John Tierney writes in today’s NYT about global religious differences and human cloning:

“Asian religions worry less than Western religions that biotechnology is about ‘playing God,’” says Cynthia Fox, the author of “Cell of Cells,”
a book about the global race among stem-cell researchers. “Therapeutic
cloning in particular jibes well with the Buddhist and Hindu ideas of
reincarnation.”

     I had not thought before about the connection between reincarnation and human cloning.  My sense is that it may not be the notion of reincarnation per se that provides a culturally more permissive environment for cloning research in Asia.  The key idea might be karma, the belief that what happens to us in the next life is determined by what we do in this life and, by extension, what happens to us in this life depends upon what we did in the last life.  Thus, for the cell that is to be destroyed or transformed by experimentation or cloning, its fate is a function of actions in its previous life.  Reincarnation without karma (which is conceivable, even if it is not Buddhist or Hindu) would likely not produce the same attitude toward stem cell research.

     There is something the short Tierney article misses, however.  No mention is made of Confucianism which, as I have argued elsewhere, also provides a rationale for stem cell research and cloning.  A Confucian defense of such scientific techniques would not rely upon a notion of God or reincarnation.  Rather it would emphasize the social utility of the research.  Since, from a Confucian perspective, individuals have meaning and significance only in social contexts (or, put differently, individuals isolated by themselves without social connections, have no meaning or significance), then research that might provide great social benefits is justifiable even if a not yet fully social life (which is how a Confucian might define a stem cell or embryo) is lost in the process.  This argument would not extend to the sacrifice of a socially embedded individual – and that would be any person who is a part of a family or social network, virtually every individual human who is born.  Rather, it would be limited to unborn human tissue.  That is how I understand it, at least.

     Also, Tierney misses an ancient Chinese basis for the rejection of stem cell research and cloning.  Philosophical Taoism would not invoke God in its avoidance of such research but would simply acknowledge the vastness of Way and our incapacity to ultimately control its unfolding.  Deep human intervention into natural processes would be seen, by Taoists, as going against Way. 

     In short, Tierney is focusing only on "religious" dynamics and ignoring philosophical grounds for or against cloning.  And in doing so, he is missing a rather large part of the East Asian story.