so out weight costs
- Rights can be overridden when benefits of so doing are extreme
or when they conflict with other rights
- Two: Benefits of cloning (or not cloning) outweigh costs
(consequentiailst)
- ARGUMENTS FOR CLONING
- MORAL RIGHT TO CLONE BASED ON (OVERRIDEABLE)
RIGHT OF REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM
- Like freedom to use contraceptives and assisted
reproductive technologies (=ART)
- Reasons people might like to exercise this right:
- One: For some, cloning could be only way to procreate and retain
biological tie to child
- Is desire for biological tie to child legitimate?
- A desire we respect with other ART
- Adoption alternative lacks this tie
- Two: For those who could procreate w/o cloning, cloning is one way to
exercise interest/right to shape what kind of children one has
- Is this a legitimate interest?
- Many other ways we shape children: choice of partners, genetic
test of fetuses, inculcation of values
- Parents have substantial discretion to shape persons their children
become (via education and child rearing)
- Isn't cloning another way to shape one's children?
- Does rearing a child shape the child more than would
cloning?
- How strong are parent's rights of repro freedom?
- Law now allows others to reproduce when it is certain their
children will have genetic-based diseases (mentally disabled
people having children, or those with heritable genetic diseases)
- Here, parents rights of reproductive freedom seems to outweigh
others belief that this is wrong
- A cloned child is likely to be harmed much less
- Conclusion: Right of reproductive freedom includes right to select
means of reproduction and right to select kind of children and thus
includes right to clone
- A valid right that is overrideable (if harms are serious or stronger
conflicting rights exist)
- BENEFITS OF CLONING
- Individual benefits
- One: A way to relieve infertility
- Two: To avoid transmitting hereditary diseases to offspring (and not
want 3rd party sperm/egg)
- Three: To make a latter twin for use as donor of organs/tissues
- Ayalas case: Parents conceived a child in hopes of getting source
of bone marrow for daughter with Leukemia
- One can use another as a means and love/respect him/her as
well
- Law allows others to procreate with less worthy motives than this
- Four: To clone person with special meaning (e.g., child who died)
- Might help parents accept death and move on
- Involves deep confusion, namely
- MYTH OF GENETIC
DETERMINISM: THAT GENES TOTALLY DETERMINE
WHAT A PERSON BECOMES AND ACCOMPLISHES
- But people are influenced by genes, environment, choices,
particular historical relations with others
- Clone would be a different child
- Social benefits
- Five: To duplicate individuals of great talent, genius, character
(Mozart, Einstein, Gandhi)
- Based on confusion of genetic determinism as would not
replicate capacities much less accomplishments of these people
(much depends on historical circumstances)
- Cloning could produced individuals with exceptional capacities
and this is a reasonable ground for cloning
- Worries for abuse: Whose standards of greatness? Who controls
technology for social benefit? Some use it for private benefit?
- Conclusion: Cloning does not seem to promise great or unique
benefits
- But this leaves the defense of cloning based on right of
reproductive freedom.
- ARGUMENTS AGAINST CLONING
- DOES CLONING VIOLATE RIGHTS? (Considers 3; Brock thinks
none convincing)
- One: Violate right to a unique identity (=unique unrepeated
genome?)?
- Earlier twin violates this right?
- What about identical twins? Are parents who have identical
twins violating this right? Not plausible. No such right exists.
- That unique identity requires unrepeated genome falsely assumes
genetic determinism
- Whether or not right to unique identity, cloning doesn't
undermine it
- Two: Right of ignorance violated?
- Later twin sees what earlier twin is like and it exerts undue
influence on him; haunts him, undermines spontaneous creation
of own future
- Again, power of objection comes from false belief that having
same genome restricts freedom to create a different self
- Also, family environment also shapes child's development
- Younger brother can't claim older brother undermines his
ability to make own life
- Assuming env. is as shaping as genes; Also, being shaped
by family environment is being shaped by a group and not
one individual; Genes determine at beginning with no
opening, chance for change, with env shaping, future is
always open
- Three: Right to an open future violated?
- We have obligation to raise children in way not close off
reasonable range of alternatives
- But cloning doesn't do this, future is still open
- Twin's belief that her future is determined is based on false belief
in genetic determinism; may cause her harm but not violating a
right to open future
- Conclusion: Cloning does not violate any of these rights
- HARMS OF CLONING
- Individual harms
- One: Later twin suffer psychological distress?
- Harm speculative though possible
- This provides reason for sharply limits on # of clones produced
from one individual
- Two: Human cloning carries unacceptable (physical) risks to clone
- This is true now (e.g., cloned from old cell with mutations, clone
prone to cancer?). Need to do further research before ethical to
cone humans
- Partif's non-identity problem as reason for claiming such harms not
possible and Brock's response to it
- Only way for a twin to avoid psychological harm is never to be
cloned/exist
- Assuming clone's life is worth living, later twin not harmed by
being given a life with psychological burdens, as alternative is to
never exist and this is worse
- If later twin is not harmed by being created with these burdens,
how could she be wronged?
- If twin not wronged, what is wrong being done by cloning?
- Brock's reply:
- Choosing to create later twin with serious psychological
problems--instead of a different person without these
problems-is morally wrong, even if it does not harm or wrong
the twin
- Can be wrongs with harming or wronging an individual
- It is as morally wrong as giving these psychological harms to an
already existing person (but why?)
- Social harms
- Three: Cloning lessens worth of individuals and diminishes respect for human
life
- People will be viewed as replaceable
- But clone is not a replacement (since genetic determinism
not true)
- Parents of dying child would be foolish to not grieve
because child can be cloned
- People will become to be seen as manufactured, hand-made
(Kass' objection)
- It is a mistake to think that clone is less valuable as made
by cloning instead of sex
- It is the nature of the being, not how she was made that
is/should be source of its value
- It is not at all obvious that source/genesis of a being isn't
relevant to its value (Examples: Ring made from bone of
person killed to make it; cow's origin vs grizzly's relevant
to our evaluation of them)
- Manufacturing humans could lead to decreased respect in
process of procreation and people themselves
- But cloning isn't manufacturing from scratch
- Four: Humans might be cloned for financial gain
- Moral consensus against commercial market in embryos, cloned
or not, could be legally enforced
- Five: Cloning might be used by some for immoral purposes (cloned
individuals with limited abilities who are happy to do menial work)
- This would be to immorally use such individuals as tools; but this
could and should be outlawed
- Conclusion: Ethical pros and cons are sufficiently
balanced/uncertain that no decisive case for or against permitting
or engaging in cloning
- Although access to cloning can be plausibly brought within a
moral right to reproductive freedom, its potential legitimate uses
are few and don't promise substantial benefits
- Neither is human cloning a violation of rights
- Cloning does risk some significant individual/social harms,
though most are based on common confusion about genetic
determinism
- Because the potential harms of cloning are still speculative, they
are not sufficient to warrant complete legal prohibition in
research or the later use of cloning, if and when it is proven safe
- Moral concerns about uses and effects of cloning are legitimate
and show need for public oversight or research and for public
debate before cloning is used on people