The numerous methods for an artificial generation of human embryos which have been developed over the past decades raise the question of the ethical and legal evaluation of these entities. It is of fundamental importance to clarify to what extent artificially generated entities correspond to our normative conceptions of human embryos and which criteria are to be used for the assessment. The criteria of naturalness and artificiality as well as potentiality and developmental totipotency turn out to be essential for the evaluation.