Cloning and ethics.

The first successful cloning of an adult sheep, the the possibility of extinctions. These considerations, although presently insufficient to decide against clondetails of which were recently revealed,1 has aroused widespread scientific and popular interest. Few have ing, do call for caution and detailed study as the technical limits are extended. However, much of the failed to appreciate it as an event of great moment. However, there has been disagreement about uproar about cloning has focused not on such sober questions, but rather on charges of human impertinwhether this milestone is to be greeted as signalling another exciting, even if awesome, advance in the ence and the invocation of dystopian projections of our descent into a moral abyss. history of biological science, or whether it portends great evil unless checked by swift and robust legislaA number of the arguments—such as claims that cloning is unnatural and a usurpation of God’s tion. Dolly, the clone, is a symbol of new possibilities for the reproduction of both animals and humans. authority—are generic objections that have been raised against numerous scientific advances and For some, these possibilities are to be embraced, even if cautiously, because of the great benefits they much else. Rarely are we told, however, why ‘unnatural’ is ‘immoral’ or why some scientific advances could yield. Others warn that in overcoming the technical obstacles to cloning, we face a moral amount to ‘playing God’, whereas others do not. Why is it that animal breeding is not a (wicked) minefield in which, if we proceed, we risk catastrophe. departure from natural evolution, but cloning is? Why is life-saving surgery to correct congenital Concern for the ethical implications of scientific advances is to be welcomed. There are, after all, too abnormalities not an (evil) interference with evolution whereas cloning is? Why are (some) forms of gene many who are happy to greet the expanding limits of the possible without a care for the limits of the therapy, and now cloning, an intrusion into God’s domain, whereas pharmacological therapy is not? permissible. However, just as failure to detect moral problems is a defect, so is the inability to discriminate And it is curious that new advances, deemed to be ‘playing God’, soon become uncontroversial combetween real and imaginary problems. There are alarmists who see moral peril at every turn. Heeding ponents of medical practice after they have been around for a while. The defenders of the natural their calls does not come without cost. It can impede progress and deny great benefits to many. Thus, order and the divine realm must explain these anomalies. there is no side of caution on which one can err. Acute judgement cannot be avoided. To be fair, opponents of cloning have fleshed out their objections. Sometimes they describe frightening Cloning does raise moral questions, to which close and detailed attention should be given. For scenarios which cloning (particularly of humans) could yield. We are told, for instance, of future instance, there is the (currently open) question whether the cloning technique is prone to harm the societies’ attempting to clone drones, slaves or soldiers, from suitably obedient, dim-witted and powerclone, either by damaging its DNA or by condemning the clone to premature ageing. And, if performed on ful originals. And egotists, it is said, might succumb to the temptation to produce replicas of themselves a large scale, cloning could undermine biological diversity, raising the spectre of weakened stock and in an ultimate act of narcissism. These cloned