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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 October 2018
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.
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’.
4 Persson and Savulescu, ‘The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement’; Persson, I. and Savulescu, J., ‘The Turn for Ultimate Harm: A Reply to Fenton’, J Med Ethics 37:7 (2011), 441–444CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Persson, I. and Savulescu, J., ‘Getting Moral Enhancement Right: The Desirability of Moral Bioenhancement’, Bioethics 27:3 (2013), 124–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Persson and Savulescu, Unfit for the Future; Persson, I. and Savulescu, J., ‘The Art of Misunderstanding Moral Bioenhancement’, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 24:1 (2015), 48–57CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
6 Persson and Savulescu, ‘The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement’.
7 Persson and Savulescu, Unfit for the Future.
8 Persson and Savulescu, ‘The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement’; Savulescu, J. and Persson, I., ‘Moral Enhancement, Freedom and the God Machine’, Monist 95:3 (2012), 399–421CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
9 Persson and Savulescu, Unfit for the Future; Persson and Savulescu, ‘The Art of Misunderstanding Moral Bioenhancement’.
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.
11 Savulescu, J. and Kahane, G., ‘The Moral Obligation to Create Children with the Best Chance of the Best Life’, Bioethics 23:5 (2009), 274–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Savulescu, J., ‘New Breeds of Humans: The Moral Obligation to Enhance’, Reproductive Biomedicine Online 10:1 (2005), 36–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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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.
19 See, for instance, Maibom, H., ‘Feeling for Others: Empathy, Sympathy, and Morality’, Inquiry 52:5 (2009), 483–499CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nichols, S., Sentimental Rules: On the Natural Foundations of Moral Judgment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Darwall, S., The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Herman, B., The Practice of Moral Judgment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Weber, M., ‘The Motive of Duty and the Nature of Emotions: Kantian Reflections on Moral Worth’, Can J Philos. 33:2 (2003), 183–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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.
30 Persson and Savulescu, ‘Getting Moral Enhancement Right’, 130; Persson and Savulescu, ‘The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement’, 171; Savulescu and Persson, ‘Moral Enhancement, Freedom and the God Machine’.
31 See, for instance, Joseph, J., ‘Twin Studies in Psychiatry and Psychology: Science or Pseudoscience?’, Psychiatric Quarterly 73:1 (2002), 71–82CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Tishler, P. V. and Carey, V. J., ‘Can Comparison of Mz- and Dz-Twin Concordance Rates Be Used Invariably to Estimate Heritability?’, Twin Res Hum Genet. 10:5 (2007), 712–717CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Richardson, K. and Norgate, S., ‘The Equal Environments Assumption of Classical Twin Studies May Not Hold’, Br J Educ Psychol. 75:3 (2005), 339–350CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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?’.
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