On first thought, it does not seem to me that (im)morality is something that is commonly ascribed to atoms. Just as bits do not actually have a color, so it seems to me that atoms do not have morality. But I’m not a moral philosopher, so that’s just my feeling.
On second thought, consider a thought experiment where we judge the clone. Was the clone a direct / proximate cause of the immorality? It would seem not, as the original was. Did the clone have the intention to cause the immorality? It would seem not, the original did. So I don’t think I would hold the clone liable for the committed immorality.
A more interesting scenario to me would be—We have two clones, we know one of them committed an immorality, but we do not know which one. How do we proceed?
The morality isn’t ascribed to atoms, it’s ascribed to the person in the same way it usually is. yes, people are made of atoms, but it all adds up to normality.
On your second point, did you read the article linked? summarized, the conclusion is that in the case of perfect cloning “There is no copy; there are two originals.” (on reflection i might have linked the wrong post, this is where this quote is taken from).
from this viewpoint, there would be no difference between blaming the “clone” and blaming the “original”. so in a way it’s isomorphic to the scenario you suggested in the third paragraph.
It’s probably important though whether the cloning happened before or after the act. if someone cloned himself, and 40 years later one of them commits a crime, there probably isn’t such a dilemma. but is the same true if a crime is committed by one of the clones right after cloning? not sure.
It seems to me that you are thinking about some “stronger” form of cloning. The framework that I was thinking in was that the “clone” was a similar-but-distinct entity, something like a Twin materialized out of thin air instantaneously. But it seems that you are thinking of a stronger form where we should treat the two entities as exactly the same.
I have difficulties conceptualizing this since in my mind a clone still occupies a distinct time, space and consciousness as the original, and so is treated distinctly in my eyes. (In terms of being judged for the morality of actions that the original committed).
I will try to think of a situation / framework where this “stronger” form of cloning makes sense to me.
Say someone commits a crime, then goes into a scanner, destroyed, and recreated somewhere else. is it agreed that they’re the same person? if so, it would make sense to still blame them for the crime.
Now let’s say we discovered that this person never actually destroyed themselves, they were scanned and cloned, but faked getting destroyed.
Should the “clone” now be declared innocent, and the “original” declared guilty instead? or should both of them be declared guilty?
Yeah, that makes sense. The way I came to think of it is that person A commits a crime, then faints and is unconscious after that. Afterwards, a separate nefarious cloner then clones person A in a black box, so one person A goes in, two persons A come out from the cloning black box. Person(s!) A awake, and having a strong conscience of their crime, turn themselves in. Since they have exactly the same memories and conscience, they are indistinguishable from the point of view of being the person who committed the crime, both internally and externally.
This is actually a good question. I feel that both persons should be declared guilty, since cloning oneself (whether intentionally or not) should not give one an automatic-out from moral judgement. I am not as sure about whether the punishment should be equal or shared.
On first thought, it does not seem to me that (im)morality is something that is commonly ascribed to atoms. Just as bits do not actually have a color, so it seems to me that atoms do not have morality. But I’m not a moral philosopher, so that’s just my feeling.
On second thought, consider a thought experiment where we judge the clone. Was the clone a direct / proximate cause of the immorality? It would seem not, as the original was. Did the clone have the intention to cause the immorality? It would seem not, the original did. So I don’t think I would hold the clone liable for the committed immorality.
A more interesting scenario to me would be—We have two clones, we know one of them committed an immorality, but we do not know which one. How do we proceed?
The morality isn’t ascribed to atoms, it’s ascribed to the person in the same way it usually is. yes, people are made of atoms, but it all adds up to normality.
On your second point, did you read the article linked? summarized, the conclusion is that in the case of perfect cloning “There is no copy; there are two originals.” (on reflection i might have linked the wrong post, this is where this quote is taken from).
from this viewpoint, there would be no difference between blaming the “clone” and blaming the “original”. so in a way it’s isomorphic to the scenario you suggested in the third paragraph.
It’s probably important though whether the cloning happened before or after the act. if someone cloned himself, and 40 years later one of them commits a crime, there probably isn’t such a dilemma. but is the same true if a crime is committed by one of the clones right after cloning? not sure.
It seems to me that you are thinking about some “stronger” form of cloning. The framework that I was thinking in was that the “clone” was a similar-but-distinct entity, something like a Twin materialized out of thin air instantaneously. But it seems that you are thinking of a stronger form where we should treat the two entities as exactly the same.
I have difficulties conceptualizing this since in my mind a clone still occupies a distinct time, space and consciousness as the original, and so is treated distinctly in my eyes. (In terms of being judged for the morality of actions that the original committed).
I will try to think of a situation / framework where this “stronger” form of cloning makes sense to me.
Let’s see if i can help.
Say someone commits a crime, then goes into a scanner, destroyed, and recreated somewhere else. is it agreed that they’re the same person? if so, it would make sense to still blame them for the crime.
Now let’s say we discovered that this person never actually destroyed themselves, they were scanned and cloned, but faked getting destroyed.
Should the “clone” now be declared innocent, and the “original” declared guilty instead? or should both of them be declared guilty?
Yeah, that makes sense. The way I came to think of it is that person A commits a crime, then faints and is unconscious after that. Afterwards, a separate nefarious cloner then clones person A in a black box, so one person A goes in, two persons A come out from the cloning black box. Person(s!) A awake, and having a strong conscience of their crime, turn themselves in. Since they have exactly the same memories and conscience, they are indistinguishable from the point of view of being the person who committed the crime, both internally and externally.
This is actually a good question. I feel that both persons should be declared guilty, since cloning oneself (whether intentionally or not) should not give one an automatic-out from moral judgement. I am not as sure about whether the punishment should be equal or shared.
See my thoughts here on full/distributed punishment