Moral Enhancement and Mental Freedom

Promotion of pro‐social attitudes and moral behaviour is a crucial and challenging task for social orders. As traditional ways such as moral education have some, but apparently and unfortunately only limited effect, some authors have suggested employing biomedical means such as pharmaceuticals or electrical stimulation of the brain to alter individual psychologies in a more direct way — moral bioenhancement. One of the salient questions in the nascent ethical debate concerns the impact of such interventions on human freedom. Advocates argue that moral bioenhancements do not pose a serious threat to freedom. This contention, however, is based on an overly narrow, if not impoverished, sense of freedom, which comprises only freedom of action and freedom of will. Mind‐altering interventions primarily affect another sense of freedom: freedom of mind, a concept that has not received much attention although it should rank among the most important legal and political freedoms. The article introduces three senses of mental freedom potentially infringed upon by moral bioenhancement and places it in a broader perspective. Ignorance of mental freedom has far‐ranging consequences for the shape of the political and legal order at large. As many advocates are apparently not aware of the freedoms they seek to undermine, their calls for moral enhancement programmes are dangerously premature.     

Genetic Enhancement and Moral Attitudes Toward the Given

Several authors, including Michael Sandel, distinguish between two different attitudes toward nature: mastery and giftedness. Giftedness is the superior attitude, Sandel argues, because it better accords with the values of humility, responsibility, and solidarity. And giftedness, in combination with these values, provides a rational basis for opposing the employment of genetic enhancement. Against this, I argue that talents and genetic endowment are more plausibly viewed as undeserved, that not everything undeserved is a gift, and that even if talents and endowment were gifts, this would not support a prohibition against pursuing genetic enhancement.     

Cognitive and Moral Enhancement: A Practical Proposal

According to Persson and Savulescu, the risks posed by a morally corrupt minority's potential to abuse cognitive enhancement make it such that we have an urgent imperative to first pursue moral enhancement of humankind – and, consequently, if we are a long way from safe, effective moral enhancement, then we have at least one good reason to consider opposing further cognitive enhancement. However, as Harris points out, such a proposal seems to support delaying life-saving cognitive progress. In this article, we first show that Harris's worry can be expanded to show that Persson and Savulescu's proposal also threatens the development of moral enhancement – precisely what they suggest we have pro tanto reason to pursue. From there, we offer our own, alternative proposal – one on which cognitively enhanced researchers play a key role in the production of moral enhancement, and those in the general population who wish to be cognitively enhanced must first accept moral enhancement as an entry requirement. We engage with four substantive objections to our proposal and use these objections to refine and strengthen the details.     

内在主义视域下的道德增强及其争议

“内在主义”(internalism)是技术伦理学新兴起的一种研究进路,它不同于传统“外在主义”(exter?nalism)进路的地方在于,它主要关注技术的积极伦理后果,主张把伦理要素“嵌入”对象之中,利用技术手段解决伦理问题。“道德增强”的基本理念符合“内在主义”进路的特征,它通过对人的“基因”和“神经”进行技术干预,调节人的道德情感,增强人的道德动机,改善人的道德品质,塑造人的道德行为。尽管“道德增强”的初衷是助人向善,却引发了诸多伦理争议,需要从学理上权衡其利弊。     

Raising the Virtuous Bar: The Underlying Issues of Genetic Moral Enhancement

From the perspective of virtue ethics, is it possible and permissible to enhance moral behavior through gene modification? In preparation to answer this question, we must ask five questions: (1) What may we assume regarding genetic inheritance and human nature? (2) Can specific genes predispose behavior related to the moral virtues? (3) What kind of genetic enhancement would be useful for moral enhancement? (4) Should there be a distinction between somatic and germline gene modification? (5) Is genetic modification best approach to moral enhancement? This article concedes that genetic engineering has the capacity to enhance the human disposition to moral behavior, but gene editing cannot create virtue because virtues are stable, habituated dispositions, acquired over time. That being said, gene editing for purposes of enhancing moral behavior is permissible.     

Human Becoming: Cognitive and Moral Enhancement Inside the Imago Dei Narrative

Abstract

With advancements in human enhancement technologies and sciences, the reality of moral/cognitive enhancements is close upon us. In light of recent advances in the fields of cognitive science of religion (CSR), neurotheology and philosophy of technology this paper follows the contemporary neuroethics debate on the subject of moral bioenhancement and engages it inside an imago Dei narrative. To explore this possibility we first establish some major points in the contemporary imago Dei debate, especially the substantial and relational aspect and some of its important interpretations. We then move to an exploration of the very possibility of moral/cognitive bioenhancement, as well as some concrete pitfalls and opportunities, inside the imago Dei narrative. Lastly, we try to portray a wider theological picture in which we engage humanity as both sacred and technological being living in a dynamic cosmic environment we are called to sanctify through the election offered to us by the Reedemer. To establish this we contemplate on the relationship between our eschatological fulfillment, the process of theosis, and the being and role of technology itself.     

The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement and the Urgent Imperative to Enhance the Moral Character of Humanity

abstract   As history shows, some human beings are capable of acting very immorally. ¹ Technological advance and consequent exponential growth in cognitive power means that even rare evil individuals can act with catastrophic effect. The advance of science makes biological, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction easier and easier to fabricate and, thus, increases the probability that they will come into the hands of small terrorist groups and deranged individuals. Cognitive enhancement by means of drugs, implants and biological (including genetic) interventions could thus accelerate the advance of science, or its application, and so increase the risk of the development or misuse of weapons of mass destruction. We argue that this is a reason which speaks against the desirability of cognitive enhancement, and the consequent speedier growth of knowledge, if it is not accompanied by an extensive moral enhancement of humankind. We review the possibilities for moral enhancement by biomedical and genetic means and conclude that, though it should be possible in principle, it is in practice probably distant. There is thus a reason not to support cognitive enhancement in the foreseeable future. However, we grant that there are also reasons in its favour, but we do not attempt to settle the balance between these reasons for and against. Rather, we conclude that if research into cognitive enhancement continues, as it is likely to, it must be accompanied by research into moral enhancement.     

Moral Realism,Moral Disagreement,and Moral Psychology

Abstract

This paper considers John Doris, Stephen Stich, Alexandra Plakias, and colleagues’ recent attempts to utilize empirical studies of cross-cultural variation in moral judgment to support a version of the argument from disagreement against moral realism. Crucially, Doris et al. claim that the moral disagreements highlighted by these studies are not susceptible to the standard ‘diffusing’ explanations realists have developed in response to earlier versions of the argument. I argue that plausible hypotheses about the cognitive processes underlying ordinary moral judgment and the acquisition of moral norms, when combined with a popular philosophical account of moral inquiry—the method of reflective equilibrium—undercut the anti-realist force of the moral disagreements that Doris et al. describe. I also show that Stich's recent attempt to provide further theoretical support for Doris et al.'s case is unsuccessful.     

Moral Judgement and Moral Motivation

I criticize an important argument of Michael Smith, from his recent book The Moral Problem (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994). Smith's argument, if sound, would undermine one form of moral externalism – that which insists that moral judgements only contingently motivate their authors. Smith claims that externalists must view good agents as always prompted by the motive of duty, and that possession of such a motive impugns the goodness of the agent. I argue (i) that externalists do not (ordinarily) need to assign moral agents such as a motive, and (ii) that possession of this motive, when properly understood, is morally admirable.     

Moral Disagreement and Moral Semantics

When speakers utter conflicting moral sentences (“X is wrong”/“X is not wrong”), it seems clear that they disagree. It has often been suggested that the fact that the speakers disagree gives us evidence for a claim about the semantics of the sentences they are uttering. Specifically, it has been suggested that the existence of the disagreement gives us reason to infer that there must be an incompatibility between the contents of these sentences (i.e., that it has to be the case that at least one of them is incorrect). This inference then plays a key role in a now‐standard argument against certain theories in moral semantics. In this paper, we introduce new evidence that bears on this debate. We show that there are moral conflict cases in which people are inclined to say both (a) that the two speakers disagree and (b) that it is not the case at least one of them must be saying something incorrect. We then explore how we might understand such disagreements. As a proof of concept, we sketch an account of the concept of disagreement and an independently motivated theory of moral semantics which, together, explain the possibility of such cases.     

Moral Accountancy and Moral Worth

People do good or bad things, and get or do not get good or bad credit for their actions, depending (in part) on knowledge of their actions. I attempt to unfold some of the interconnections between these matters, and between them and the achievement of moral worth. The main conclusion is that the heights of moral worth seem to appear in the oddest places.