One frequently used argument in the discussion on human enhancement is that enhancement is a form of cheating. This argument is well-known in relation to doping in sports, but recently it has also been used with regard to cognitive enhancement in the context of education and exams. This paper analyses the enhancement-is-cheating argument by comparing sports and education, and by evaluating how the argument can be interpreted in both contexts. If cheating is understood as breaking the rules in order to (...) gain an unfair advantage over others, it can be argued that some enhancements are a form of cheating. This problem of cheating is, however, relatively easy to remedy by either changing the rules, or by instituting controls and sanctions. This does not, therefore, constitute a categorical objection to enhancement. A further analysis of the intuitions behind the enhancement-is-cheating argument, however, shows that if sports and education are understood as “practices”, with their own internal goods and standards of excellence, some potential problems of enhancement can be articulated. These concern the internal goods and standards of excellence that are characteristic of specific practices. Seen from this perspective, the important question is how enhancement technologies might be embedded in specific practices—or how they might corrode them. (shrink)

In an essay on performance-enhancing drugs, author Chuck Klosterman (2007) argues that the category of enhancers extends from hallucinogens used to inspire music to steroids used to strengthen athletes—and he criticizes those who would excuse one means of enhancement while railing against the other as a form of cheating: After the summer of 1964, the Beatles started taking serious drugs, and those drugs altered their musical performance. Though it may not have been their overt intent, the Beatles took performance-enhancing drugs. (...) And . . . absolutely no one holds it against them. No one views “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver” as “less authentic” albums, despite the fact that they would not (and probably could .. (shrink)

Supererogation and rules -- Problematic responsibility in law and morals -- On being "morally speaking a murderer" -- Justice and personal desert -- The expressive function of punishment -- Action and responsibility -- Causing voluntary actions -- Sua culpa -- Collective responsibility -- Crime, clutchability, and individuated treatment -- What is so special about mental illness?

The differences between critics and proponents of enhancement technologies are easily overblown. Both sides of this debate share the moral ideal of being “authentic” to oneself. They differ in how they prefer to understand authenticity, but even this difference is not as stark as it sometimes seems.

Sport is one of the first areas in which enhancement has become commonplace. It is also one of the first areas in which the use of enhancement technologies has been heavily regulated. Some have thus seen sport as a testing ground for arguments about whether to permit enhancement. However, I argue that there are fairness-based objections to enhancement in sport that do not apply as strongly in some other areas of human activity. Thus, I claim that there will often be (...) a stronger case for permitting enhancement outside of sport than for permitting enhancement in sport. I end by considering some methodological implications of this conclusion. (shrink)

Recent developments in biotechnology and genetic research are raising complex ethical questions concerning the legitimate scope and limits of genetic intervention. As we begin to contemplate the possibility of intervening in the human genome to prevent diseases, we cannot help but feel that the human species might soon be able to take its biological evolution in its own hands. 'Playing God' is the metaphor commonly used for this self-transformation of the species, which, it seems, might soon be within our grasp. (...) In this important new book, Jurgen Habermas - the most influential philosopher and social thinker in Germany today - takes up the question of genetic engineering and its ethical implications and subjects it to careful philosophical scrutiny. His analysis is guided by the view that genetic manipulation is bound up with the identity and self-understanding of the species. We cannot rule out the possibility that knowledge of one's own hereditary factors may prove to be restrictive for the choice of an individual's way of life and may undermine the symmetrical relations between free and equal human beings. In the concluding chapter - which was delivered as a lecture on receiving the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for 2001 - Habermas broadens the discussion to examine the tension between science and religion in the modern world, a tension which exploded, with such tragic violence, on September 11th. (shrink)

Accounts of moral responsibility can be divided into those that claim that attributability of an act, omission, or attitude to an agent is sufficient for responsibility for it, and those which hold that responsibility depends crucially on choice. I argue that accounts of the first, attributionist, kind fail to make room for the relatively stringent epistemic conditions upon moral responsibility, and that therefore an account of the second, volitionist, kind ought to be preferred. I examine the various arguments advanced on (...) behalf of attributionist accounts, and argue that for each of them volitionism has a reply that is in every case at least as, and often more, persuasive. Most significantly, only volitionism can accommodate the intuitively important distinction between the bad and the blameworthy. (shrink)

In Beyond Humanity a leading philosopher offers a powerful and controversial exploration of urgent ethical issues concerning human enhancement.

Advances in genetic technology in general and medical genetics in particular will enable us to intervene in the process of human biological development which extends from zygotes and embryos to people. This will allow us to control to a great extent the identities and the length and quality of the lives of people who already exist, as well as those we bring into existence in the near and distant future. Genes and Future People explores two general philosophical questions, one metaphysical, (...) the other moral: (1) How do genes, and different forms of genetic intervention (gene therapy, genetic enhancement, presymptomatic genetic testing of adults, genetic testing of preimplantation embryos), affect the identities of the people who already exist and those we bring into existence? and (2) How do these interventions benefit or harm the people we cause to exist in the near future and those who will exist in the distant future by satisfying or defeating their interest in having reasonably long and disease-free lives? Genes and Future People begins by explaining the connection between genes and disease, placing genetic within a framework of evolutionary biology. It then discusses such topics as how genes and genetic intervention influence personal identity, what genetic testing of individuals and the knowledge resulting from it entails about responsibility to others who may be at risk, as well as how gene therapy and genetic enhancement can affect the identities of people and benefit or harm them. Furthermore, it discusses various moral aspects of cloning human beings and body parts. Finally, it explores the metaphysical and moral implications of genetic manipulation of the mechanisms of aging to extend the human life span.The aim Genes and Future People is to move philosophers, bioethicists, and readers in general to reflect on the extent to which genes determine whether we are healthy or diseased, our identities as persons, the quality of our lives, and our moral obligations to future generations of people. (shrink)

There is a growing literature in neuroethics dealing with the problem of cognitive neuroenhancement for healthy adults. However, discussions on this topic have tended to focus on abstract theoretical positions while concrete policy proposals and detailed models are scarce. Furthermore, discussions tend to rely solely on data from the US, while international perspectives are mostly neglected. Therefore, there is a need for a volume that deals with cognitive enhancement comprehensively in three important ways: a) with conceptual implications stemming from different (...) points of view; b) with ethical, social and legal perspectives that would not be limited to one part of the world but reflect on the current situation in countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America; and c) with discussions of concrete law and policy options. Contributors for the conceptual implications section will elaborate an important general issue (e.g. ethical acceptability of direct-to-consumer-marketing in case of cognitive enhancement drugs). Contributors for international perspectives section will provide a clear discussion on normative issues and cultural values, along with an analysis of empirical data on public attitudes on cognitive enhancement and/or prevalence (specific to the country in question). Contributors for law and policy section will offer a justification for the general policy type they argue for (1. prohibition, 2. discourage use, 3. laissez-faire, 4. encourage use, and 5. mandatory use) in the case of specific cognitive enhancement measure. Furthermore, they would evaluate the possible impact of a detailed regulatory model on consumption and demand, fairness in competitive settings and the social pressure to enhance. (shrink)

In an empirical study, we compared how lay people judge motivation enhancement as opposed to cognitive enhancement. We found alienation is not seen as a danger associated with either form of enhancement. Cognitive enhancement is seen as more morally wrong than motivation enhancement, and users of cognitive enhancement tend to be judged as less deserving of praise and success than users of motivation enhancement. These more negative judgments of cognitive enhancement may be driven by differences in perceived fairness rather than (...) differences in effort exerted by the user, although lay people generally see effort as necessary to deservingness of praise and success. (shrink)

1. Introduction. In a famous passage near the beginning of A Theory of Justice, John Rawls discusses utilitarianism’s notorious difficulties with justice. According to classic forms of utilitarianism, a certain course of action is morally right if it produces the greatest sum of satisfactions. And, as Rawls points out, the perplexing implication is “…that it does not matter, except indirectly, how this sum of satisfactions is distributed among individuals any more than it matters, except indirectly, how one man distributes his (...) satisfactions over time.” He concludes the passage by saying that “[u]tilitarianism does not take seriously the distinction between persons.”. (shrink)

We ask why pharmacological cognitive enhancement (PCE) is generally deemed morally unacceptable by lay people. Our approach to this question has two core elements. First, we employ an interdisciplinary perspective, using philosophical rationales as base for generating psychological models. Second, by testing these models we investigate how different normative judgments on PCE are related to each other. Based on an analysis of the relevant philosophical literature, we derive two psychological models that can potentially explain the judgment that PCE is unacceptable: (...) the “Unfairness-Undeservingness Model” and the “Hollowness-Undeservingness Model.” The Unfairness-Undeservingness Model holds that people judge PCE to be unacceptable because they take it to produce unfairness and to undermine the degree to which PCE-users deserve reward. The Hollowness-Undeservingness Model assumes that people judge PCE to be unacceptable because they find achievements realized while using PCE hollow and undeserved. We empirically test both models against each other using a regression-based approach. When trying to predict judgments regarding the unacceptability of PCE using judgments regarding unfairness, hollowness, and undeservingness, we found that unfairness judgments were the only significant predictor of the perceived unacceptability of PCE, explaining about 36% of variance. As neither hollowness nor undeservingness had explanatory power above and beyond unfairness, the Unfairness-Undeservingness Model proved superior to the Hollowness-Undeservingness Model. This finding also has implications for the Unfairness-Undeservingness Model itself: either a more parsimonious single-factor “Fairness Model” should replace the Unfairness-Undeservingness-Model or fairness fully mediates the relationship between undeservingness and unacceptability. Both explanations imply that participants deemed PCE unacceptable because they judged it to be unfair. We conclude that concerns about unfairness play a crucial role in the subjective unacceptability of PCE and discuss the implications of our approach for the further investigation of the psychology of PCE. (shrink)

One of the factors that contributes to an agent’s praiseworthiness and blameworthiness — his or her moral worth — is effort. On the one hand, agents who act effortlessly seem to have high moral worth. On the other hand, agents who act effortfully seem to have high moral worth as well. I explore and explain this pair of intuitions and the contour of our views about associated cases.

Kelly Sorensen defends a model of the relationship between effort and moral worth in which the effort exerted in performing a morally desirable action contributes positively to the action’s moral worth, but the effort required to perform the action detracts from its moral worth. I argue that Sorensen’s model, though on the right track, is mistaken in three ways. First, it fails to capture the relevance of counterfactual effort to moral worth. Second, it wrongly implies that exerting unnecessary effort confers (...) moral worth on an action. Third, it fails to adequately distinguish between cases in which effort is required because of defects of moral character and those in which effort is required because of barriers external to moral character, such as social pressures or non-moral cognitive deficits. I suggest three amendments to Sorensen’s model that correct these three defects. (shrink)

It is plausible that we have moral reasons to become better at conforming to our moral reasons. However, it is not always clear what means to greater moral conformity we should adopt. John Harris has recently argued that we have reason to adopt traditional, deliberative means in preference to means that alter our affective or conative states directly—that is, without engaging our deliberative faculties. One of Harris’ concerns about direct means is that they would produce only a superficial kind of (...) moral improvement. Though they might increase our moral conformity, there is some deeper kind of moral improvement that they would fail to produce, or would produce to a lesser degree than more traditional means. I consider whether this concern might be justified by appeal to the concept of moral worth. I assess three attempts to show that, even where they were equally effective at increasing one’s moral conformity, direct interventions would be less conducive to moral worth than typical deliberative alternatives. Each of these attempts is inspired by Kant’s views on moral worth. Each, I argue, fails. (shrink)

In Chapter 17 of his magnificent Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit asks what he describes as an ‘awesome question’: ‘How many people should there ever be?’ For a utilitarian like me, the answer seems simple: there should be however many people it takes to make the world best. Unfortunately, if I answer Parfit's awesome question in this way, I may sink myself in a quagmire of axiological confusion. In this paper, I first describe certain aspects of the quagmire. Then I (...) introduce and explain some of the elements of a novel axiological view – ‘justicism’. Justicism is derived from some ideas originally suggested by Franz Brentano. It was developed in an effort to solve certain other problems confronting utilitarianism – problems explicitly about justice. I think, however, that as a sort of happy by-product, justicism also generates a plausible answer to Parfit's awesome question. This may come as a bit of surprise, since justicism is a form of totalism, and it is widely thought that no totalistic theory can provide a satisfactory answer to Parfit's question. After presenting and explaining my proposed solution, I address some objections. (shrink)

This in-depth examination of the major theories of economic justice focuses on the central question: What should the economic distribution of goods and services be based on?

Moral desert -- Fault forfeits first -- Desert graphs -- Skylines -- Other shapes -- Placing peaks -- The ratio view -- Similar offense -- Graphing comparative desert -- Variation -- Groups -- Desert taken as a whole -- Reservations.

1. Introduction. In a famous passage near the beginning of A Theory of Justice, John Rawls discusses utilitarianism’s notorious difficulties with justice. According to classic forms of utilitarianism, a certain course of action is morally right if it produces the greatest sum of satisfactions. And, as Rawls points out, the perplexing implication is “…that it does not matter, except indirectly, how this sum of satisfactions is distributed among individuals any more than it matters, except indirectly, how one man distributes his (...) satisfactions over time.” He concludes the passage by saying that “[u]tilitarianism does not take seriously the distinction between persons.”. (shrink)

It is often supposed that there is a relationship between desert and responsibility: that to be deserving we must be responsible for that which makes us deserving. Indeed, there seems little doubt that a supposed relationship between desert and responsibility, combined with a growing tendency to view less and less as the responsibility of the individual, contributed to the reluctance to appeal to desert which has been a feature of much recent moral and political philosophy. Certainly, if to be deserving (...) we need to be responsible for that which makes us deserving ‘all the way down,’ it is not easy to see how anyone could ever be deserving of anything.I will argue that the claim that we can deserve only on the basis of that for which we are responsible — the desert-responsibility thesis — is false. There is no conceptual connection between desert and responsibility. Nevertheless, it is true that many claims to deserve are undermined if there is a lack of responsibility. (shrink)

Desert theories of distributive justice have been attacked on the grounds that they attempt to found large inequalities on morally arbitrary features of individuals: desert is usually classified as a meritocratic principle in contrast to the egalitarian principle that goods should be distributed according to need. I argue that there is an egalitarian version of desert theory, which focuses on effort rather than success, and which aims at equal levels of well‐being; I call it a ‘well‐being desert’ theory. It is (...) argued that this egalitarian conception of desert is preferable to a meritocratic conception, and that its adoption would encourage greater clarity in arguments over wage differentials and in debates about criteria for job and educational competitions. (shrink)

One argument that is frequently invoked against the technological enhancement of human functioning is that it is morally suspect, or even wrong, to take an easy shortcut. Some things that usually take effort, endurance or struggle can come easily with the use of an enhancer. This paper analyses the various arguments that circle round the idea that enhancement of human functioning is problematic because of the 'easy shortcut' that it offers. It discusses the concern that quick fixes lead to corrosion (...) of character and the idea that suffering, pain, hard work and effort are essential for real and worthy achievements, and argues that these views are largely mistaken. Next, the paper argues that the core worry about taking an easy shortcut is that it makes us lose sight of the complexities of our means and ends; in other words, the argument warns against reducing the richness of human activities. A vocabulary of 'practices', 'internal goods' and 'focal engagement' will be used to articulate this argument further. The conclusion is that the easy shortcut argument has no general validity as an argument against enhancement 'as such'. The paper urges us, however, to evaluate enhancement technologies not only in terms of their efficiency in reaching certain goals but also in terms of their contribution to intrinsically worthwhile human activities. It can point out some of the caveats, as well as the opportunities, of the use of enhancement technologies. (shrink)

As science learns more about how the brain works, and fails to work, the possibility for developing “cognition enhancers” becomes more plausible. And the demand for drugs that can help us think faster, remember more, and focus more keenly has already been demonstrated by the market success of drugs like Ritalin, which tames the attention span, and Prozac, which ups the competitive edge. The new drug Aricept, which improves memory, most likely will join them. Whether such drugs are good for (...) individuals, or for society, is an open question, one that demands far more public discussion. (shrink)

During the last half of the twentieth century, legal philosophy (or legal theory or jurisprudence) has grown significantly. It is no longer the domain of a few isolated scholars in law and philosophy. Hundreds of scholars from diverse fields attend international meetings on the subject. In some universities, large lecture courses of five hundred students or more study it. The primary aim of the Law and Philosophy Library is to present some of the best original work on legal philosophy from (...) both the Anglo-American and European traditions. Not only does it help make some of the best work avail able to an international audience, but it also encourages increased awareness of, and interaction between, the two major traditions. The primary focus is on full-length scholarly monographs, although some edited volumes of original papers are also included. The Library editors are assisted by an Editorial Advisory Board of internationally renowed scholars. Legal philosophy should not be considered a narrowly circumscribed field. (shrink)

Cognitive enhancement is the use of drugs, biotechnological strategies or other means by healthy individuals aiming at the improvement of cognitive functions such as vigilance, concentration or memory without any medical need. In particular, the use of pharmacological substances has received considerable attention during the last few years. Currently, however, little is known concerning the use of cognitive enhancers, their effects in healthy individuals and the place and function of cognitive enhancement in everyday life. The purpose of the book is (...) to give an overview of the current research on cognitive enhancement and to provide in-depth insights into the interdisciplinary debate on cognitive enhancement. (shrink)