Clones, Genes and Faustian Technology

What is morally inappropriate, Robert Richards asks, about human cloning? Richards, a professor of history, philosophy and psychology at the University of Chicago, sorts through many of the objections raised to reproductive cloning and finds them unconvincing or simply inadequate. He admits that fears about scientific interference with reproduction are widespread--the argument goes back at least as far as Goethe's Faust and later, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World--but Richards cites other technologies, including in vitro fertilization, which were once viewed as 'unnatural' but have since become widely accepted. Using this and other examples, Richards questions whether trepidation over the possibility of cloning is really justified.Copyright 2002 The University of Chicago.