Human Dignity and Bioethics

Dignity and Bioethics | 495
and the value that is merely conferred upon artifacts by human
attribution.
In one very serious sense, a human clone would be an artifact.
As such, it would have value only to the extent that value would be
conferred upon it by its artificers. If the clone were created and then
destroyed for research purposes, perhaps one could convince oneself
that what one had destroyed was not a member of the human natural
kind and therefore had no dignity. But if that clone were brought to
birth, one could not avoid confronting the artifact vs. natural kind
question. The scientist would stare the clone in the eye and say, “I
have created you.” The value of the clone would be artifactual, not
already given, commanding recognition and respect. An artifact’s
value is purely instrumental and attributed. Thus, the very notion
of intrinsic human dignity would be radically threatened. And with
it, our whole system of morality, founded upon respect for intrinsic
dignity, would be threatened.
In another sense, of course, a cloned human being brought to
birth would have intrinsic dignity. While born out of the natural
course, perhaps suffering from genetic disorders associated with that
manner of coming into being, the clone would still be a member of
the human natural kind. Clones are not created from scratch—from
a soup of nucleotides and DNA polymerase. Somatic cell nuclear
transfer depends on the pre-existence of members of the human natural
kind from which the clones would be derived. A human clone
brought to birth would be picked out as falling under the extension
of the human natural kind. While quite likely to be genetically defective,
such an individual would still have a developmental history
traceable back to a human embryo. Such an individual would still
obey most of the law-like generalizations that characterize the human
natural kind. Thus, such an individual would be a member of the human
natural kind and would still have intrinsic dignity.
Given the way in which the individual came into being, however,
the real and acute worry would be that this individual’s intrinsic
dignity would be open to question, because the individual might
be considered an artifact and not a member of a natural kind, and
might therefore be considered to have only attributed and not intrinsic
value. And when the intrinsic value (the intrinsic dignity) of any
member of the human natural kind is threatened, the moral system