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Jonathan Langseth

PHI351-Miller

Sh. Paper 8

A Bit On Cloning and Eugenics

In asking about the ethical justifications advocating or criticizing both cloning and

eugenics we must first ask ourselves what the reasons are for such endeavors and what

the consequences would be if such acts were allowed. In reply to the former as it applies

to cloning, I just cannot see a good reason for its implementation. If we desire to adhere

to the moral doctrine of treating people as ends-in-themselves, we are unable to advocate

cloning as a means of conducting psychological or physiological tests for the person

cloned would merely be an instrument of science. If human cloning is put forth as a way

for couples unable to reproduce I would respond that adoption is a much more

humanitarian method of creating a family. Reasons for advocating eugenics can be, I

think, threefold: correctional, performative, and ideological.

Correctional eugenics is when measures are taken to correct some biological

disorder apparent in a developing fetus. I think such corrective measures are acceptable

but that what is considered as biological abnormalities should remain a question of

debate.

Performative eugenics are such changes made in order to breed more intelligent,

healthy, athletic people. Whether or not this should be allowed is a much more difficult

question to ponder and debate than correctional eugenics. One could argue that similar

conditioning is already apparent in the form of controlled environments and formal

education. But environment and schooling are at least different from eugenics in that they

occur after a person is already in the world, and it could be argued that because of this a

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person has a somewhat better ability to choose what they accept. Also, environment and

schooling are experienced, not pre-programmed. A problem with performative eugenics

is that the criteria used to define enhancement is always determined by particular people

at the expense of other involved partys opinion. This would be evident in a large, social

scale performative eugenics project and also at the personal level of parents modifying

their unborn child. In the first instance it would typically be the powerful that set the

agenda as to how and what children should be improved. At the personal level there

would in the first place be a great inequality concerning who is able to enhance their

children, those able most likely only the rich, perpetuating and deepening social divides.

In the second place it is quite possible that performative eugenics would become highly

competitive, centering the emphasis of child development prior to a childs contact with

the world outside the womb. In any case this kind of eugenics is should still be debated

but I only add this last thought: Do we really what to selectively breed our children to fit

our predetermined expectations of what they will be? Is there not something essential to

the qualitative experience of life to be found in indeterminacy and acceptance of the

given?

Ideological eugenics would be something akin to the horrors of Hitlers WWII

and lacks any justification.

What I would briefly say about consequences is that we really dont know-we

cannot be sure of the outcomes of tinkering with biology and genetics, and for this reason

I would advocate extreme caution and discussion concerning any seemingly good use of

eugenics.