Moral agential neuroenhancement can transform us into better people. However, critics of MB raise four central objections to MANEs use: It destroys moral freedom; it kills one moral agent and replaces them with another, better agent; it carries significant risk of infection and illness; it benefits society but not the enhanced person; and it’s wrong to experiment on nonconsenting persons. Herein, I defend MANE’s use for prisoners of war fighting unjustly. First, the permissibility of killing unjust combatants entails that, in (...) cases where MANE is equally or more likely as termination to reduce moral recidivism in unjust combatants, then MANE is morally justified. Second, the relevant infections and illnesses caused by MANE are less bad than death, so MANE leaves unjust POWs better off than the alternative. Third, just as incarceration is often permissible despite benefitting society but not the incarcerated, the same holds for unjust POWs. Fourth, we should accept a broader construal of “benefit” that includes moral benefits. Thus, 3 and 4 are false when applied to unjust POWs. Fifth, medical experimentation likely to help nonconsenting persons is sometimes permissible. Because MANE is likely to help unjust POWs irrespective of their consent or lack thereof, its use is permissible. Sixth, basic principles of proper medical care support the use of MANE on unjust POWs as pro tanto morally obligatory. I conclude that militaries should therefore begin to employ MANE for unjust POWs. (shrink)

Moral enhancement proposals struggle to be both plausible and ethically defensible while nevertheless interestingly distinct from both cognitive enhancement as well as (mere) moral education. Brian Earp (_Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement_ 83:415–439, 12 ) suggests that a promising middle ground lies in focusing on the (suitably qualified) use of psychedelics as _adjuncts_ to moral development. But what would such an adjunctive use of psychedelics look like in practice? In this paper, I draw on literature from three areas where techniques (...) for moral development have been discussed: psychotherapy (e.g., Overholser 2010; Burns 1980) education (e.g., Uhl and Lütge, 2018), and AI-assisted enhancement (e.g., Lara and Deckers, _Neuroethics_ 13(3):275–287, 17 ) in order to propose more concrete ways in which to use psychedelics as adjuncts to moral development. It is shown that in each of these areas, we can see that _trusting_ relationships (e.g., Baier 1986; Hawley 2019) between the facilitator and the agent will very plausibly maximize the success of this type of moral enhancement. Finally, I appeal to literature on informed consent for use of psychedelics (e.g., Smith and Sisti, _Journal of Medical Ethics_, 22 ; Johnson et al., _The Journal of Psychopharmacology_ 22(6):603–20, 23 ) and on the therapeutic relationship in psychotherapy (e.g., Dryden and Reeves 2013; Horvath et al. 2011) to outline concrete suggestions for facilitating dimensions of trust most likely to maximize the benefits of (adjunctive) psychedelic moral enhancement. The result is a newly detailed practical proposal for how we might best facilitate moral enhancement by using drugs as adjuncts to moral development. (shrink)

In a recent issue of Bioethics, I argued that compulsory moral bioenhancement should be administered covertly. Alexander Zambrano has criticized this argument on two fronts. First, contrary to my claim, Zambrano claims that the prevention of ultimate harm by covert moral bioenhancement fails to meet conditions for permissible liberty‐restricting public health interventions. Second, contrary to my claim, Zambrano claims that covert moral bioenhancement undermines autonomy to a greater degree than does overt moral bioenhancement. In this paper, I rebut both of (...) these arguments, then finish by noting important avenues of research that Zambrano’s arguments motivate. (shrink)

Humans are morally deficient in a variety of ways. Some of these deficiencies threaten the continued existence of our species. For example, we appear to be incapable of responding to climate change in ways that are likely to prevent the consequent suffering. Some people are morally better than others, but we could all be better. The price of not becoming morally better is that when those events that threaten us occur, we will suffer from them. If we can prevent this (...) suffering from occurring, then we ought to do so. That we ought to make ourselves morally better in order to prevent very bad things from happening justifies, according to some, the development and administration of moral enhancement. I address in this paper the idea that moral enhancement could give rise to moral transhumans, or moral post-persons. Contrary to recent arguments that we shouldn’t engender moral post-persons, I argue that we should. Roughly, the reasons for this conclusion are that we can expect moral post-persons to resemble the morally best of us, our moral exemplars. Since moral exemplars promote their interests by promoting the interests of others (or they promote others’ interests at the expense of their own) we can expect moral post-persons to pursue our interests. Since we should also pursue our own interests, we should bring about moral post-persons. (shrink)

Crutchfield (Crutchfield in Bioethics 33:112–121, [4]) has argued that if moral bioenhancement (MBE) ought to be compulsory, then it ought to be covert. More precisely, they argue that MBE is a public health intervention, and for this reason should be governed by public health ethics. Taking from various public health frameworks, Crutchfield provides an array of values to consider, such as: utility, liberty, equality, transparency, social trust, and autonomy. Subsequently, they argue that a covert MBE programme does better than an (...) overt one, in preserving or promoting said values, and hence, that a covert MBE is preferable. In this paper, I will provide novel reasons to doubt that the relevant values are in fact better promoted or preserved by a covert MBE programme. Additionally, I will provide a novel autonomy-based consideration which counts in favour of the MBE programme being overt, rather than covert. Given that as things currently stand it is unclear which kind of MBE programme is preferable, the upshot of my criticism of Crutchfield will be to provide some recommendations as to how we might proceed in establishing whether a covert or overt MBE programme fares better. (shrink)

As the science and technology of the brain and mind develop, so do the ways in which brains and minds may be surveilled and manipulated. Some cognitive libertarians worry that these developments undermine cognitive liberty, or “freedom of thought.” I argue that protecting an individual’s cognitive liberty undermines others’ ability to use their own cognitive liberty. Given that the threatening devices and processes are not relevantly different from ordinary and frequent intrusions upon one’s brain and mind, strong protections of cognitive (...) liberty may proscribe neurotechnological intrusions, but also ordinary intrusions. Thus, the cognitive libertarian position “hog-ties” others’ use of their own liberties. This problem for the cognitive libertarian is the same problem that ordinary libertarianism faces in protecting individual rights to property and person. But the libertarian strategies for resolving the problem don’t work for the cognitive libertarian. I conclude that the right to mental privacy is weaker than what cognitive libertarians want it to be. (shrink)

Applied technological developments are represented by (1) genetic engineering as management tools of biological evolution and (2) socio-economic engineering as management tools of civilizational and socio-cultural development. This binary structure logically follows from the postulated three-module organization of the sustainable evolutionary strategy of the sentient human being. Naturphilosophy once again acquires the status of the basis of the theory of evolution in an explicit way. There is a system of metaphysical postulates and ontological categories derived from the anthropic principle of (...) participation. For modern neoliberal political democracy, bio-power and biopolitics look like the most effective technology for stabilizing the scenarios and trends of the global evolutionary process that are optimal within this ideological system. Conclusions.Transbipolitics in our understanding is a political problematic related to the rationalization of the global evolutionary process. In the coming decades transbipolitics will become the carrier element of the global process of evolution of the noosphere with the consequent complication and increase of cohesion between the individual socio-cultural types that are part of the system of modern globalizing civilization. (shrink)