Much of the excitement and concern with virtual reality (VR) has to do with the impact of virtual experiences on our moral conduct in the “real world”. VR technologies offer vivid simulations that may impact prosocial dispositions and abilities or emotions related to morality. Whereas some experiences could facilitate particular moral behaviors, VR could also inculcate bad moral habits or lead to the surreptitious development of nefarious moral traits. In this chapter, I offer an overview of the ethical debate about (...) using VR to improve morality. I start by clarifying the rationale of using VR for good, drawing on moral enhancement literature, branches of the science of morality, and the specific potentials of this technology. Then, I will briefly focus on three prominent domains of socio-moral improvement: the use of VR for enhancing empathy, reducing implicit biases, and improving pro-environmental behavior. After that, I shall consider three ethical objections to the enthusiasm for using VR in order to improve human morality. Finally, I will recapitulate the main points of the chapter and provide a few concluding thoughts on future avenues of discussion on how VR can make us act (morally) better. (shrink)

David Chalmers (2022) argues that reality as we encounter it in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) is just as real as the everyday physical world. We may not agree with Chalmers’s prop...

The rise of neurotechnologies, especially in combination with artificial intelligence (AI)-based methods for brain data analytics, has given rise to concerns around the protection of mental privacy, mental integrity and cognitive liberty – often framed as “neurorights” in ethical, legal, and policy discussions. Several states are now looking at including neurorights into their constitutional legal frameworks, and international institutions and organizations, such as UNESCO and the Council of Europe, are taking an active interest in developing international policy and governance guidelines (...) on this issue. However, in many discussions of neurorights the philosophical assumptions, ethical frames of reference and legal interpretation are either not made explicit or conflict with each other. The aim of this multidisciplinary work is to provide conceptual, ethical, and legal foundations that allow for facilitating a common minimalist conceptual understanding of mental privacy, mental integrity, and cognitive liberty to facilitate scholarly, legal, and policy discussions. (shrink)