Human Cloning Revisited: Ethical Debate in the Technological Worldview (original) (raw)

Like many controversies about new technologies, debates over the ethics of reproductive cloning are divided between utopian (pro-cloning) and dystopian (anti-cloning) approaches. The former see the rise of cloning a simple case of technological progress, backed up by an insistence on respect for reproductive rights; the latter argue that the possibility of human cloning threatens individuality and raises the danger of turning human beings into mass-produced commodities. I evaluate these debates through a Heideggerian reading, arguing that the dystopian position falls prey to the typical setbacks confronting humanism, while setting the entire controversy within the assumption—shared to some extent by both sides—that the humanity of human beings is reducible to their physical nature. Utopian arguments either defend their position on ethical grounds, which conflict with this basic presupposition, or simply reject the relevance of ethical debate to what are largely questions of progress driven by market forces. Dystopian arguments, by contrast, tend to defend human uniqueness and dignity, but these attempts are undermined by the underlying assumption that humanity is directly shaped by its biology, so that a proliferation of cloning will inevitably change the human world into a posthuman one. I argue that given this assumption as the guiding framework within which the controversy takes place, no genuine ethical debate is possible; both sides, by reducing humanity to biology, undermine the grounds of ethical discourse. I conclude that the condition of possibility for an ethical debate over cloning requires an understanding of the human that does not reduce the essence of humanity to physical nature, allowing for a confrontation with the essence of technology rather than one fully circumscribed by its limits. (I suggest taking this one with a grain of salt. I'm fairly happy with the arguments. But I had something like three days to revise the paper, and it ended up as a jumble of two papers that don't quite fit together. Hopefully a fun read, though.)

Philosophical Arguments for and Against Human Reproductive Cloning

Bioethics, 2003

Can philosophers come up with persuasive reasons to allow or to ban human reproductive cloning? Yes. Can philosophers agree, locally and temporarily, which practices related to cloning should be condoned and which should be rejected? Some of them can. Can philosophers produce universally convincing arguments for or against different kinds of human cloning? No. This paper analyses some of the main arguments presented by philosophers in the cloning debate, and some of the most important objections against them. The clashes between the schools of thought suggest that philosophers cannot be trusted to provide the public authorities, or the general public, a unified, universally applicable view of the morality of human reproductive cloning. Some people, mostly legislators, have thought that prohibitions on cloning can be based on philosophical arguments, that is, arguments which are ultimately founded on the ability of all human beings to use reason, or their intellectual faculties. 1 Others have thought that the reverse is the case-that such prohibitions can be conclusively rejected by philosophical arguments. 2

A Heideggerian Defense of Therapeutic Cloning

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics

Debates about the legitimacy of embryonic stem-cell research have largely focused on the type of ethical value that should be accorded to the human embryo in vitro. In this paper, I try to show that, to broaden the scope of these debates, one needs to articulate an ontology that does not limit itself to biological accounts, but that instead focuses on the embryo's place in a totality of relevance surrounding and guiding a human practice. Instead of attempting to substantiate the ethical value of the embryo exclusively by pointing out that it has potentiality for personhood, one should examine the types of practices in which the embryo occurs and focus on the ends inherent to these practices. With this emphasis on context, it becomes apparent that the embryo's ethical significance can only be understood by elucidating the attitudes that are established towards it in the course of specific activities. The distinction between fertilized embryos and cloned embryos proves to be important in this contextual analysis, since, from the point of view of practice, the two types of embryos appear to belong to different human practices: (assisted) procreation and medical research, respectively. In my arguments, I highlight the concepts of practice, technology, and nature, as they have been analyzed in the phenomenological tradition, particularly by Martin Heidegger. I come to the conclusion that therapeutic cloning should be allowed, provided that it turns out to be a project that benefits medical science in its aim to battle diseases. Important precautions have to be taken, however, in order to safeguard the practice of procreation from becoming perverted by the aims and attitudes of medical science when the two practices intersect. The threat in question needs to be taken seriously, since it concerns the structure and goal of practices which are central to our very self understanding as human beings.

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No end in sight to cloning debate

Revista de derecho y genoma humano = Law and the human genome review / Cátedra de Derecho y Genoma Humano/Fundación BBV-Diputación Foral de Bizkaia