In the Philosophy of Mind, what it means to be a “person” is a topic of considerable debate. There are two main views with different implications. One is a memory based view, and the other is a physical based view. There are other perspectives, including one that is skeptical of the existence of personal identity.

So when we say would you raise a clone of your “child,” what do we mean? Let’s name the child David in honor of the film A.I. Anyway, the first perspective if memory or conscious based. If we take David’s memories and put them in a robot, the robot is David. There is a thought experiment utilized involving amnesia; it may have originated with Shoemaker, if I recall correctly, but I know Bernard Williams utilizes it as well. A person undergoes an experiment where they will place their memories in another body. The body they currently inhabit will be tortured, and the body of the stranger will receive money.

The new body, with David’s memories, states that “My name is David, and I’m certainly glad I made the choice I did.” In this case, it seems like memory is who a person is. But why do we care for loved ones who lose their memory? Another amnesia case is given where one is told they will lose their memories, be tortured, lose the memory of the torture, and then they will get back their original members. The person, it seems, might rightfully have been afraid of being tortured.

So if there is part of the body that makes up a “person,” what happens if we replace each cell? What if they die and come back to life? What if they are put in a Star-trek transporter and beamed somewhere, essentially being broken down and rebuilt? These are all complex questions, and the illustrate that it’s difficult to know what makes a person “themselves.”

When I bring this up, it is for the purpose of showing that we can’t be so quick to judge clones as strange. If the clone behaves as if they were your son, it would be misguided not to feel for the earlier death. It’s still a feeling, breathing human that died similar to how a twin might die while their sibling lives.

Still, if you interact with your clone of David, it will believe it is David. It will disagree with you if you call it a clone. If you show it this is true, it will probably still consider itself the son you lost. For all practical purposes, it is. If your child died and you didn’t know, what would happen if a government agent returned a clone of them? You wouldn’t know anything different. If you discovered that this child was a clone, would you disown it? That seems abhorrent to me.

I am not a parent, and I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a child. When I think of my dogs dieing unexpectedly, I get images of myself going insane and jumping off a cliff. I suspect the loss of a child is one of the most horrific experiences a human can endure. So maybe I would jump to clone my child.

The question, however, asks whether I would raise a clone of my child. If it is already there, I am sure many curious people would love to raise a clone. If clones are already common, adoption agencies are always looking for children. But I would probably not refuse to raise the child. I might welcome it.

If there were more information on the issue, I might change my mind. As of this moment, I am unaware of the information available. There are psychological implications associated with grieving and avoiding the grieving process. In some ways, cloning a child may be an avoidance of grieving the child you lost. From another perspective, one might consider it an advantageous option for grieving parents. It’s hard to say. The most data available would come from pet owners who cloned their dogs, but the nature of cloning ensured that they needed to grieve before receiving the second dog.

The field of cloning is not, to my knowledge, developed enough for us to know with certainty the psychological implications. In the absence of known risks, my response to potential benefits is always an enthusiastic “yes.” Other people are more cautious in this regard. Medications require extensive testing to be approved even if they have demonstrated benefits, for instance. The question is, really, how much the benefits outweigh potential risks. In the eyes of a grieving parent, I suspect such benefits would greatly overwhelm any worries about their psychological health getting worse than it would already be.