Among the other amazement, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein ^[1] has greatly drawn my attention to the morality concerning the artificial creation of a creature. It stands out largely by virtue of a correspondence at present, as ‘being human’ is faced with challenges posed by the advancing civilization.  For the discussion, I am to refer to chapter 10 and 15, including Frankenstein’s first encounter, following William’s murder, with the creature and part of its previous tale.

To the crowd, the creature might just be a monster, while its creator, Frankenstein’s fear and repulsion appeared more thorough. It was a natural reaction against an unnatural being. Even the creature, struggling to survive, on the one hand, was holding a similar attitude, referring to its own existence as ‘disgusting, hideous and filthy’ (1993, p. 100). It was a disaster for both, the creature and mankind, rendering one ‘non-existent’ and overturning the other’s being.

The manipulation of living creatures, especially human being, remains widely forbidden or strictly regulated today in medical and biological domains. Any violation is, not only extremely disrespecting life, but also destructing the philosophy of defining humanity.

A recent birth of the world’s first genetically edited twin babies has aroused a global outcry ^[2]. The Chinese scientist made, not a scientific breakthrough, but a disputed step that exceeds the limitation in contemporary medical and biological science. 

People, both scholars and the general public, are concerned with how the twin ought to be identified. As a matter of fact, arguments have appeared for long over what constitutes a person and differs them from other species. Similar issues were put forward by Philip K. Dick, in whose perspective the action of ‘dreaming’ was only a human characteristic ^[3]. Once it was acquired by androids, the boundary seemed to be blurred. Frankenstein’s creation, similarly, opened a Pandora’s box to encroach upon the conventional perception of ‘life’ and ‘human’.

Though detested, spurned and suffering, the creature had gained a strong will to live. During the conversation with Frankenstein in Chamounix, it has already learned to express its determination to defend its life (1993, p. 77) and question its identity, inspired by the Sorrows of Werter (1993, p. 99). The two of them even ‘art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation’ (1993, p. 77), suggesting an equal position it had put itself in. Although Frankenstein lost his beloved to the monster he made and desperately sought revenge, eliminating its existence had borne more weight compared with its creation. It’s a one-way journey heading towards a moral dilemma in the context of both the fiction and the present.

Bibliography:

1. Shelley, M. (1993) Frankenstein. Ware: Worldsworth Editions Limited.
2. Hasson, K. and Darnovsky, M. (2018) ‘Gene-edited babies: no one has the moral warrant to go it alone’, The Guardian, 27 November. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/27/gene-edited-babies-no-one-has-moral-warrant-go-it-alone (Accessed at: 27 November 2018).
3. Dick, Philip K. (1996) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? New York: Ballantine Books.