think that Kitcher’s case seriously clouds one’s thinking about this general type of case. Let us suppose, instead, then – as in the non‐cloning case to be mentioned later – that the cloned child will instead be the source for a bone marrow transfer that will save the life of a sibling who would otherwise die from leukemia.
In such a case, would there be a violation of Kant's injunction? There could be – if the parents abandoned, or did not really care for the one child, once he or she had provided bone marrow to save the life of the other child. This, however, would surely be a very unlikely occurrence. After all, the history of the human race is the history of largely unplanned children, often born into situations where the parents are anything but well off, and yet typically those children are deeply loved by their parents.
In short, though this type of case is by hypothesis one where the parents have a child with a goal in mind that, in itself, has nothing to do with the well‐being of that child, this is no reason for supposing that they are therefore likely to treat that child merely as a means, and not also as an end in itself. Indeed, surely there is good reason to think, on the contrary, that such a child will be raised in no less loving a way than is normally the case.
3.1.5 Interfering with personal autonomy
The final objection – also advanced by Philip Kitcher – is as follows: “If the cloning of human beings is undertaken in the hope of generating a particular kind of person, then cloning is morally repugnant. The repugnance arises not because cloning involves biological tinkering but because it interferes with human autonomy” (1997, 61).
What is one to say about this objection? First, notice that where one's goal is to produce “a particular kind of person,” what one is sometimes aiming at is simply a person who will have certain potentialities. Parents might, for example, want to have children who would be capable of enjoying intellectual pursuits, or who could enjoy classical music, or the playing of instruments, or who could, if they so chose, excel at various physical activities, such as golf or skiing. The parents would not be forcing the children to engage in such pursuits, so it is hard to see how cloning that is directed at such goals need involve any interference with human autonomy.
Secondly, consider cases where the goal is not to produce a person capable of doing certain things, but a certain sort of person. Perhaps this is the kind of case that Kitcher has in mind when he speaks of interfering with human autonomy. But is it really morally problematic to attempt to create persons with certain dispositions, rather than others? Is it morally wrong, for example, to attempt to produce, via cloning, individuals who will, because of their genetic makeup, be disposed not to suffer from conditions that may cause considerable pain, such as arthritis, or from life‐threatening diseases, such as cancer, high blood pressure, strokes, and heart attacks? Or to attempt to produce individuals who will have a cheerful temperament, or who will not be disposed to depression, to anxiety, to schizophrenia, or to Alzheimer's disease?
It seems unlikely that Kitcher, or others, would want to say that producing individuals who will be constitutionally disposed in the ways just indicated is a case of interfering with human autonomy. But then what are the traits such that attempting to create a person with those traits is a case of interfering with human autonomy? Perhaps Kitcher, when he speaks about creating a particular kind of person, is thinking not just of any properties that persons have, but, more narrowly, of such things as personality traits, or traits of character, or the having of certain interests? But again one can ask whether there is anything morally problematic about attempting to create persons with such properties. Some personality traits are desirable, and parents typically encourage their children to develop those traits. Some character traits are virtues, and others are vices, and both parents and society attempt to encourage the acquisition of the former, and to discourage the acquisition of the latter. Finally, many interests – in music, art, mathematics, science, games, physical activities – can add greatly to the quality of one's life, and once again, parents typically expose their children to relevant activities, and help their children to achieve levels of proficiency that will enable them to enjoy those pursuits.
The upshot is that if cloning that aimed at producing people who would be more likely to possess various personality traits, or traits of character, or who would be likely to have certain interests was wrong because it would be interfering with personal autonomy, then the childrearing practices of almost all parents would stand condemned on precisely the same grounds. But such a claim, surely, is deeply counterintuitive.
In addition, however, one need not rest content with an appeal to intuitions here. The same conclusion follows on many high‐order moral theories. Suppose, for example, that one is again behind a Rawlsian veil of ignorance, where one is deciding between societies that differ as regards their approaches to the rearing of children. Would it be rational to choose a society where parents did not attempt to encourage their children to develop personality traits that would contribute to the latter's happiness? Or a society where parents did not attempt to instill in their children a disposition to act in ways that are morally right? Or one where parents made no attempt to develop various interests in their children that they believed would add to their lives? It is, I suggest, hard to see how such a choice could be a rational one, given that one would be opting, it would seem, for a society where one would be less likely to have a life that, on average, would be more worth living.
I suggest, therefore, that contrary to what Philip Kitcher has claimed, it is not true that most cloning scenarios are morally repugnant, and that, in particular, there is, in general, nothing morally problematic about aiming at creating a child with specific attributes.
3.2 Consequentialist objections to cloning to produce persons
Let us now turn to the question of whether cloning that aims at the production of neo‐Lockean persons might nevertheless be morally problematic because of undesirable consequences. I shall consider two arguments in support of this view.
3.2.1 Cloned persons would have lives less worth living because of reduced life expectancy
The first argument, and the one that raises a very important issue, deserving serious consideration, involves the question of how cloned individuals will fare when it comes to aging, since it has been suggested that Dolly, who died at the age of six years, may have had a significantly reduced life expectancy by having been developed from the nucleus of a six‐year‐old sheep. Here is the basis of the worry:
As early as the 1930s investigators took note of pieces of noncoding DNA – DNA that does not give rise to protein – at the ends of each chromosome, which they called telomeres (from the Greek words for “end” and “part”). When the differentiated cells of higher organisms undergo mitosis, the ordinary process of cell division, not all of the DNA in their nuclei is replicated. The enzyme that copies DNA misses a small piece at the ends of each chromosome, and so the chromosomes get slightly shorter each time a cell divides. As long as each telomere remains to buffer its chromosome against the shortening process, mitosis does not bite into any genes (remember that the telomeres are noncoding, much like the leaders at the ends of a reel of film). Eventually, however, the telomeres get so short that they can no longer protect the vital parts of the chromosome. At that point the cell usually stops dividing and dies.
(Ronald Hart, Angelo Turturro, and Julian Leakey, 1997, 48)
The question, accordingly, is whether Dolly started life with cells whose chromosomes had telomeres whose length was comparable to those in the cells of a six‐year‐old sheep. Perhaps not, since it may be that once a nucleus has been transplanted into an egg from which the nucleus has been removed, there is some mechanism that will produce an enzyme – called telomerase – that can create full‐length telomeres. The risk, however, is surely a serious one, and provides grounds, in view of the following argument, for holding, not only that one should not at this point attempt to produce people by cloning, but also that there should be a temporary legal prohibition on cloning humans where the goal is to