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December 23, 2004
Stop foolish and frivolous technology now, you bad bad humans!
Every creature that comes into being ought to have the right to its individual genetic makeup. Via Drudge, I see that cloning of pets (a topic I've discussed before, and which Jeff Soyer has discussed repeatedly) has now gotten the attention of the official moralizers. While I think cloning your pet is a dumb thing to do, every time I read another official public scolding by People Who Know Better (and who'd run our lives if they could) I get a little ticked off. Here's today's view from the Pulpit: "It's morally problematic and a little reprehensible," said David Magnus, co-director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford. "For $50,000, she could have provided homes for a lot of strays."First of all, I would never clone any pet, because each animal is a unique experience, and a twin is a mere genetic copy and not the same animal you knew and loved. You'd never get the same bonding and experience you had, and I think it would be hopelessly contaminated by old memories. Better to get a new one. But that's just my opinion, and it isn't binding on anyone. Although I might think that someone who did this was a bit screwy in the head, I'd never try to stop him, especially by means of government restrictions. What I find most annoying about today's lecture is the objection based on cost. Whether cloning an animal is right or wrong has nothing to do with cost. If it's wrong because it costs $50,000, does it become right when the price is right? What's the "morally correct" price, anyway? $5,000? $500? Lots of people would spend thousands of dollars to save a sick pet. Isn't that also elitist by the same argument, and wouldn't that money be better off spent on "homes for a lot of strays?" Seen this way, purchasing any expensive item is immoral. Plenty of people spend $50,000 for a car. Isn't that also technology "available only to the wealthy?" Then there's the argument that "new feline production systems aren't needed because thousands of stray cats are euthanized each year for want of homes." I suspect if these people had their way, they'd make it illegal to breed any animals at all. People who want to place limitations on human technology make me as nervous as the people who want to place limitations on what people can do with their money. Placing limits on technology seems to go hand in hand with the zero sum game, and echoes the thinking of Paul Ehrlich and Jeremy Rifkin. If they had their way, all humans would be neutered, leashed, regulated back to the stone age, life extension would be blocked, and we'd never be allowed to leave the planet. Limiting man's evolution is by definition backwardness. But to the forces of backwardness, moving backwards means power. Interestingly enough, the more routine the cloning of animals becomes, the more likely becomes the possibility of recreating extinct animals like the Passenger Pigeon, the Dire Wolf or the Dodo. I'm sure the moralists would hate to see such a thing ever happen, because man is bad. And once man has hunted an animal into extinction, he should have no right to erase that mistake! No moving forward and no progress -- especially if it might mean reversing mistakes made in the past! posted by Eric on 12.23.04 at 09:59 AM
Comments
The fundamental issue is one discussed here often: the difference between personal and legislated morality/ethics. I think what irks Eric here is the impending debate over criminalizing this kind of technology. The state gets bigger, the moralists become more powerful, little by little ... Dennis · December 23, 2004 01:37 PM "Impending" debate? The debate's already started. Ans as long as we already have laws addressing sanitation, endangered species, cruelty to animals, etc., it wouldn't make much sense simply to throw out the concerns voiced about animal cloning. Just because posh types can pay for something, does not make it right. I'm not sure that cloning pets to order should be outlawed, but I'm not sure it's right either, and I certainly don't like the attitudes to which it panders. Raging Bee · December 23, 2004 01:57 PM Even if there wasn't any attempt to legislate such morality, I have as much right to disagree with their thinking as anyone does with mine. And it is quite possible to agree with an opinion but not with the underlying reasoning. Eric Scheie · December 23, 2004 02:00 PM So what will be the legal status of cloned humans? Pets are property. Would a clone have tha t status? Ric · December 23, 2004 02:10 PM Computers, automobiles, telephones, indoor plumbing, just about all of the inventions we take for granted today were once available only to the wealthy. The rich do us all a big favor by being the first to buy and try out new inventions. That's good. The rich are good. They either earned their wealth through free enterprise or inherited it from those who earned it and chose to bequeathe it to them. As a young conservative once said back in my high school days: "Capitalism is God's fulfillment, the only just way to live." The great architect Ralph Adams Cram, who designed the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, once wrote: "Inequality is the first law written in the Book of Man." I have had it with envy-eaten socialists and egalitarians who want to drag us all down to their level, make us all the same. I have had it with Political Correctness. Merry Christ's Mass, 2004 Anno Domini! Steven Malcolm Anderson (Cato theElder) the Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist · December 23, 2004 03:58 PM The main reason I am not against cloning is that research increases the chances of partial cloning— that is, cloning parts rather than whole beings. It is definitely immoral to create a clone just for parts, but I can't see cloning a compatible heart for a child as immoral. And though it seems stupid to me to spend $50,000 on a genetic clone for a pet, it's not my money, and moreover, that money is funding the research that might lead to new skin for burn victims, or kidneys for those on dialysis. B. Durbin · December 23, 2004 04:43 PM Pets are property Not in the People's Republic of Santa Monica. Darleen · December 23, 2004 04:45 PM Why does this remind me of the [failed] Campaign Finance Reform Bill, also bringing up Thomas Sowell's definition of Economics as the study of the allocation of scarce resources which have competing uses? Who has the temerity to say where the resources or speech should go? Especially when their free use creates Wealth. I agree with Cato the Elder, also my Elder. The rich are good, capitalism is good, technology is good, and the market rules. I am its humble subject. J. Peden · December 23, 2004 07:18 PM eh. I agree with Magnus' opinion - 'problematic and reprehensible.' I would be against legislation that outlaws it. Cops have enough actual work already and anyway, except where actual harm is being done, a good government honors God's first and best gift to mankind - free will. But you will permit me, I hope, to sneer at anyone so shallow, thoughtless and just plain tacky as to clone their pet. One more BUT! Is 'Savings and Clone' really the name of the place? Too funny. Persnickety · December 25, 2004 06:45 AM "What's the "morally correct" price, anyway?" A $1.25 and they toss in a case of cat food? ;) Mark me in the "Really don't care one way or another" column on this. I *probably* wouldn't avail myself of the technology to clone a pet... but I might. Either way, my interest in the opinions of Pro-it or Con-it moralists varies between slim and nil on anything I decide I have good reasons for doing. Now... recreating extinct animals I could get behind. That "once-in-a-lifetime Titantothere Hunt in Montana" could be fun. ;) Ironbear · December 26, 2004 01:59 AM |
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Whoa, chill out, dude(s) -- the "moralists" were just criticizing the actions of another person, more level-headedly than you criticize theirs, and you just admitted that you share almost all of their objections to the act in question. So what's the problem?