Why I think cloning is wrong

[wit>trope]

I would also regard the female off-spring of my sperm-bank donations as...... daughters!

I would too. But the key word there is SPERM. The clone would not involve any of your sperm in making here.

 

[IglooDame]

I would too. But the key word there is SPERM. The clone would not involve any of your sperm in making here.

That's like saying a photocopy of a photograph doesn't involve a camera.

 

[Sophie 378]

Whoops, you guys ninja-posted me while I edited. Check my last post for a less incoherent ramble.

 

[wit>trope]

Yes, sister as commonly used means with same parent/s, but that presupposes the genetics of being closely related.

The degree of genetic closeness between brother and sister can vary. It can even be on a super rare ("remote" as you say) occasion less than the degree between someone who is family-tree wise less closely related.

BTW, why do you not count sibling-sibling sex as incest? Siblings can be more closely related to each other than to parents and grandparents.

Well my view of incest is not based on DNA similiarity. After all people thought incest was wrong long before they even knew about DNA. My view of why parent-child incest is wrong is based on the actual reality of being the father or mother, son or daughter, apart from DNA considerations. This reality is grounded in the physical generation of the son or daughter.

One reason why I know brother-sister isn't morally wrong is because of the Adam and Eve story.

And what about aunt/uncle to neice/nephew?

As long as there are no issues of maturity of age or some other kind of abuse, I don't see it as morally wrong. But if the aunt/uncle is a mother/father figure and plays that role, it could be practically unwise (just like a counselor shouldn't be dating a counselee)

I think it's
- genetically "incest" if they're more closely related than cousins (yes, that could happen between strangers, however unlikely)
- socially/morally incest if they're brought up together thinking of each other as relatives whatever the degree of relationship
- legally incest if they're more closely related than cousins AND socially related.
An old thread http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=130463 seems to be about definition of incest and siblings, people may find this interesting.

Thanks for your input

 

[Mark1031]

Now prove that having identical twins is wrong. Reproductive cloning in morally wrong currently because of the huge risk of producing highly damaged individuals. The bulk of Dollys turn out grossly deformed.

 

[jameson]

One of you is committing a logical fallacy.

If having sex with cloned child. necessitates cloning then that does not mean that cloning necessitates having sex with cloned child.

If A then B

does not entail

If NOT A, then NOT B

NOR does it entail:

If B, then A.

(note that If NOT A, then NOT B is LOGICALLY EQUIVALENT to If B, then A)

This fallacy is known as "Affirming the consequent".

Affirming the consequent

 

[blackheart]

That is one of the best comeback I've ever seen. I think I'll stop putting smart things in my post, because I have this habit from philosophy to "skip steps". People with sufficient intelligence will provide the missing intelligent links in my stead.

Ditto. Yea you know I see the universe in all its clarity but you're not intelligent enough to understand so you just have to take my word for it!

Back to the topic. How does this logic prove that cloning is wrong? Incest is wrong, sure, but where does it bridge over to cloning?

 

[Sophie 378]

Let us consult the penultimate court of appeal, Wikipedia:

Incest. Incest is sexual activity or marriage between very close family members. It is a taboo, as well as a criminal offense, in virtually all societies. In many societies premarital sex is allowed or encouraged; in most such societies, the same restrictions apply to sexual unions as to marriage.

Interestingly, the family definition is more ambiguous:

Family. A family is a domestic group of people, or a number of domestic groups, typically affiliated by birth or marriage, or by comparable legal relationships including domestic partnership, adoption, surname and in some cases ownership (as was the case in the Roman Empire). Although many people (including social scientists) have understood familial relationships in terms of "blood," many anthropologists have argued that the notion of "blood" must be understood metaphorically, and in that in many societies family is understood through other concepts rather than "blood."

So, depending on your definitions of birth and blood, I think the definition of family as we are using it would be mother, father, sons, daughters, and/or a group with that degree of relationship. I say that a clone of X has the same degree of (familial as well as genetic) relationship to Y as X themselves, Cierdan (I think) disagrees. I think we're going in circles a bit, because we all say incest parent-child is wrong, but can't agree on whether a clone of the child is the same incest-wise as the child themself or not. I say (again) this does not prove cloning as such is wrong, just that incest is wrong and we need a less debatable definition of incest.

 

[mdwh]

I would too. But the key word there is SPERM. The clone would not involve any of your sperm in making here.

So I'm a DNA donor, rather than a sperm donor. If I'm donating DNA, then whether that's cloned directly or fused with another person's; whether that's transported via a sperm cell naturally, or injected into the egg cell artificially; whether this happens during sex, or in the test tube - any result of that is still my offspring.

What's so intrinsicially important about sperm? The key point is DNA.

And anyway, as others have pointed out, I'm not sure what's so wrong about consensual sex between adults, even if it is incest, when children can't result from it.

If you are saying that sex with a clone won't be incest, because it won't count as between family members - then on what basis are you saying sex with your clone is wrong - so wrong in fact, that not only should that be made illegal, but all cloning just so it can never happen?

 

[Communisto]

Let's say someone has a daughter or son (i.e. opposite sex) and they CLONE that daughter or son and when that CLONE is fully mature (like 20 or 30 years old or whatever) marries the CLONE and they have sex.

Would that be legally, morally and/or socially incest?

I think the answer to those questions proves that cloning is wrong. What are your answers and what implications do they have for ethics of cloning?

that's like saying "i think electricity is wrong because when you stick a fork in an outlet, it electricutes you"

 

[cgannon64]

My simplest objection to cloning is that I cannot come up with a morally sound motive for cloning anyone.

 

[wit>trope]

So I'm a DNA donor, rather than a sperm donor. If I'm donating DNA, then whether that's cloned directly or fused with another person's; whether that's transported via a sperm cell naturally, or injected into the egg cell artificially; whether this happens during sex, or in the test tube - any result of that is still my offspring.

What's so intrinsicially important about sperm? The key point is DNA.

Your body can have cells with DNA other than the DNA in your native sexual cells ... so which DNA is "your" DNA -- the DNA that is in your sperm obviously. So sperm is important.

And anyway, as others have pointed out, I'm not sure what's so wrong about consensual sex between adults, even if it is incest, when children can't result from it.

OK, that's respectable.

If you are saying that sex with a clone won't be incest, because it won't count as between family members - then on what basis are you saying sex with your clone is wrong - so wrong in fact, that not only should that be made illegal, but all cloning just so it can never happen?

I never said it should be made illegal.

I believe cloning should be illegal and so in that sense I believe it should be illegal, yes.

My example didn't involve you and "your clone"; my example involved you and your DAUGHTER's clone. I thought you had caught that.... so I'm going to assume it's just a typo...

If sex with the clone of the child is wrong it has to be wrong FOR SOME REASON. Some FACT has to MAKE it wrong. It can't be the fact that the clone is your child -- since the clone ISN'T your child. So what possible FACT could MAKE it wrong? The only possibility left is the underlying act of cloning. Having sex with a cloned person must somehow be wrong.

 

[jameson]

@cierdan
An IQ of around 170 and the best you can do is:

"Having sex with a cloned person must somehow be wrong." ?

I don't currently have an opinion on cloning, but I explained three times why it doesn't logically follow from your argument that cloning must be wrong and Communisto repeated it another time for good measure. You seem determinded to ignore the argument. Are you at all interested in debating this or do you merely want a validation of your own beliefs ?

 

[Kayak]

If sex with the clone of the child is wrong it has to be wrong FOR SOME REASON. Some FACT has to MAKE it wrong. It can't be the fact that the clone is your child -- since the clone ISN'T your child. So what possible FACT could MAKE it wrong? The only possibility left is the underlying act of cloning. Having sex with a cloned person must somehow be wrong.

So first you must define how it is wrong. You can not leave out any steps here .

If I understand corectly there are two different types of incest; "Genetic incest" and (for lack of a better term) "moral incest". We consider genetic incest to "wrong" because of the posibility of birth defects we consider moral incest wrong because we view it as abuse of authority over a minor who is not emotionaly able to defend him/her self.
Now you dismiss genetic incest (which I think is your strongests case here btw) when you state the following:

Well actually the only incest I think is wrong is between a parent and child (or grandparent and child). I'm fine with cousins marrying each other. Look at www.cousincouples.com to dispel myths about cousin marriages (Did you know for instance that Mary and Joseph were first cousins?) Brothers and sisters marrying I would be OK with too but I think it should be discouraged for practical reasons. I am not alone in my views on CFC.

So you are left with the moral incest argument. Unfortunately for your resoning it is VERY SIMPLE to take the moral argument out by having the clone not be a member of your immediate family. If you pseudo duaghter, to coin a phrase, were raised by a total stranger and you met her later when she was a fully developed adult, what objection to sexual contact would you have?

 

[mdwh]

Your body can have cells with DNA other than the DNA in your native sexual cells ... so which DNA is "your" DNA -- the DNA that is in your sperm obviously. So sperm is important.

What does differences in DNA have to do with it? Sperm cells don't all have the same DNA. As long as some DNA is being passed down, that's what makes one a parent. With lifeforms that reproduce asexually, we can still talk about offspring.

My example didn't involve you and "your clone"; my example involved you and your DAUGHTER's clone. I thought you had caught that.... so I'm going to assume it's just a typo...

If sex with the clone of the child is wrong it has to be wrong FOR SOME REASON. Some FACT has to MAKE it wrong. It can't be the fact that the clone is your child -- since the clone ISN'T your child. So what possible FACT could MAKE it wrong? The only possibility left is the underlying act of cloning. Having sex with a cloned person must somehow be wrong.

The only reason why sex between adult family members is wrong is because of genetic issues. Those genetic problems would clearly still result if you were having sex with a clone instead, even if you don't consider the clone to be a child of the original. It is not having sex with *any* clone that is wrong, but having sex with a clone of a family member!

How the law would see it, who knows, but I hardly suspect that the clone would be considered to have no parents. Out of all the possible outcomes that new laws could have, that would be the most absurd.

You appear to be trying to make two claims - that it isn't incest, but it is still wrong nonetheless for reasons other than incest - and you don't seem to know why you think it is wrong, so you just guess a reason. The only reason it is wrong is for the same reasons incest is wrong. Quite why you wish to solve this by making cloning illegal, rather than making "sex with the clone of a family member illegal" or "a clone is legally the offspring of the original", I do not know.

 

[wit>trope]

I want to make cloning illegal because cloning is wrong, not to solve any problem. But this problem shows that having sex with a cloned person is wrong and that shows that cloning is wrong (because it's not fair to make a clone and have it be immoral for anyone to have sex with the clone)

I thought cloning was wrong long before I thought of this proof

@kayak, you understand me incorrectly. The second thing you are talking about would just fall under general abuse or generally unwise conduct. I consider sex between parent-child to be wrong due not to DNA similiarity but the "genetic relationship" -- i.e. GENETIC RELATIONSHIP and NOT GENETIC SIMILARITY:

SECOND DEFINITION OF GENETIC:
Of, relating to, or influenced by the origin or development of something.

So the incest between parent-child is wrong because the parent IS the originator, the generator, the father/mother of the child WITHOUT REGARD to any question of DNA similiarity. So it's not mere DNA similiarity but the actual RELATIONSHIP of being the physical progenitor that makes it wrong.

 

[Sophie 378]

OTOH, getting back to my first post (edited slightly for clarity):

How does that prove that cloning is per se wrong?

Let's say that someone clones their child and brings them up lovingly and never does any thing that anyone could complain about, and the cloned child grows up to be a happy, healthy, normal adult. Does that prove cloning is wrong?

Let's say someone clones their child and then shoots them. Would that prove that cloning is wrong? That proves that shooting is wrong, not that cloning is wrong.

I repeat, that a clone can participate (willingly or not) in something "wrong" does not make cloning wrong. So can non-clones (participate in something "wrong")!
To use your argument (braces for flamefest): black people can be involved in things that are wrong. Therefore all black people are immoral.
HOW does your argument show that cloning is wrong?

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Let's say someone has a daughter or son (i.e. opposite sex) and they CLONE that daughter or son and when that CLONE is fully mature (like 20 or 30 years old or whatever) marries the CLONE and they have sex.

Would that be legally, morally and/or socially incest?

Damn.

You religious types come up with the CRAZIEST scenarios!

 

[wit>trope]

sophie, I already made this clear in posts addressed to other people. But to sum up...

1. There's something wrong with the situation.
2. It can't be an issue of incest since the clone is not really the daughter (or son).
3. So there must be SOME OTHER REASON why it is wrong
4. The only other possible reason is that sex with clones is wrong.
5. If sex with clones is wrong then it's not fair to the clones to make them since then they wouldnt' be able to ethically have sex.
6. So it's wrong to make clones.

 

[Renata]

Renata - clone is of the kid, not yourself.

Thanks for the correction. It doesn't change the argument, though -- since the clone is genetically identical to your own child, the clone is still genetically close to you.

Care to address the argument, Cierdan?