Introduction
People face ethical dilemmas on numerous occasions, and it is always difficult to find a proper approach to them. The current paper will address two situations involving ethical dilemmas, namely, the one about John Doe and his clone and the other about Joe and Marry, who consider using an IVF procedure. Each of the situations has different ethical paths of conduct and presents an interesting case for assessing it from the emotivism perspective.
John Doe and Cloning Case
For John Doe, who desires to clone himself and thus raise a child who will be identical to him, the ethical path of conduct is for him to avoid engaging in such an activity. There are two major arguments against the process of human cloning, which are the unsafe nature of the procedure and the psychological trauma for the clone. As mentioned in the case, the cloning procedure Mr. Doe wants to attempt to undergo is new, which means that there are no guarantees that the embryo will survive. The procedure will also constitute an example of forced experiments performed on humans, which have been banned since the fall of Nazi Germany due to their complete immorality (Gebeyehu, 2018). As a result, in the case of the embryo’s death, the doctor will be considered a murderer.
Moreover, even if the procedure goes according to plan and the embryo manages to develop into a child and then into an adult, such a person risks encountering considerable psychological problems with their identity. The person may suffer mentally due to not being a unique individual but simply a copy. Therefore, the ethical path of conduct for John Doe is not to conduct the cloning procedure because, thus, he will not commit a crime or enable doctors to do it. Additionally, John Doe will not subject his twin child to potential mental suffering and psychological trauma, which may arise if the cloned person becomes concerned about not being born but rather created in vitro.
The statement that not cloning humans is an ethical form of conduct can be considered from the perspective of emotivism as a way to persuade people that they should avoid cloning. Essentially, emotivism is a view that promotes the idea that any kind of moral utterance or language does not simply state a fact but merely encourages people to espouse a certain belief (Rachels & Rachels, 2019). Similarly, when a person states that some activity is immoral, they simply want to tell others not to engage in it. Thus, by saying that avoiding cloning is morally right, one ultimately orders other people not to perform cloning.
John and Mary Case
The ethical path of conduct for Joe and Mary, who consider having a child with the help of IVF after becoming sterile and losing their first child, is to avoid conducting the procedure. There are once again two arguments in support of discarding the option of IVF, namely, the couple’s religious beliefs and potential health complications for the child. First of all, Joe and Marry are religious people, and if any kind of in-vitro fertilization is prohibited by their faith, then they should not commit a sinful act.
It is clear that their beliefs are based on certain religious decrees and the desire to be pious in order to observe all dogmas of their faith. Therefore, Joe and Mary can follow the divine command theory, which claims that the morality of actions depends on whether od approves of them (Rachels & Rachels, 2019). In the case of IVF, such a procedure is prohibited according to Joe and Mary’s religion which means that they must not engage in it.
Additionally, even if the couple manages to have a child with the help of IVF, there is always a risk that the newborn will have health complications. The first child of Joe and Mary died of a rare disease, and there is a possibility that it may happen again to their newborn. According to statistics, the absolute majority of rare diseases are genetic and hereditary, meaning that one of the parents can carry genes causing the condition to occur (Maroilley & Tarailo-Graovac, 2019).
Thus, there is a significant chance that the couple will have another child with a disease. Therefore, choosing to have a child anyway using IVF would be morally wrong because Joe and Mary would potentially subject their child to physical suffering.
Nevertheless, if viewed from the perspective of emotivism, calling the decision not to engage in IVF, a moral act can be considered simply a persuasion not to perform the procedure. In other words, although avoiding IVF both eliminates the possibility of the couple having another child with a rare disease claiming that it is ethical is a subjective statement. Thus, if the couple decides to embrace emotivism, they can disregard the opinion that canceling the IVF option is moral as an attempt to influence their behavior.
Conclusion
An analysis of the two cases assessed in the current paper involving John and Joe and Marry shows that the ethical decisions in both cases would be to avoid using medical procedures. John would be morally correct if he did not perform cloning of himself since it would constitute a forced human experiment and would lead to psychological trauma to the clone. Joe and Marry’s ethical conduct would involve avoiding IVF as a way to follow their religious beliefs and prevent any health complications for the newborn.
References
Gebeyehu, R. (2018). Sacrificing the poor to heal the wealthy: The reality of clinical trials conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa. Stanford Journal of Public Health, 7, 7–11.
Maroilley, T., & Tarailo-Graovac, M. (2019). Uncovering missing heritability in rare diseases. Genes, 10(4), 1–19. Web.
Rachels, S., & Rachels, J. (2019). The elements of moral philosophy (9th ed.). Mcgraw-Hill Education.