Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T20:57:01.707Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is It Desirable to Be Able to Do the Undesirable? Moral Bioenhancement and the Little Alex Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2017

MICHAEL HAUSKELLER
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

It has been argued that moral bioenhancement is desirable even if it would make it impossible for us to do what is morally required. Others find this apparent loss of freedom deplorable. However, it is difficult to see how a world in which there is no moral evil can plausibly be regarded as worse than a world in which people are not only free to do evil, but also where they actually do it, which would commit us to the seemingly paradoxical view that, under certain circumstances, the bad can be better than the good. Notwithstanding, this view is defended here.

Keywords

moral enhancementfreedomA Clockwork OrangeIngmar Persson and Julian SavulescuJuergen Habermas
Type
Special Section: Enhancement and Goodness
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 365 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Persson, I, Savulescu, J. Getting moral enhancement right: The desirability of moral bioenhancement. Bioethics 2011;27(3):124–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

2. Harris, J. Moral enhancement and freedom. Bioethics 2010;25(2):102–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

3. Persson, I., Savulescu, J. The art of misunderstanding moral bioenhancement: Two cases. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2015;24(1):48–57, at 53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. I made a first attempt in Hauskeller M. Better Humans? Understanding the Enhancement Project, London: Routledge; 2013, ch. 3.

5. Burgess, A. A Clockwork Orange. London: Penguin; 2007.Google Scholar

6. See note 4, Hauskeller 2013.

7. Persson, I, Savulescu, J. The perils of cognitive enhancement and the urgent imperative to enhance the moral character of humanity. Journal of Applied Philosophy 2008;25(3):162–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Persson, I, Savulescu, J. Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2012, at 46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. See note 1, Persson, Savulescu 2011, at 127.

10. See note 3, Persson, Savulescu 2015.

11. See note 5, Burgess 2007, at 72.

12. See note 5, Burgess 2007, at 81.

13. Kant I (selected by Beck LW). The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. New York/London: Garland Publishing; 1976, at 50–83.

14. See note 5, Burgess 2007, at 126–7.

15. Augustine. De libero arbitrio [On free will]. In:. Baillie J, McNeill JT, Van Dusen HP, eds. Augustine: Earlier Writings. Philadelphia: Westminster; 1953:180.

16. Milton J. Paradise Lost. Book III, Verse 98–99.

17. Harris, J. Moral enhancement and freedom. Bioethics 2011;25(2):102–11, at 104.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

18. Harris J. ‘Ethics is for bad guys!’ Putting the ‘moral’ into moral enhancement. Bioethics 2013;27(3):169–73, at 172.

19. DeGrazia, D. Moral enhancement, freedom, and what we (should) value in moral behaviour. Journal of Medical Ethics 2014:40(6):361–8, at 367.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

20. Lazari–Radek, K, Singer, P. The Point of View of the Universe. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21. See note 1, Persson, Savulescu 2011, at 128.

22. See note 1, Persson, Savulescu 2011, at 128.

23. Sparrow, R. Better living through chemistry? A reply to Savulescu and Persson on ‘Moral Enhancement.’ Journal of Applied Philosophy 2014;31(1):23–32, at 26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Habermas, J. The Future of Human Nature. Cambridge: Polity Press; 2003.Google Scholar

25. David Meeler has pointed out to me that the grown is also subject to various external influences, and no doubt he is right. There are strong social pressures that direct people’s growth, that shape their minds, attitudes, emotions, and behavior. However, those influences do not normally deprive us, nor do they aim to deprive us, of the ability to respond in our own specific way. We are normally at least co-creators of ourselves, and if our views and values are not entirely of our own making, we are partners in a dialogue, shaped by the world we live in, but also shaping that very world ourselves. Of course social control mechanisms can, in extreme cases, be so comprehensive that they determine what we are just as much as moral bioenhancement would, but that does not make the latter any better.

26. See note 24, Habermas 2003, at 13.

27. See note 24, Habermas 2003, at 41.

28. See note 24, Habermas 2003, at 53.

29. Inmaculada de Melo–Martin has challenged me on this point, arguing that to the extent that we have control over what we become, we constantly make decisions that eventually lead to certain choices no longer being available to us. We shape ourselves and then end up being the people we wanted to become, which may entail being someone who is no longer capable of doing certain things. This does not appear ethically dubious, and if it is not, then why should self-inflicted moral bioenhancement be? I must confess that I do not find it easy to clearly define the difference; however, I suspect that it has something to do with the time frame. Deliberate self-development takes time. It is a long process to change one’s character, to acquire a virtue. It is a gradual transformation that leaves room, every step of the way, for a change of mind or heart, a choosing of a different pathway, for adjustment and redirection. Even though the end result may be the same—a person who is no longer capable of doing certain things—the way one gets there matters.

30. As suggested by Rakic, V. Voluntary moral enhancement and the survival-at-any-cost bias. Journal of Medical Ethics 2014;40:246–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

31. Persson, I, Savulescu, J. Moral enhancement, freedom, and the God machine. The Monist 2012;95(3):399–421, at 415.Google Scholar

32. See note 31, Persson, Savulescu 2012, at 416.