浅見昇吾
医学哲学医学倫理 17(17) 55-65 1999年10月
The birth of Dolly, a cloned lamb, shocked the whole world and triggered a worldwide dispute over the issue of cloning. Although there are many different approaches toward this matter, ethical ones are mainly considered here. Starting with rethinking why the news of Dolly was so shocking, I will make it clear that two kinds of cloning exist. Religious dimension will be argued after this by studying "Declaration in Defense of Cloning and the Integrity of Scientific Research, " which was signed by world-famous scholars. Marketing-related problems with human cloning also will be mentioned as a subject for our discussion. Following these considerations, the view of Dieter Zimmer in Germany, which is biological or biologistic, will be dissected into approvable and refutable parts. Then finally, the approach proposed by Jiirgen Habermas will be discussed, which brought ethical self-understanding into focus. It becomes obvious through examining these different approaches that both religious and marketing approaches are not so original with regard to the controversy over human cloning and have a tendency of being overwhelmed by 'normalization of new technologies, ' like previous procreative medical technologies. Although in Zimmer's biological approach there surely are some points worth considering, it as a whole is not theoretically strong enough. It is Habermas's ethical self-understanding or, so to speak, moral self-consciousness that is very unique as an ethical dimension on human cloning. There remain, however, several doubtful points; they therefore must be elucidated in order to reach a deeper understanding of human cloning on the philosophical and ethical level.