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Ethics and the Collective

“The moment I make an exception for myself, ethics are violated.”

 

In the IPCC IS-92a scenario, adopted in the Kyoto Protocol, the world population in 2100 is estimated to vary between 7 and 15 billion people, projecting an increase in greenhouse gas emissions both at the maximum materialization of the economy and at its maximum dematerialization.  The world is heading towards poverty.

In 1997, a top-secret study by Ian Wilmut of the Roslin Institute (Scotland) led to Dolly the sheep.

Yes, there is a very strong component of playing God; but is that where the problem fundamentally lies?

Obviously, the fact that the public only knows the result of the experiment; that there has been no debate on the ethics of cloning organisms in the laboratory; the consequences of such initiatives, which begin with eugenics and end with Nazism, are beyond reprehensible.  There is, however, a very important debate that concerns the eternal relationship between the ego and the collective.

I'm going to throw this garbage right here, so much, it's just me... I'm going to buy this big car that uses a billion liters of gasoline, but that's life, few have the money for that much and I do... I'm going to have a child; so much so that since Malthus there has been a theory that there are too many people on the planet and that in 1773...

And if that's not enough, let's clone.

Is that okay?  Did the boys from Brazil really exist, or was it just another Nazi craze?

The fundamental question here is genetic identity.  Does cloning destroy individuality?  If so, the problem is solved and we stop here.  If not, it remains to be seen how the homo will receive and deal with the being cloned.  Will there be enough biological understanding to treat it (he? she? they?) as... what?  Will we be able to reach a level of empathy that will allow us to respect the absence of the singularity without destroying the individuality that will guarantee autonomy?

I think all of these questions clearly contain the human answer.

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