Why We Should Clone Humans

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a handsome young man who fell in love with his image in a stream and stares at it so long he starves to death. A young woman was foolish enough to fall in love with him. The poor girl wasted away too. Only her voice remained and she was called Echo. While these may only be myths, they teach us something very important about ourselves.

Though we marvel at ourselves, we are not gods, but we do have the future very firmly in our hands. This is most evident in the areas of genetics, where scientists have decoded the human genome, a map of approximately 30,000 genes and sequences to three billion DNA bases. Understanding our genes is crucial to medical science because diseases are genetic. The more we can learn about genes the better we'll be able to fight the human nemesis, disease. The better we understand our genes the better we understand ourselves.

With the ability to genetically enhance and clone ourselves, we are on the threshold of a new era that's both frightening and exciting. The birth of Dolly the sheep in 1997 was proof enough that what we once thought only possible in science fiction is now very much a reality. The technique is not as difficult to understand as one might suspect. The "original" Dolly died six years earlier and some of her breast tissue cells were preserved in a freezer. Another egg had its nucleus which contained its DNA removed, leaving only the outer membrane and the yolk.

The donor nucleus was joined with the recipient egg, giving the egg a new nucleus and new DNA. And a new embryo formed with the same genetic makeup as the original. With cloning and genetic engineering capacities well known, it is no longer a question of whether or not it can be done. Replacing that question is another, since it can be done should it be? And if so, under what circumstances? To answer such a question we need to delve into the ethical arguments of Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill, both of whom propose very different ethical standards, standards which can be argued in favor of the cloning of humans. But Kant's philosophy only allows for it in special circumstances.

In Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant wrote that "Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a good will." Good will is not to be confused with goodwill, which is benevolence or placing other people's interests before your own. Kant's idea of a good will is closer to our idea of character or moral virtue. What determines whether our will is good depends on our actions. So how ought we act? He believed we ought to act in such a way that our actions could be universal laws. That is, we shouldn't do to others what we do not want done to ourselves. And we should always treat all persons as ends in themselves, never as means to something else. For example, a man who uses a woman only for sex would be defying this principle, as would a woman cheating on her boyfriend with another man in order to get her boyfriend jealous. If Kant could see a contemporary daytime soap opera, he might very well roll over in his grave.

Kantian ethics may at first seem to disagree with the idea of human cloning, because many motives behind cloning may not always be genuine. A egoist, for example, might want to duplicate him or herself out of conceit. A narcissist may give up mirrors only to look at a reflection of another human being with his or her same genetic makeup. In these cases, the original person's actions are not in accordance with Kant's catagorical imperative to treat all persons as ends in themselves.

A clone is not a person until born, but once born the clone would simply be a means for the original person's narcissism or egoism. Another prime example can be seen in the movie Boys from Brazil in which a Nazi doctor, Mengele, dreams of creating a Fourth Reich by cloning 94 "little Hitlers" from some of Hitler's preserved blood. Mengele's motives are no secret. He cares very little about allowing the clones the freedom of their own lives, as he uses each one as a mean to his own ends, the Fourth Reich.

He mimics Hitler's background when he places the cloned boys into families with domineering fathers and he even goes so far as killing their 94 fathers during the same year that Hitler's father died. All this is to ensure his future world would be dominated by the Aryan race. In this way, the movie Boys from Brazil accurately bases its cloning premise on more than just genetic determinism. Above and beyond the genes they share it's crucial that the Hitler clones are raised in a similar environments and have similar experiences to those had by the real Hitler. Human cloning would duplicate a genetic makeup of another person but it couldn't account for external influences like environment. For example, there's no guarantee that a cloned Hitler wouldn't end up a communist due to a different historical time in which he was raised. And in fact, the movie's ending portrays a young Hitler clone well off the path of Nazi dictatorship.

In Boys from Brazil, Dr. Mengele uses the clones as a way of controlling the world. But a more realistic concern about cloning has to do with our control over them because we'd be their manufacturers. The movie Blade Runner takes place in 2019, in Los Angeles. But the dark and dingy city is filled with anything but angels. Humans are manufacturing genetically enhanced "replicants" designed for specific roles in society. These replicants are no more than slaves and they contain a very human flaw in design. What sets us apart from them is emotion, which they weren't designed with.

But because they are genetically human, after four years they begin acquiring their own memories and emotions. Being emotionally immature, they become unpredictable, so their designers simply give them a short four year life span. Problem solved? Kant, again, would disagree. Because the replicants are treated as inferior citizens and not as ends in themselves, the act of genetically engineering them is unethical. To the viewer, the replicants are more victims than villains and their rage is justifiable. To clone in either of these two ways, to control the world or to control the clones, would be unethical by Kantian standards.

This same concern about status has been expressed over human cloning. While cloning can't be considered artificial, it can be considered unnatural, and aren't those born unnaturally prone to be treated unfairly in today's society? In his article "Me, My Clone, and I (or In Defense of Human Cloning)" Johnathan Colvin makes the point that

"Many of the attitudes concerning human cloning are reminiscent of the arguments against in vitro fertilization in the 1960s, when accusations of playing God' and interfering with nature were common. Today, however, test tube' babies are celebrated for their own individuality and as people in their own right."

Gregory Pence also responds nicely to this argument in his article "Who's Afraid of Human Cloning?" "A clone is not a drone," he writes, emphasizing that once born, cloned humans would be people, same as you or I. To say they shouldn't be born would be like saying African Americans should not have children because the world is plagued by racism. Clones would also have the advantage of anonymity. Jewish people in Nazi Germany had to wear yellow stars identifying themselves as Jewish. Unless clones had to identify themselves in a similar way, it's difficult to see how anyone would know they were clones, just as test tube babies look no different than womb babies.

By understanding circumstances in which Kant would condemn human cloning, it's easier to identify circumstances in which he would find cloning permissible. If cloning can be an act of a person's good will, according to Kant, is should be considered an ethical action. If a person's decision to clone another person is not driven by virtuous motives, then it shouldn't be a universal law. But say, for example, a widow wants a child from her dead husband. If cloning was the only possible way of that occurring, and if the woman isn't going to use the child as a means to get something else, it would be an act of her good will. These circumstances wouldn't happen often because they apply to so few people but cloning could be permissible based on Kantian ethics.

John Stuart Mill believes actions can be judged on how well they promote human happiness to the greatest number of people. This is his Greatest Happiness Principle and in Mill's own words it means "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness". To Mill, happiness is the only true virtue, but by happiness he means more than just sensual pleasure. Happiness has a broad definition of anything we'd prefer to its absence. Another way of saying this is that happiness is an absence of pain or suffering. Unlike Kant, Mill believes that the consequences of an action determine their moral worth.

To take an easy example, if we could save two hostages by shooting one, we are morally obligated to do so. Kant would disagree because by shooting one person we would be using them as a mean to our own end, even if our end is to save a greater amount of people. Genetic engineering, if it benefits more people than it hurts would be permissible in Mill's view. So would cloning, if it promotes the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. But Mill's believes would go beyond just the occasional clone in the occasional rare circumstance. While Kant would view using a clone for "spare parts" as using a person as a means to an end, Mill would argue that if it benefited more than it hurt, it would still be permissible. Mill also believes happiness can be judged qualitatively.

That is, some pleasures are better than others. In this way a utilitarian view of the ethics of cloning is very different from Kant. It might even be argued that creating a slave race of clones would be morally permissible unless the slave race's suffering qualitatively outweighed the pleasure we receive from their slave labor.

Utilitarianism is more apt to justify the idea that clones would be inferior beings because their sub-status could conceivably promote the greatest happiness to the greatest number of (other) people. But it wouldn't be ethical to treat them as anything less than anyone else. As David McCarthy writes in his article "Persons and Their Copies," "A clone is a person.... On any plausible moral theory, therefore, a clone has the same moral status and protections as non-clones." McCarthy also tackles the issue of whether a clone's life would be worse off than a non-clone. The assumption is that because a clone's life is not original, it is not as valuable as another's regular life. As eluded to before, there's more to one's life than just genetic makeup. When different environments are considered, no two lives are alike.

In matters of human cloning, Utilitarianism seems too extreme, allowing for cloning in too many circumstances. Just because cloning may offer the greatest happiness for the greatest number doesn't necessarily mean it is ethically permissible. Happiness cannot be good without qualification because it can be used for evil, in this case clones might be slaves or "spare parts." Cloning should not be permissible in every circumstance but it should occasionally be allowed with Kantian ethics in mind. We may not know what kind of long term consequences cloning might have on our species and it may end up doing more harm than good, especially if left untouched by the government.

That's why it should be carefully regulated and monitored like Glenn McGee and Ian Wilmut propose in their article "A Model for Regulating Cloning." They support a process similar to adoption that "gives communal imprimatur to the creation of a family." Not only is their adoption model reasonable in restriction cloning to only special circumstances, it's also a compromise between the rights of the parents and children involved in the situation. In this model the community would provide oversight and counsel, establishing rules to protect both the rights of the parents and children. Cloning would not be banned, but it would be restricted in accordance with Kantian ethics.

When establishing the circumstances under which human cloning ought be permissible, our motives should be carefully examined to see whether they adhere to Kant's catagorical imperative. Then and only then should cloning be allowed. Jeremy Rifken's arguments against cloning concern human inference of natural cycles. But no interruption could prove too drastic if cloning is strictly regulated along Kantian lines. It is our advanced reasoning that separates us from other animals. But we should be careful not to marvel too much at ourselves and we should set strict standards, lest we starve like Narcissus, from our own humanity.