Lately there have been several articles in various newspapers talking about the alleged “controversies” involving cloning. These people point out that cloning human beings (or other animals) brings up various ethical dilemmas, such as the possibility of using cloned organs and such. These people may have a point; the problems resulting from making human clones could be disastrous. For example, many people may be familiar with Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
For those of you who haven’t seen this film, it involves the creation of a mass clone army which is used to fight the battle droids of the separatist movement. In the movie, the clones are highly effective, even more so than the Jedi (a small band of “defenders of the peace” who use the “force” in order to gain special powers that allow them to combat more effectively). The Jedi are not numerous. As Mace Windu (played by Samuel L. Jackson) says, “The Jedi are defenders of the peace . . . not soldiers.”
In order to augment the Jedi numbers the clone army is created. This army enables the republic to dispatch a sufficiently large number of soldiers to combat the battle droids.
You might be wondering why all this talk about Star Wars when we are discussing a serious issue like cloning. Not only does Star Wars give us a valuable example of how clones could be used to wage war against countries, but it also depicts the problem with cloning critics: namely, their allegiance to a puppet!
Head Jedi master Yoda leads the clone army into the heart of the battle with the separatists. He is the one who ultimately uses the clone army to gain victory; however, he does so knowing that the creation of that army could have disastrous consequences. Hence, those who are against cloning side with Yoda, a puppet. This poses a more serious ethical issue: do we let our morality be dictated by a puppet (or computer animated replication of a puppet)?
This seems to be like an irresponsible way to make ethical decisions. Some may say that there are other reasons, independent of Yoda, that illustrate the problems with cloning, but they seem to be missing the point. If you are siding with a puppet, you are thinking along the same lines as a puppet, and puppets are not even capable of thinking!
Others might note that Star Wars is a movie and not real so we shouldn’t take it seriously, but this only supports my argument more. Not only are we siding with a puppet, but one that is not even real; it is just a character in a film. Given the ridiculousness of some TV shows and movies, it seems rather apparent that we should in no way base life on these things. So opponents of cloning seem to be quite silly when we really consider that they are trying to make life like a TV show by listening to a puppet.