Virtue Ethicists
Cloning is an example that demonstrates why morality without rules might be attractive. The attractiveness of cloning and bioengineering as well as genetic enhancement is due to the fact that there are no rules that govern parents from having children with physical characteristics that they like (Sander, 12). There is no question about the morality in an infertile couple seeking to have children. The exciting part is that they get the opportunity to decide on the sex of their child, their physical traits such as eye and hair color and height among others.
Researchers, on the other hand, are also excited about the genetic engineering process. Though there are policies that govern cloning and bioengineering, they allow people the freedom of deciding what they want when it comes to their offspring. Researchers, therefore, carry out more studies on how they can eliminate the negative effects of cloning and bio-engineering. The morality of wanting to have children who are ‘superhuman’ is not questionable. It is made attractive by the fact that its attainable.
Researchers in partnership with willing parents can now produce human beings who have high intellectual capacities or have traits that befit various sporting activities such as basketball. Naturally, people choose their friends and spouses based on their attractiveness (Sander, 11). It is important to note that the love of a parent to the child is not based on how gifted or attractive the child is. However, it is the responsibility of the parent to promote their child’s excellence (Sander, 11). Therefore, considering methods that could enhance excellence in their life is attainable by cloning and bio engineering. It can therefore be fine to consider applying this scientific technology for the sake of our children. This is in consideration that a person will need to be advanced intellectually in the coming generation that will be comprised of cloned humans.
Explain the reasons a virtue ethicist would give for finding morality without rulesattractive in this example.
A virtue ethicist would appreciate the benefits of cloning and bio engineering and give the benefits of this technology; namely, bringing enhancement to humanity and how it sparks imagination as a reason for finding morality. However, the virtue ethicist would be concerned about the health issues that would come with this technology and therefore give this as a reason for morality without rules. This is because the lack of policies means that people seem to ‘have fun’ while going on with their business of joining hands to form a cloned human being.
At the same time, he/she would be wary of the aspect of humanity gaining too much influence or very little choice about the evolution and destiny of human beings. The virtue ethicist would be concerned about the cloning of a child becoming the norm of the day, yet the health issues would still be a concern. This is clearly showed by the cloning of Dolly the sheep and how she died from health complications (Sandel, 1). As a matter of fact, she did not live long. This would only mean that the cloned human beings would suffer a short life owing to health complications of a similar nature.
A virtue ethicist would appreciate the freedom in this process though they would be concerned about the new society that would emerge from the numerous numbers of cloned human beings. He/she would, therefore, give the concerns of health issues that come with cloning and bio engineering as a reason for finding morality without rules attractive. He/she would also give the reason of the benefits for doing more research to enhance better human quality when it comes to cloning.
Works Cited
Sandel, M. “The case against perfection” The Atlantic, April. 2004: !-22. Print.
