What Is Human Reproductive Cloning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

What Is Human Reproductive Cloning - Essay Example As the report declares the most prominent theoretical source of objections in the ‘deontological’ school of thought is the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, the German eighteenth-century thinker who stressed the ideas of ‘transcendental’ freedom and autonomy. To define his idea of the transcendental autonomy of human reason, Kant presented several formulations of what he called the ‘categorical imperative.’ This is the moral law that he thought people should obey without exceptions. The general idea and two specific formulations of this overarching rule, and see how they can (or cannot) be employed in objections to human reproductive cloning. This paper discusses that Kant’s first formulation, which is of more use, was â€Å"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law†. The definition of the goodness of genetic diversity does make some sense, but it does not support the Kantian objection to cloning. We can permit cloning in cases where people cannot have children by any other means without allowing it to become the only way of making babies – and without disturbing the human gene pool in any way. Besides, it could be argued that whatever accidental advantages the variety of genetic constitutions has had in the past could in the future be secured by considered genetic enhancements. The more Kantian way to proceed is to say that genetic diversity is good, because it is natural, or intrinsically linked with human reproduction.