I know that this issue is a hot potato in mainstream political thought, and handled in quite a hare brained alarmist way. Assume for argument’s sake we are several decades down the line and the technological issues have been mastered.
I was wondering what the libertarian position would be on a number of issues:
Do we have a right to clone other human beings without their consent, given that their genetic information is simply a piece of code, that is easily accessible and therefore information with which we can operate to produce a clone?
Do the same property rights we acribe to humans as actors apply to these clones as well, no matter how many are produced?
Does it conform with libertarian ethics to take a stem cell that has the potentiality to become a full human being, but to perturb its development hormonally such that it only becomes a liver let’s say?
DNA is information, and so I suppose the question of cloning someone’s DNA without their permission depends on your stance on IP rights… though even if you believe in IP, I would argue that nobody is the creator of their own DNA. Also, the fact that identical twins share the same DNA doesn’t make them plagiarists of each other.
On the rights of clones, I have always believed that the method of a person’s birth and the originality of their DNA is not what defines a human. A clone is a human being - it doesn’t matter that they aren’t the first ones to possess their DNA.
Finally, in regards to stem cells, I personally oppose embryonic stem cell research. Not every stem cell can potentially become a human being, and there is no need to use those that can when the question of their status as humans is in question. Is it worse to not destroy something that isn’t human, or to kill something that is? Until their status can be scientifically shown as nonhuman, I think stem cell usage should be limited to those found in non-embryonic sources.
Sharing someone’s DNA does not in any way mean that the same identity will be shared. Identical twins share DNA, but they grow up differently due to their different experiences.
Yes, assuming that they did not violate my rights to obtain my genetic code. I have the right to my physical DNA, but the information it represents isn’t my property. In other words, if they legitimately got a hold of it and wished to clone me without my consent, that’s their prerogative.
Yes. They are still humans in every sense of the word.
Yes. Potentiality to become a full human being is not the same as a full human being.
Interesting, I thought the answer would be no or perhaps not so trivial. For instance, let’s say the cell is an embryonic stem cell. This has the potentiality to become a full human being, just like a 3 month baby, or even a child just born, since the process takes place outside of the body to become what we may consider “acting man.”
If we typically defend the rights of children and babies to be free from aggresseionon in the sense that they have the potentiality, and will become acting human beings with a right to their property and selves, does this not extend to stem cells?
I think the argument may have to be delineated somewhat too with an understanding biology. I think past a certain stage cells may still be taken from a an embryo that could produce certain organs but tehy would not have the potentiality to become completely human. Here I would share your conclusion.
But is the issue settled based on the above for stem cells that can develop if not disturbed or removed from their habitat in a woman’s body?
Stranger is just an amoral entity who thinks that the universe is governed by ‘the science of economics’, a ‘science’ which deals with the price of potatoes and the price of children.
I didn’t see any insult - at best I used satire, though my description of Stranger and his ‘ideas’ is just factual. As to my position, it’s basically the same position Justin Spahr-Summers described.
I like Rothbard’s position, which if I remember correctly, is one every parent instinctively says at some point to their teenager. “As long as I am paying the bills, young person, I make the rules in this house.” He says this is exactly right. Hey if it was a guest staying in your house, you get to make the rules, right?
This is a slight variation on Stranger’s strange sounding thesis, maybe it’s what you mean, S.?
Why do we defend children? For the same reason we protect any human being. Not because of their potential to be adults, which sounds a bit off to me, but because they are here alive and deserve the same treatment any other human does.
As opposed to a stem cell, which I guess everyone will agree doesn’t have what used to be called a soul just yet.
Should we protect them because they will grow a soul if tended carefully? Dunno. A delicate q indeed. Anyone out there with the wisdom of Solomon who can convince us reasonably one way or the other?
Sorry but the reasoning so far just seems arbitrary, as much as I may want to agree, it seems these are really just based on conventional normative judgements rather than anything fundamental. This is why I have been skeptical of praxeological or libertarian “ethics”, though I do need to read Rothbard and others’ work on this before I think it would be fair to make a conclusion.
First, let me say that only the first part is Rothbard, about I pays the bills, I makes the rules. The rest is me, not parxeology and not libertarian ethics. Sorry if I was unclear about that.
As for what is a soul, that is of course an excellent question. Let me answer with an analogy. Say a five year old boy goes outside after it rains. He senses that something is different. He calls it a smell, that it smells like it just rained, but he feels it differently than as a smell, and knows that “smell” is not even close to precise or accurate. But just because he can’t pin down exactly what happened, does it mean he is wrong? Is his lack of scientific knowledge and lack of vocabulary a reason to dismiss what he says as nonsense? Of course not, especially if we feel it ourselves, too.
Which brings me to the topic of “soul”. It is a word used in the olden days to represent something that we all sense, that the atoms of a human being standing before us are somehow different than a clump of rocks or an animal. Lacking the knowledge of what it is exactly [which I presume we still don’t have yet], they invented a hypothesis of what it is and gave it a word. The hypothesis may be wrong, we may not have the words to describe it, but the phenomenon is nevertheless there.
2 - I don’t know what you would classify within “libertarian ethics”.
3 - What is arbritrary are theories that do not adhere to logical conclusions.
4 - I don’t know of one person that knows everything, in other words, has THE full theory, but what would entail a valid argument is when a theory or knowledge is void of known logical propositions pertaining to the same field.
5 - What don’t you know again? Or what are you wondering?
I guess it’s just that a lot of this stuff is epistemologically fuzzy, even though I agree with it in the sense that it is inescapable. Maybe it’s the ghost of the old positivist I used to be clawing back at me.
For example, we may deduce we act, since we any attempt to demonstrate we do not is a performative contradiction. Then upon reflection we may argue the scale and universality of what may be considered Human Action. Mises does this in HA. Then, accepting this as a general principle in accord with the laws of logic in the sense it is already implied whenever we perceive others and interact with them, and analyse their actions, we may pragmatically extend the sphere in which our analysis is valid.
But it still depends on these judgements what we consider human actors and the realm to which property rights are recognised. For instance, blacks in the past were not considered humans by European colonisers, and hence not granted the same rights. The changes to this were made ideologically, and we may perceive or guess that similiar considerations may occur should we encounter aliens or perhaps machine sentients; that is if the rules of logic and action would be universal to such “creatures.” At the moment this is metaphysical speculation.
My point I guess, is that beyond the aprioristic notion of how action and its rules for us can be deduced for ourselves for our own actions and thoughts of action; the epistemological grounds on which these principles can be applied in a more general sense rests on empirical considerations of understanding for lack of a better word.
it doesn’t seem to me, or at least by the responses to question 3 that a clear cut distinction can be made, between an actor in a human sense and that which may be considered property apart from that which may be considered the already existing social norms. You can contrast this with definite stages in biological development etc, with puberty, menopause etc.
Please forgive my ignorance. This is probably the area of Austro-libertarian thought I am the most weak on. Wasn’t Ethics of Liberty Rothbard’s attempt to justify or formulate libertarian ethics on praxeological grounds?