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The Trouble With Moral Enhancement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2018

Inmaculada de Melo-Martín
Inmaculada de Melo-Martín*
Affiliation:
Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

Proponents of moral enhancement believe that we should pursue and apply biotechnological means to morally enhance human beings, as failing to do so is likely to lead to humanity's demise. Unsurprisingly, these proposals have generated a substantial amount of debate about the moral permissibility of using such interventions. Here I put aside concerns about the permissibility of moral enhancement and focus on the conceptual and evidentiary grounds for the moral enhancement project. I argue that such grounds are quite precarious.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 83: Moral Enhancement: Critical Perspectives , October 2018 , pp. 19 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2018 

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References

1 Proponents and critics of using various biomedical technologies to enhance humanity's moral sense use “enhancement” and “bioenhancement” interchangeably. I use here simply the term “enhancement”.

2 See for instance, Douglas, T., ‘Moral Enhancement’, J Appl Philos. 25:3 (2008), 228–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Persson, I. and Savulescu, J., ‘The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement and the Urgent Imperative to Enhance the Moral Character of Humanity’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 25:3 (2008), 162–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Persson, I. and Savulescu, J., Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; DeGrazia, D., ‘Moral Enhancement, Freedom, and What We (Should) Value in Moral Behaviour’, J Med Ethics 40:6 (2014), 361–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 For the most forceful defense of this claim see Persson and Savulescu, ‘The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement’.

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7 Persson and Savulescu, Unfit for the Future.

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10 For arguments about such misinterpretation see Hauskeller, Michael, ‘The Art of Misunderstanding Critics: The Case of Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu's Defense of Moral Bioenhancement’, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 25:1 (2016), 152–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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12 de Melo-Martín, I., Rethinking Reprogenetics: Enhancing Ethical Analyses of Reprogenetic Technologies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017)Google Scholar.

13 J. Savulescu and G. Kahane, ‘The Moral Obligation to Create Children with the Best Chance of the Best Life’; J. Savulescu, ‘New Breeds of Humans’. For others also calling attention to this disturbing tendency see, for instance, Sparrow, R., ‘Egalitarianism and Moral Bioenhancement,’ Am J Bioeth. 14:4 (2014), 20–28CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

14 The attention is not just the result of the significant amount of criticism that is has received, but also due to a surprising amount of support.

15 For arguments about the meaningless of moral enhancement proposals see de Melo-Martín, I. and Salles, A., ‘Moral Bioenhancement: Much Ado About Nothing?’, Bioethics 29:4 (2015), 223–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Douglas, ‘Moral Enhancement’.

17 Persson and Savulescu, ‘The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement’; Persson and Savulescu, ‘Getting Moral Enhancement Right: The Desirability of Moral Bioenhancement’; Savulescu and Persson, ‘Moral Enhancement, Freedom and the God Machine’.

18 Persson and Savulescu, Unfit for the Future.

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20 See, for instance, Persson and Savulescu, Unfit for the Future.

21 In another contradictory statement, Persson and Savulescu also claim that altruism is essentially a moral disposition, unlike the courage or strength of will that they contend can characterise criminals. See Persson and Savulescu, ‘The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement’, 72.

22 For arguments about some of these complexities see Wiseman, Harris, The Myth of the Moral Brain: The Limits of Moral Enhancement (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Or what, in another rhetorical move, proponents call “morally enhanced individuals with respect to children”.

24 And it is indeed talk of risks, rather than uncertainties and ignorance, that abounds in the enhancement debate. The language of risks reduces issues of uncertainty, ambiguity, and ignorance to the more controllable and deterministic processes usually associated with risk evaluations, and obscures the multiple uncertainties in the development and implementation of biomedical interventions.

25 Such confidence in humanity's ability to manage even serious risks confronting the development and use of bioenhancements constitutes another inconsistency present in moral enhancement proposals. Why – it seems imperative to ask – would we trust members of a species that is on the brink of destroying the planet and everything in it to appropriately manage such risks?

26 For a discussion of the importance of the framing of the moral enhancement project, see de Melo-Martín and Salles, ‘Moral Bioenhancement: Much Ado About Nothing?’.

27 See, for instance, Douglas, ‘Moral Enhancement’; Persson and Savulescu, ‘Getting Moral Enhancement Right’; Persson and Savulescu, ‘The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement’; Savulescu and Persson, ‘Moral Enhancement, Freedom and the God Machine’; Persson and Savulescu, Unfit for the Future; Douglas, T., ‘Moral Enhancement Via Direct Emotion Modulation: A Reply to John Harris’, Bioethics 27:3 (2013), 160–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; DeGrazia, ‘Moral Enhancement, Freedom, and What We (Should) Value in Moral Behaviour’.

28 For some work criticising many of the claims made in evolutionary psychology see, for instance, Rose, Hilary and Rose, Steven P. R., Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology (New York: Harmony Books, 2000)Google Scholar; Dupré, John, Human Nature and the Limits of Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fine, Cordelia, Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010)Google Scholar.

29 Persson and Savulescu, ‘Getting Moral Enhancement Right’, 130.

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32 See Douglas, ‘Moral Enhancement’; T. Douglas, ‘Moral Enhancement via Direct Emotion Modulation’; Savulescu and Persson, ‘Moral Enhancement, Freedom and the God Machine’; DeGrazia, ‘Moral Enhancement, Freedom, and What We (Should) Value in Moral Behaviour’.

33 Douglas, ‘Moral Enhancement’.

34 Savulescu and Persson, ‘Moral Enhancement, Freedom and the God Machine’; DeGrazia, ‘Moral Enhancement, Freedom, and What We (Should) Value in Moral Behaviour’.

35 For a more detailed discussion of these assumptions see de Melo-Martín and Salles, ‘Moral Bioenhancement: Much Ado About Nothing?’.

36 Frantz, C., Cuddy, A., Burnett, M., Ray, H., and Hart, A., ‘A Threat in the Computer: The Race Implicit Association Test as a Stereotype Threat Experience’, Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 30:12 (2004), 1611–24CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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43 Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan, ‘The Weirdest People in the World?’.

44 Turkheimer, E., Haley, A., Waldron, M., D'Onofrio, B., and Gottesman, I. I., ‘Socioeconomic Status Modifies Heritability of IQ in Young Children’, Psychological Science 14:6 (2003), 623–28CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

45 Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan, ‘The Weirdest People in the World?’.