Ethics of Human Cloning
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- Category: Politics: Moral Issues
- Date Submitted: 06/23/2011 07:22 PM
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The Ethics of Human Cloning
When examining the ethics of human cloning through the perspective of Emmanuel Levinas, it is easy to see why it is unethical. There are two methods of cloning humans, natural cloning and nuclear transplantation. (Dudley 6) With the advances in cloning technology, the ethics of human cloning have now come into debate. Levinas believed that the good is interested in what is absolutely unique about each person or thing. He also believed that unique people or things contain traces of God. Cloning would greatly affect the uniqueness and individuality of human beings. Levinas also recognized the importance of the face and how it makes people responsible. To clone a human could require killing many embryos and this would be denying unique traces of God. Based on Levinas’ key ethical principles, he would find human cloning highly unethical.
There are two methods of cloning in higher animals and possibly humans. The first method is naturally when a women gives birth to identical twins or triplets. Natural cloning cannot be unethical because it is what god willed. This is caused by the cell splitting in early development. The other highly controversial method of cloning is nuclear transplantation. This involves the nucleus of a cell (contains all genetic info) being transplanted into or fused with an egg in which its nucleus has been removed. After this transplantation, the cell is stimulated into growth with electric shot and a real fertilized egg begins to grow, an embryo. (Dudley 6) Some scientists also assert that cloning could result in deformed or defective babies. (DuPrau 48) Levinas would acknowledge an embryo as a unique human being. Cloning would involve destroying many embryos and to Levinas, this would mean the senseless killing of many traces of God.
In early 1997, Scottland researchers used nuclear transplantation to clone an adult sheep named Dolly. There was an extremely high failure rate and it took 277 attempts...
When examining the ethics of human cloning through the perspective of Emmanuel Levinas, it is easy to see why it is unethical. There are two methods of cloning humans, natural cloning and nuclear transplantation. (Dudley 6) With the advances in cloning technology, the ethics of human cloning have now come into debate. Levinas believed that the good is interested in what is absolutely unique about each person or thing. He also believed that unique people or things contain traces of God. Cloning would greatly affect the uniqueness and individuality of human beings. Levinas also recognized the importance of the face and how it makes people responsible. To clone a human could require killing many embryos and this would be denying unique traces of God. Based on Levinas’ key ethical principles, he would find human cloning highly unethical.
There are two methods of cloning in higher animals and possibly humans. The first method is naturally when a women gives birth to identical twins or triplets. Natural cloning cannot be unethical because it is what god willed. This is caused by the cell splitting in early development. The other highly controversial method of cloning is nuclear transplantation. This involves the nucleus of a cell (contains all genetic info) being transplanted into or fused with an egg in which its nucleus has been removed. After this transplantation, the cell is stimulated into growth with electric shot and a real fertilized egg begins to grow, an embryo. (Dudley 6) Some scientists also assert that cloning could result in deformed or defective babies. (DuPrau 48) Levinas would acknowledge an embryo as a unique human being. Cloning would involve destroying many embryos and to Levinas, this would mean the senseless killing of many traces of God.
In early 1997, Scottland researchers used nuclear transplantation to clone an adult sheep named Dolly. There was an extremely high failure rate and it took 277 attempts...