But it's not that simple. It is not enough to define a word only according to its function. Besides, "ethics" and "morality" seem to have many differences.
There are many other differences between the two except that the object of "morality" is far wider than that of "ethics". For example, "morality" has different norms with different stages of society and even different cultural environments. Give three examples: First, in ancient clans and tribes, property belongs to * * *, so it is immoral to hide property privately, and there is nothing immoral to take away the tools just used by other tribal members. In the modern society where private property is recognized by law, it is no longer immoral to keep private property, but taking other people's tools is to ask others for advice. Secondly, in China, it is normal to ask other people's age and salary, which seems to have a touch of humanistic care; In some western countries, it is immoral to ask about age and salary. Thirdly, homosexuality is generally considered immoral, but now some countries have recognized its legal existence through laws, and it seems that homosexuality is gradually getting rid of its immoral status.
And "ethics" seems to be something that does not drift with time and space. For example, in legend, Nu Wa married his brother and sister in xi. Although there was not much moral criticism about brother and sister marriage in ancient times, it was against ethics after all. Ethics here seems to involve the problem that inbreeding leads to an increase in the probability of genetic defects in offspring. Another pair of interesting cases are mad cow disease and a strange disease of some tribal members on an island in Indonesia. The patient's brain tissue will have atherosclerosis similar to mad cow disease. Although the cause is unknown, it is worth noting that these residents have retained a bad habit-eating human flesh. If you look at these two diseases together, you will find some similarities. The cause of mad cow disease has not been confirmed, but the so-called animal feed-that is, the feed processed from the skin, meat, viscera and blood of some cattle-has at least contributed to the outbreak of mad cow disease and may be the culprit.
Can we boldly assume that some species feed on the same species, and some defects (or potential defects) of their protein or nucleic acid lead to the final dominant expression of defects through accumulation mechanism or self-induction mechanism or a combination of the two? From the so-called "ethics" point of view, it is unethical for people to eat people, so it is also unethical for cattle to eat beef. Please note that people eat people is their own decision, and cattle eating cattle is an involuntary strange phenomenon under the profit mechanism of human goods.
If nature stipulates a ban on cannibalism in the middle, and punishes those who violate this ban by making their brains sick, it may take human beings countless times to form this ethical concept on the long road of human evolution without written records. This sentence, in turn, means that ethics reflects some rules at the biomolecule level in a tortuous way. In view of the fact that most of these molecular problems are obscure relative to the current level of science and technology, the concept of "ethics" based only on vague fears or intuition without definite basis can only be an unscientific concept, full of a large number of transcendental and even mysterious propositions that can be proved or falsified in the future.
Obviously, such an imperfect concept cannot persuade and prevent human beings from conducting scientific experiments such as human cloning and stem cell research. These experiments can even be widely said that all scientific research is like Pandora's box, and the edge of the world as we know it is made up of these boxes. It is impossible to predict that one box is more dangerous than the other before opening the box. Once the box is opened, what flies out can never be predicted and can never be taken back. And in the face of the most curious group of scientists, it is more difficult not to be opened than not to let children open the candy box.
Criticism of human cloning comes from many aspects of society and there are different opinions. All kinds of objections can be roughly divided into two categories: one is the argument that insists on respecting life and safeguarding human dignity, which is called social school for short; The other is that the physiological defects of cloned life may endanger human survival, which is called physiological school for short. It should be said that both arguments have their own reasonable components and cannot be completely denied, but both arguments have adopted an unrealistic attitude.
Life is worthy of respect and human dignity should be maintained, but this idealized state will never be realized for every member of society in the past, present and future. For example, a certain area strictly blocks the news that miners are buried; A hospital plays with patients' lives, and so on. These are all disrespect for life. I don't think what exists is reasonable. On the contrary, respecting life and maintaining human dignity should always be the direction of our efforts. However, the degree of practice is limited by various conditions. A family member of a patient had no choice but to stop the expensive imported medicine for the patient after having no recourse. Their blood and tears illustrate a problem. Respect for life comes at a price. Similarly, why China implements family planning is because it can't afford the cost of overpopulation.
Another sensitive issue is euthanasia and suicide. Respecting life and maintaining dignity will constitute a paradox in some extreme cases. It is easy for the audience to choose between a humiliating and disgraceful life and suicide for justice, but euthanasia and suicide in reality are much heavier and more bitter. Many problems cannot be considered by the law, and because of the rigidity of the legal provisions, it is more or less unreasonable. The laws of any country are the same, so making and amending laws is a never-ending dance. Therefore, only from a rational point of view, in the event of blasphemy against life, we should identify the innocent party and the guilty party, and take corresponding measures, instead of drawing conclusions unilaterally at the end. For example, elderly people who have lost the ability to take care of themselves should not be accused of disrespect for life because they can't stand the indifference of their children for their own dignity. However, the society should be alert and take a series of measures, such as investigating the responsibilities of relevant people and improving the pension system, to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
Respect for life should not be rigid to the extreme. Absolute respect for life should not give drugs to patients, and absolute dignity should not operate on patients. Because giving drugs to patients for the first time is definitely a huge risk, and it is not far from killing people for money; Before the first operation, if there is no autopsy experience, it is absolutely not serious. Autopsy experience comes from either corpses or people whose dignity is not protected (prisoners of war, slaves, etc.). ) or deliberately not to disclose patient information. However, it is precisely because of disrespect for the first time that it left a precious wealth to future generations.
In addition, if pushed away, why is human dignity precious and the dignity of other creatures can be trampled on at will? I am afraid no one can give a convincing answer. Because the biological world is interlocking and interdependent, there seems to be no basis for favoring boys over girls.
Therefore, the opposition of the social faction can rest.
The alarmist attitude of the physiological school is not worth paying attention to. Undoubtedly, at present, cloned animals have problems such as low survival rate and short life span. But naturally born individuals are not perfect, and some even have serious diseases. What will happen? Many problematic individuals died, and those who survived did not bring devastating disasters to the biological world. Because nature has a self-improvement mechanism.
Fear is unnecessary. Cloning research and stem cell research will certainly bring some problems, but they will also bring some corresponding technical solutions, and society will also respond to stress, thus realizing the transformation from chaos to governance and pushing civilization to a new level. With a car, there will be a highway in the world; With electricity, there will be a subsequent electrical age and information age; The introduction of Buddhism did not lead to the demise of Chinese civilization; I haven't heard of anyone who has no problem with organ transplantation. Change the liver. Have fun. Speaking of mules, one of the typical products that violate "ethics", everyone thinks there is nothing to be afraid of.