Aravis asked:

What would Descartes's opinion on cloning be?

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Difficult question because obviously one can only speculate. I think actually that it would not present
an explanatory problem for him (or mind-body dualism) at all. Descartes thought the body is only a
kind of machine, so probably for him cloning would not be really different from, say, identical twins.
The important thing would be to him that clones have different minds (souls). Maybe since Descartes
was religious he might take issue with man creating life in a different way than God had intended.
However he probably would reassure himself/us by saying that a) nothing is possible except God lets
it happen, b) if God gives a soul to this being, this is in fact the important step in creation, the one
step man cannot imitate.

Helene Dumitriu