In an article, "Preventing a Brave New World" Kass believes that reproductive and therapeutic cloning of human embryos will materialize the dystopian vision of Aldous Huxley's classic 'Brave new World.' Further, he argued that man is playing the act of God and producing babies by design is very unethical. To achieve his goal that human cloning is unethical, he constructs a richly developed argument. The essay will explore steps put forward by Kass in his argument against human cloning and then assess the strengths and weaknesses of this evidence (Kass, 2001). According to Kass, cloning is unethical because, it involves unethical experimentation, threatens people’s identity; converts procreation into manufacture and results into parenthood perversion.
The first argument put forward by Kass against cloning revolves around ethics. Experimentation for cloning is unethical. Leon Kass began by arguing that human cloning is highly immoral. He supported his reason using examples from various cloning examples done on animals and at the same time commented on his opinion regarding the outcome of the experiments. Additionally, he analyzed the number of cloning attempts that were successful claiming that about two to three percent of all attempts were successful. He also stated that most of the scientists have agreed that human cloning often carries increasing risks of resulting into unhealthy and malformed children (Kass, 2014).
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The practice of cloning will cause a serious problem related to identity and individuality threat. According to Kass (2001), a cloned person will experience issues related to his specific identity both because he or she will be identical by their genotype and outer look to another human and appear as a twin to their mother or father. This will result in a mixed child-parent relation society. The practice is unethical experimentation on a cloned child to be because it tends to confound his or her genetic and social identity and as a result of this, it threatens that child’s sense of individuality.
Kass went on to argue that cloning will lead transform the element of procreation into manufacture and this will be hugely harmful for the perception of the parents on their children and the child himself or herself (Kass, 2001). When children are produced through scientific technology instead of natural conception during sex, then it would imply that these children might never upgrade their status as adults’ artifacts. Additionally, these artifacts would be the subject of commerce. Currently, human eggs are being sold in the mask of donation, and this would imply that life would be subjected to nasty commodification. A cloned human embryo would be determined by a deliberate human selection and design rather than the chance of egg and sperm union. According to Kass (2001), allowing cloning for research would mount into increasing genetic mastery of a generation over the next one. Kass went on to argue that, human cloning represented a greater step in transforming procreation into manufacture but at the same time, it will give parents an attempt to select and even control the overall child’s genetic makeup. Based on this argument, Kass concluded that cloning would threaten human procreation dignity by giving a single generation unprecedented control over the other generation. Additionally, it will mark a greater step towards a eugenic world where children would be turned into objects of manipulation in addition to being products of will. Therefore, he believed that there is the need to ban human cloning at all cost (Kass, 2014).
Lastly, Kass argued that cloning would be considered as a path towards nepotism over children and this will cause a greater parenthood perversion. Kass in his words claimed that cloning practice would significantly change the meaning of the relationship existing between child and parent. Additionally, these parents might not be willing to accept these children as their own. These children will, on the other hand, hold their parents responsible for al the physical illnesses and health problems that they might experience.
Focusing on the strengths of Kass’s argument on cloning, it is evident that it was well developed and founded on strong reasons. He began his arguments by drawing parallels with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, to ensure that a potential reader apparently feels the modern innovations’ plight through insight into the grim future (Huxley, 2008). He assessed the cloning problem from a different angle including ethics perspective, psychology, and also philosophical and educational views. It can thus be considered as a major strength of the argument. Further, his strength can be seen from his reliance on range spectrum of findings from diverse areas of science. Additionally, it is clear he tactfully employed the use of emotional language that is closely intertwined with numerous scientific examples to ensure that the audience understands the dangers of cloning.
Focusing on the weaknesses of Kass argument in “Preventing a Brave New World,” it is evident that he often deviated from the major idea (Kass, 2001). He came out clearly refuting the arguments put forward by the proponents of human cloning, but he later focused on ranges of cases not directly related to the issue at hand, and this has been argued to be significantly distracting. Additionally, he claimed that the debate around human cloning is simply a golden opportunity for the entire society “to strike a blow for the human control of the technological wisdom” (Kass, 2001), however, this sounds idealistic beside being unreal. It might be the case that in the US, cloning is legally banned but in other states cloning might be core governmental prerogatives. Therefore, Kass could have applied the cloning vision accurately as a significant threat to the very existence of the entire human race.
In conclusion, Kass believed that irrespective of the fact that is undertaken for an ultimate purpose of bringing forth children or taken with the intention of extracting stem cells for the purpose of research, the same act of nuclear transplantation is considered as cloning. Further, the product from in these two instances would be identical cloned the human embryo. In an event the identical cloned embryos are fully grown to a blastocyst stage then it will follow that their different fates will wholly depend on the human user’s purpose, either research or baby making. Kass went on to state for the need to listen carefully to both the ethical and scientific arguments on the importance of creating a cloned human blastocysts for the purpose of research. Besides the harm that would be done on the embryo, there arises a moral harm to the society. As a result of this, the society risks being desensitized, callous and highly indifferent in addition to the loss of respect for mastery of the emerging new human life.
References
Huxley, A. (2008). Brave new world . Ernst Klett Sprachen.
Kass, L. (2001). Preventing a brave new world. Technology and Values: Essential Readings , 311-322.
Kass, L. (2014). Preventing a Brave New World. In Ethics and Emerging Technologies (pp. 76-89). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
