Life, but not as we know it

摘要

In the contemporary debate over the ethics of biotechnology, we hear continually that "human dignity" is under threat from science. The Council of Europe has passed a human cloning protocol, for example, which states: "The instrumentalisation of human beings through the deliberate creation of genetically identical human beings is contrary to human dignity and thus constitutes a misuse of medicine and biology." Human dignity is one of those concepts that politicians like to throw around, but which few can either define or explain. The concern of politicians to defend human dignity is understandable, since the demand for equal recognition of the dignity of all members of the human species is the dominant political passion of our time. Even a hint that one could exclude any group of people from the charmed circle of those deserving recognition of their human dignity on the basis of race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or virtually any other characteristic is guaranteed to bring obloquy on the head of any politician who proposes it.