Eugenics, Cloning, and Morality

Daniel J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics (Knopf, 1985). Keyles traces the study and practice of eugenics the science of"improving" the human species by exploiting theories of heredity from its inception in the ate nineteenth century to its most recent manifestation within the field of genetic engineerring.

Leon R. Kass, "The Wisdom of Repugnance" (The New Republic,June2, 1997). In a detailed and often emotional argument against the cloning of humans, Kass contends thatbiotechnology has become a dehumanizing force in Our culture and blames our moral "complacency" of the field of bioethics. Regardless of your persuasion,this essay clearly formulates the position of those who oppose cloning people.

National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Report on Cloning Humans by NuclearTransplantation. The full report is posted on the NBAC homepage at .

Bernard Gert (editor), Morality and"the New Genetics (Jones and Bartlett, 1996). This collection of essays by; Dartmouth faculty shows how philosophical scan be useful in dealing with the mora! issues arising from the new genetics. My chapter" on the ethics of gene therapy includes a discussion of why I think that, while there is no ethical argument against the appropriate use of gene therapy, any technology that poses even a small possibility of causing great harm to many people cannot be justifiably to provide benefits to only a few. even if those benefits are great.