John Harris recently argues that the moral bioenhancement proposed by Persson and Savulescu can damage moral agency by depriving the recipients of their freedom to fall (freedom to make wrongful choices) and therefore should not be pursued. The link Harris makes between moral agency and the freedom to fall, however, implies that all forms of moral enhancement, including moral education, that aim to make the enhancement recipients less likely to “fall” are detrimental to moral agency. In this paper, I present (...) a new moral agency-based critique against the moral bioenhancement program envisaged by Persson and Savulescu. I argue that the irresistible influences exerted by the bioenhancement program harms our capabilities for conducting accurate self-reflection and forming decisions that truly express our will, which subsequently undermine our moral agency. (shrink)

There is recent empirical evidence that personal identity is constituted by one’s moral traits. If true, this poses a problem for those who advocate for moral enhancement, or the manipulation of a person’s moral traits through pharmaceutical or other biological means. Specifically, if moral enhancement manipulates a person’s moral traits, and those moral traits constitute personal identity, then it is possible that moral enhancement could alter a person’s identity. I go a step further and argue that under the right conditions, (...) moral enhancement can constitute murder. I then argue that these conditions are not remote. (shrink)

Offers a critique of prevalent approaches to human good and virtue. Slote shows that typical philosophical accounts of the virtues and human goods oversimplify the subject and that a more exact approach is needed.

abstract As history shows, some human beings are capable of acting very immorally. 1 Technological advance and consequent exponential growth in cognitive power means that even rare evil individuals can act with catastrophic effect. The advance of science makes biological, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction easier and easier to fabricate and, thus, increases the probability that they will come into the hands of small terrorist groups and deranged individuals. Cognitive enhancement by means of drugs, implants and biological (including (...) genetic) interventions could thus accelerate the advance of science, or its application, and so increase the risk of the development or misuse of weapons of mass destruction. We argue that this is a reason which speaks against the desirability of cognitive enhancement, and the consequent speedier growth of knowledge, if it is not accompanied by an extensive moral enhancement of humankind. We review the possibilities for moral enhancement by biomedical and genetic means and conclude that, though it should be possible in principle, it is in practice probably distant. There is thus a reason not to support cognitive enhancement in the foreseeable future. However, we grant that there are also reasons in its favour, but we do not attempt to settle the balance between these reasons for and against. Rather, we conclude that if research into cognitive enhancement continues, as it is likely to, it must be accompanied by research into moral enhancement. (shrink)

Unfit for the Future argues that the future of our species depends on radical enhancement of the moral aspects of our nature. Population growth and technological advances are threatening to undermine the conditions of worthwhile life on earth forever. We need to modify the biological bases of human motivation to deal with this challenge.

Suppose, we could take a pill that would turn us into morally better people. Would we have a duty to take such a pill? In recent years, a number of philosophers have discussed this issue. Most prominently, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu have argued that we would have a duty to take such a pill. In this article, I wish to investigate the possible limits of a duty to take moral enhancement drugs through investigating the related question of whether it (...) would be desirable to create a world populated entirely with morally perfect people. I argue, drawing on the work of Bernard Williams, Susan Wolf, and Michael Slote, that we have reason to be grateful that we do not live a world in which everyone is morally perfect, as this would prevent people from dedicating their lives to valuable nonmoral projects. I then argue that this thought should serve as a limitation on attempts to morally improve people through the use of technology. Finally, I explore the implications of this discussion for some of the less ambitious forms of moral enhancement currently being explored in the literature. I argue that these forms of enhancement give us no reason to worry about preventing valuable, morally imperfect ways of life. In fact, by acting as a shortcut to moral development, they might serve as an aid to help people fulfill valuable nonmoral goals in a way that is morally permissible. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that as we learn more about how we might intervene in the brain in ways that impact human behavior, the scope of what counts as “moral behavior” becomes smaller and smaller because things we successfully manipulate using evidence-based science are often things that fall outside the sphere of morality. Consequently, the argument that we are morally obligated to morally enhance our neighbors starts to fall apart, not because humans should be free to make terrible choices, (...) but because morality is not something subject to such manipulation. To illustrate my argument, I shall use the rise of veteran diversion courts in the United States as a putative instance of an intervention designed to change human behavior for the better. Part of my purpose in working my way through this case study is to demonstrate that many philosophers have the psychology of immoral action wrong. (shrink)

Some bioethicists have argued that moral bioenhancement, complementing traditional means of enhancing individuals’ moral dispositions, is essential if we are to survive as a species. Traditional means of moral enhancement have historically included civil legislation, socially recognized moral exemplars, religious teachings and disciplines, and familial upbringing. I explore the necessity and feasibility of pursuing methods of moral bioenhancement as a complement to such traditional means, grounding my analysis within a virtue-theoretic framework. Specifically, I focus on the essential intellectual virtue for (...) proper moral reasoning, prudence, and whether proposed methods of moral bioenhancement could facilitate the cultivation of this virtue within the psyches of moral agents. I conclude that certain means of bioenhancement may serve to augment the ability to reason prudentially and assist moral agents to align their wills with their higher-order rational desires, though such means require those higher-order desires to already have been formulated independently. (shrink)