PHI 2396 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Consequentialism, Fetus, Sentience

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHI 2396
• Professor: Iva Apostolova

Document Summary

Thesis: the prospect of human cloning is revoling. Yes, revulsion is a feeling, not a raional aitude, but in crucial cases, revulsion is the emoional bearer of deep wisdom, beyond reasons power to fully ariculate it. The reason why we feel revulsion toward cloning is not because it"s a new and strange technology but because we intuit immediately and without an argument, the violaion of things we consider important to us. Four objecions to cloning: the ethics of experimentaion: cloning is an unethical experiment upon the child-to- be/clone. One cannot presume the future clone"s consent to exist. It leads to deformiies, as experiments have shown: idenity and individuality: cloning entails serious psychological issues concerning idenity for the clone: The clone may be disturbed by the fact that his/her twin will actually be his/her father/mother, son/daughter; The clone will always be compared to the original both by the parents (why did they create him/her otherwise?) and by society;