Human cloning, why do we have an instinctive aversion to it?

Human cloning is a technology that creates individuals with identical genes, and our instinctive opposition to it stems from the perception that it undermines our dignity. Human dignity is necessary for survival and the maintenance of society, and human cloning is seen as a threat to this.

 

Human cloning is the creation of a human being with identical genes by cloning a zygote, or somatic cell, which is the state of cell division after the fertilization of a sperm and egg but before it develops into a fetus. In other words, it is the creation of another individual human being that is genetically identical to one human being. Imagine applying this technology to yourself. What would you think if there was a human being who looked, sounded, spoke, had fingerprints, and blood type exactly like you (assuming they were similar, though they may vary depending on the environment)? Our first instinct would be to reject it. I want to explain why this aversion to human cloning arises.
First, why do we have an aversion to human cloning? We would typically answer something like this “Because it violates our dignity!” But what is our dignity? In order to find out why there is opposition, we need to clarify what we mean by dignity. First, let’s look up the meaning of dignity. The encyclopedia defines human dignity as “the inherent right of an individual to be valued, respected, and treated ethically.” This means “who is worthy of dignity? This means that because humans are dignified, no one should kill them or treat them harshly, and that no matter how expensive something is, it cannot be compared to a human being. This dignity is expressed in the idea that human life is more expensive than anything else. Dignity is also mentioned in laws that are close to real life. Article 10 of the Constitution states, ‘Every citizen has the dignity and value of a human being,’ and human rights likewise derive from human dignity. However, these statements do not explain why human beings are dignified. Let’s discuss why human beings are dignified.
Why are human beings dignified? I have concluded that human beings should be dignified above all else. If a soldier in a war is wounded and abandoned without healing, who else will fight the war and who will protect the society? In everyday life, if we kill or harm someone we don’t like, we will have to live in a caveman-like society where we don’t know when we will die. Because society is a group of humans gathered to survive, to avoid an unstable and chaotic environment, humans are endowed with the attribute of dignity and are obligated to treat each other with dignity. The reason why humans are dignified is not because they have dignified attributes, but because we must treat them as dignified beings for our own survival and the maintenance of society.
Of course, you can argue against this based on less direct circumstances. For example, if trying to save a drowning person causes more people to die and uses additional social resources, in Korea, divers risked their lives to search for children in a disaster like the Sewol ferry, and a lot of taxpayer money was spent to raise the submerged Sewol from the sea. This may not be beneficial to society or to the divers personally. However, the “imperative” to help when someone is in danger and need, along with the thought of what if I had been in that situation, and the understanding and empathy that it could be you, makes our society stronger and more stable. This ‘duty’ manifests itself in welfare, which serves as a social safety net, and this welfare is the basis for passing on to our children a more stable and humane life, so that every human being in society is treated with dignity, which indirectly benefits both society and its members. In conclusion, necessity creates a “right,” which our society has granted to individuals through the tacit agreement of its members in the name of dignity. Our dignity can be defined as follows. ‘Dignity is a social agreement created out of necessity.’
We feel that our dignity is undermined by human cloning. Human cloning treats humans like objects and can be created arbitrarily at any time, which means that someone can be created to replace us without us. This undermines the value of individuals themselves and makes them less valuable for survival. It is also difficult to expect people to do more than their part in society when they are treated like parts. A dynamic and progressive society requires its members to be creative and proactive beyond their roles, but it is difficult to motivate individuals in an environment where there are clones that can replace them at any time, and they may not feel a sense of belonging to the society and responsible for their roles. Society has endowed individuals with an attribute of dignity in order to protect its members and to maintain and develop itself. However, human cloning is a technology that could break this social consensus and jeopardize both society and its members, so we have an instinctive aversion to it.