new dog: old tricks

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This article was downloaded by: [The Aga Khan University] On: 09 October 2014, At: 20:14 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/haaw20 New Dog: Old Tricks Mark Greene Published online: 04 Jun 2010. To cite this article: Mark Greene (2002) New Dog: Old Tricks, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 5:3, 239-242, DOI: 10.1207/S15327604JAWS0503_09 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S15327604JAWS0503_09 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,

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Page 1: New Dog: Old Tricks

This article was downloaded by: [The Aga Khan University]On: 09 October 2014, At: 20:14Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

Journal of Applied AnimalWelfare SciencePublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/haaw20

New Dog: Old TricksMark GreenePublished online: 04 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Mark Greene (2002) New Dog: Old Tricks, Journal of AppliedAnimal Welfare Science, 5:3, 239-242, DOI: 10.1207/S15327604JAWS0503_09

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S15327604JAWS0503_09

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and viewsexpressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of theContent should not be relied upon and should be independently verified withprimary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for anylosses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of theContent.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,

Page 2: New Dog: Old Tricks

sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone isexpressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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New Dog: Old Tricks

Mark GreeneDepartment of Philosophy

Stanford University

With the birth, on December 22, 2001, of CC, the first kitten cloned from thecells of an adult cat, Genetic Savings & Clone (GSC) reached a very newswor-thy milestone in its progress toward commercial cloning of companion animals.When biotechnology meets the headlines, the story holds both scientific and eth-ical fascination. Recognizing the ethical dimension of its work, GSC has estab-lished a code of ethical practice (outlined by Hawthorne, 2002/this issue) towhich all its employees are contractually bound. In this article I will examine thestrategy underlying that code of ethics.

Hawthorne (2002/this issue) describes an overwhelming response to news ofGSC’s project, a response that clearly indicates the enthusiasm with which manypeople would greet the opportunity to clone a beloved companion. Cloning mayoffer companion animal caregivers (pet owners) a way to increase their chances ofsecuring a new dog or cat with physical and behavioral qualities similar to those ofa much-loved companion of many years.

However, cloning is not a technology of reincarnation. Cloning does not buyimmortality; it is not cheating death. Cloning is no more a way to extend the life ofan individual animal than having a genetically identical twin is a way for one indi-vidual to live two lives simultaneously—twins are distinct individuals, and so areclones. Even so, the desire to find a close match for an old animal friend is easy tounderstand. It also is easy to understand the opposite feeling. Many devoted catand dog owners express vehement opposition to the idea of replacing their currentcompanion with a clone. However, there is no ethically legitimate move from “Idon’t want X,” directly to “X is wrong and others should be denied access to X.”GSC need not defend itself against simple preferences, regardless of the evangeli-cal passion with which such preferences are held. The burden is on objectors to

JOURNAL OF APPLIED ANIMAL WELFARE SCIENCE, 5(3), 239–242Copyright © 2002, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Mark Greene, Department of Philosophy, Stanford Univer-sity, Stanford, CA 94305–2155. E-mail: [email protected]

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cloning to give ethically defensible reasons why GSC should not continue to pur-sue its scientific and commercial aims. That said, GSC should certainly be alert toethical objections that are raised and it is right to consider the ethical aspects of theproject from the start.

Hawthorne (2002/this issue) appears to indicate that GSC ignores what heterms “abstract ethical questions” (p. 228) in favor of a “more pragmatic” (p. 228)ethical focus. This pragmatic focus is distilled in Hawthorne’s question, “Are weincreasing or decreasing the suffering of animals?” (pp. 228–229). To those whofeel uneasy at the prospect of cloning, this may seem more of a high-handedbrush-off than a satisfactory response to their disquiet. The worry is this: GSC’spragmatic ethical focus looks only at whether its work will lead to better or worseoverall outcomes with regard to animal welfare. This constitutes a full ethical de-fense of GSC’s program only if an examination of welfare consequences exhaustsall the ethically relevant features of commercial cloning. However, denial ofconsequentialism is plausible. For example, few people would commend the kill-ing of a healthy person, even if that meant that organs could be harvested and usedto save the lives of three other people. Overall, welfare may be maximized if onedies instead of three, but this only highlights the fact that most people do not seeappeal to consequences as closing the moral debate. In looking only at welfare out-comes, GSC relies on a purely consequentialist defense leaving itself with nothingto say to critics who charge that satisfying the fancy of a few wealthy dog and catowners does not justify cloning as a means.

Nevertheless, GSC’s consequentialist approach is defensible as a first move inan ongoing debate. Although an accounting of overall welfare benefits may notcapture all the ethically salient features of a situation, such benefits do matter mor-ally for nonconsequentialists as well as for consequentialists. If GSC can show thatcommercial cloning is reasonably expected to produce an overall welfare benefitto the animals involved, or at least to do no net harm, then this constitutes a primafacie ethical defense. A critic either must argue that GSC’s code of ethics fails tosecure good consequences overall or must show how some other feature of the pro-ject makes it ethically suspect—despite good welfare outcomes. It is worth think-ing about how GSC’s basic ethical strategy might be used to develop responses toboth kinds of challenge.

Challenges of the first kind, those questioning whether the overall conse-quences will be acceptable, are essentially empirical issues. GSC attempts to iden-tify potential direct and indirect welfare issues arising from the project and toestablish a fairly cautious code of practice that will address those issues. However,the final test of its pragmatic ethical code will be whether the project promotes orsets back overall welfare. It is, therefore, a notable failing of GSC’s code of ethicsthat, although it stresses pragmatic welfare outcomes, it contains no provision ei-ther for monitoring those outcomes specifically addressed in the code or for at-tending to unforeseen welfare developments as they arise. To pick one example, if

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cloned animals are used for breeding purposes, there may be welfare issues a gen-eration or more removed from GSC’s direct involvement. There is no claim herethat the offspring of cloned animals will inevitably suffer higher rates of geneticabnormalities or that the cloning of breeding animals is sure to impact on the genepool of a breed with resulting deleterious welfare effects. The point is simply thatnot all possible problems associated with an emerging technology can be predictedand addressed in advance. It is important, therefore, that GSC be as alert and re-sponsive to new and sometimes surprising developments in its ethical codes ofpractice as it is in its scientific protocols.

Despite the concerns just sketched, GSC’s underlying ethical strategy, as ex-hibited in Hawthorne’s (2002/this issue) article, can be extended to respond to un-anticipated empirical developments. It is even possible to glean the likely form of aresponse to the second kind of challenge—that from the nonconsequentialist withmoral qualms about cloning as a means to indulge the whims of some animal lov-ers. That strategy is, in effect, to teach a new dog old tricks.

GSC takes welfare concerns arising from brand new biotechnology and arguesthat the issues actually are quite familiar. The treatment of research animals, theproblem of unwanted pets, and the balancing of genetic diversity against the de-mands of selective breeding programs are all issues that predate commercial clon-ing of animals. They also are all issues on which, although there is not universalmoral agreement, there is at least a reasonably settled set of practices. By setting itswelfare standards with reference to “the highest values within the relative contextsof pet and livestock breeding [italics added]” (Hawthorne, 2002/this issue, p. 228),GSC ensures that general societal disapproval of its project would be inconsistentwith our acceptance of current practice. This strategy is a powerful one, and its ef-fectiveness is not limited to pragmatic ethical concerns.

Often, nonconsequentialist points of ethical principle may be addressed by ex-hibiting ethical symmetries between troubling new technologies and familiar ac-cepted practices. A dairy farmer once objected to me that embryo transfer wasmorally suspect because of its unnaturalness (a charge often leveled against clon-ing) but revised her opposition when reminded that the routine use of artificial in-semination in her herd, although commonplace in the dairy industry, could hardlybe viewed as enthusiastic cooperation with the natural order.

Although these sketches of GSC’s underlying ethical strategy do not resolveany specific issues, they do illustrate how the strategy operates and how it might beextended to ethical debates reaching beyond a consequentialist weighing of wel-fare outcomes. The strategy works against a background of accepted practice andresponds to critics by showing how supposedly new moral developments actuallyparallel familiar practices of which the critic approves. The strategy directs argu-ment against the opponent rather than directly addressing the moral issue.

Such ad hominem arguments have their virtues inasmuch as they legitimatelychallenge critics to be consistent, either by dropping their condemnation of the clon-

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ing project or by rethinking their acceptance of those existing practices that are simi-lar to cloning in all their ethically relevant features. However, ad hominemargumentativestrategiesalsoareprone to theviceofmerelyshuttingcriticsupratherthan answering them. When the strategy is successful, it reveals conflicts in themoraloutlookofsomecritics. It remains tobearguedwhether thosecriticsshouldre-solve the conflict by dropping their opposition to cloning or by being more critical ofthe current welfare standards and practices that guide our present use of animals.

REFERENCES

Hawthorne, L. (2002). A project to clone companion animals. Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Sci-ence, 5, 227–229.

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