I strongly believe in the idea that there is only one “you” and that even though the West Coast clone generated by the teletransporter would resemble you on the East Coast, there are still two consciousnesses involved. In this paper I will argue that identity is unique to every person, regardless of his or her appearance, actions, or mental being. To correlate my opinion on identity and cloning, I relate it to a key: when a duplicate of a key is made, the second key will serve the exact same purpose as the original key and they might even be mistaken for each other from time to time, however, in the end, the second key is never anything more than a copy, even if the first key has been lost or destroyed. Due to my view on identity, I have derived …show more content…
I support the notion that our experiences are what makes us who we are and shapes the person our future selves will be. It is challenging to claim that both the West Coast being and East Coast being are the same if they are experiencing different things due to their environmental variances. Since we are products of our experiences, the different circumstances that the West Coast and East Coast persons are put in would result in dissimilar memories and may produce skewed thoughts, opinions, and actions that contrast the other person’s. The moment the West Coast person is created, they become their own being because they are experiencing something completely different from the person on the East Coast at that particular moment. Despite starting off with the same mental basis at the time of creation as the East Coast person, the being on the West Coast is immediately shaped in a different way by their experiences on the West Coast, which leads to the conclusion that both beings cannot be the same if they are experiencing different
In “Jennifer and Rachel,” Lee M. Silver argues that reproductive cloning deems permissible to those who encourage it, as opposed to those who reject it and don’t want to run the risk of how they’ll look in the eyes of society. Jennifer, an independent career driven woman, believes that the best way to have a baby of her own at her age is by cloning. Silver’s description of the cloning procedure is done by retrieving cells from the willing adult; prepare the cells for merging to unfertilized eggs, and then the embryos that develop successfully will be introduced to the uterus of the willing adult. Jennifer partakes in the cloning procedure and it was successful. Nine months later on March 15, 2050, Rachel was born.
In other words, the identical replica is exactly ourselves. If we imagine a person who looks exactly like ourselves introducing himself/herself in the way that we normally do, same name, same words, same gestures and same body languages, we probably will be annoyed simply because they are not us. A cloning man will never replace the original person. Each of the views above are undesirable to define personal identity. It would become more desirable if we draw a connection between body and mind, which is named brain. Brain is where thoughts and emotions form and take place, it is also the most crucial organ which controls every single muscle on human body and every bit of sensation. Therefore, we can say that brain is interactive with both body and mind. Linking back to the concept of personal identity, the idea of persons are identical with brains connect Weirob’s and Cohen’s view since the interaction between the three.
What is it that determines what a person is to become? Is it our genetic makeup or is it our environment – the sum of our experiences that brings our personalities upon us? In the short, loosely autobiographical story; ‘The Half-husky’ the author; Margaret Laurence, gives her say on this. Harvey’s attitude and personality correspond with his environment; Vanessa’s attitude is in tandem with her environment, and Nanuk has both a loving and a savage side. Is this simply his nature or is it the sum of his experiences? Margaret Laurence is suggesting that it is our experiences – the environment we live in – that determine what we are to become.
The question of personal identity is very intuitive, yet very difficult to define. Essentially, what makes you, you? John Locke was one philosopher who attempted to answer this question. He proposed a psychological theory to define personal identity. His theory does have some merit, but it is not a correct definition of personal identity, since there are some counter-examples that cannot be accounted for. My argument will prove that Locke’s theory of personal identity is false.
... eventually leads us to become who we do in life, I also believe that our environment plays a significant role as well. In life we have choices, it is up to us to decide which paths we will walk in life. As long as we have decisional capacity, then it doesn’t matter to whom or what environment we are born in.
If it be possible for the same man to have a distinct incommunicable consciousness at different times, it is past doubt the same Man would at different times make different Persons. (II. xxvii. 20)
In his 1971 paper “Personal Identity”, Derek Parfit posits that it is possible and indeed desirable to free important questions from presuppositions about personal identity without losing all that matter. In working out how to do so, Parfit comes to the conclusion that “the question of identity has no importance” (Parfit, 1971, p. 4.2:3). In this essay, I will attempt to show that Parfit’s thesis is a valid one, with positive implications for human behaviour. The first section of the essay will examine the thesis in further detail, and the second will assess how Parfit’s claims fare in the face of criticism. Problems of personal identity generally involve questions about what makes one the person one is and what it takes for the same person to exist at separate times (Olson, 2010).
Personal identity, in the context of philosophy, does not attempt to address clichéd, qualitative questions of what makes us us. Instead, personal identity refers to numerical identity or sameness over time. For example, identical twins appear to be exactly alike, but their qualitative likeness in appearance does not make them the same person; each twin, instead, has one and only one identity – a numerical identity. As such, philosophers studying personal identity focus on questions of what has to persist for an individual to keep his or her numerical identity over time and of what the pronoun “I” refers to when an individual uses it. Over the years, theories of personal identity have been established to answer these very questions, but the
Imagine a world where everyone looked like you and was related to you as a sibling, cousin, or any form of relation, wouldn’t that be freaky? Although cloning is not an important issue presently, it could potentially replace sexual reproduction as our method of producing children. Cloning is a dangerous possibility because it could lead to an over-emphasis on the importance of the genotype, no guaranteed live births, and present risks to both the cloned child and surrogate mother. It also violates the biological parent-child relationship and can cause the destruction of the normal structure of a family. The cloning of the deceased is another problem with cloning because it displays the inability of the parents to accept the child’s death and does not ensure a successful procedure. Along with the risks, there are benefits to Human Reproductive Cloning. It allows couples who cannot have a baby otherwise to enjoy parenthood and have a child who is directly related to them. It also limits the risk of transmitting genetic diseases to the cloned child and the risk of genetic defects in the cloned child. Although the government has banned Human Reproductive Cloning, the issue will eventually come to the surface and force us to consider the 1st commandment of God, all men are equal in the eyes of god, but does this also include clones? That is the question that we must answer in the near future in order to resolve a controversy that has plagued us for many years.
What is personal identity? This question has been asked and debated by philosophers for centuries. The problem of personal identity is determining what conditions and qualities are necessary and sufficient for a person to exist as the same being at one time as another. Some think personal identity is physical, taking a materialistic perspective believing that bodily continuity or physicality is what makes a person a person with the view that even mental things are caused by some kind of physical occurrence. Others take a more idealist approach with the belief that mental continuity is the sole factor in establishing personal identity holding that physical things are just reflections of the mind. One more perspective on personal identity and the one I will attempt to explain and defend in this paper is that personal identity requires both physical and psychological continuity; my argument is as follows:
Not so far in the future, a young boy of the age of six, dying a heart-wrenching death, will only be able survive with a bone marrow transplant. His parents will have searched near and far for a match, but none will come to their aid. The only possible way that they can produce a perfect match for their son's bone marrow is to clone their son. Unfortunately, at this time this topic is still being discussed and debated upon with the government. Their only child that has been their treasure for six years might die. A clone of their son becomes their apple of aspiration to keep the treasure from being buried.
Cloning is a process in which a sequence of DNA is copied. This process happens both naturally, as in identical twins, and can also be created in a lab (Devolder, 2013). The lab created cloning has generated many questions on whether or not it is an ethical practice. This paper will explore what consequentialist, deontological and virtue ethicists’ views are for the moral dilemma of cloning.
The problem of personal identity is difficult to solve, especially since there is ambiguity in the terms. Identity may mean the same person or how one sees oneself. Anyhow, philosophers wish to assess this issue and find a suitable explanation, one motivation being responsibility. Humans will hold others responsible for acts such as murder, theft, and fraud. However, the person who will face the consequences must be the one who truly committed the wrongful act. A second motivation is interest in the future. An individual may become concerned or excited for an event that will occur in the future. Surely, these emotions entail that they will be the same person once that event occurs. The last motivation for resolving personal identity is immortality; basically, what will connect a person to whatever lives on after their physical death. Something can be identical in two ways: quantitatively or qualitatively. To be quantitatively identical is to be numerically identical, and to be qualitatively identical is to share exact qualities. There are two criterions on which personal identity is based, but the most important is the metaphysical criterion, which attempts to explain “being” or existence, without the necessity of physical evidence ...
Humans are born with a set of pre determined genetic make-up that acts as our hand of cards. But during the first stage of life we are heavily influenced by the moments we experience. The making of person we become later down the road begins the moment we enter the world. We are all a collection of our experiences.
This dialogue is between two students at the university. Steve is a little uncomfortable about cloning, while Sally presents many valid arguments in favor of it. Steve presents many moral questions that Sally answers.