Moral Bioenhancement: Widespread Harm and Broad Cooperation

<p>A controversial issue in contemporary bioethics has emerged in recent years: moral bioenhancement (MB). Human bioenhancement in general has seen its share of controversy, but it is generally agreed that there is potential to improve human physical and mental capacities through biotechnological interventions such as medicinal drugs and genetic modification. The discussion has turned to whether biotechnological interventions could similarly improve human moral capacities. Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu have argued that MB is imperative if humans are to survive into the future, because our current moral capacities do not equip us to address future catastrophic problems, Ultimate Harm, which will be caused by modern advanced scientific progress. I suggest related but distinct reasons why MB is appealing: scientific progress and deficient human moral capacities are jointly responsible for enormous amounts of harm all over the world, Widespread Harm, and MB has the potential to reduce that harm. Human moral capacities are deficient because of their dependence on what I call ‘moral intuitions’; evolved psychological traits that shape our many societies’ varied moral values, resulting in moral disagreement and the disruption of inter-group cooperation. Addressing modern problems requires a broader level of cooperation that is unlikely to be achieved by depending on our current moral intuitions. This is why our moral capacities should be improved. However, typical accounts of MB do not describe interventions that will improve our moral capacities in this way. They are focused on the vague objective of ‘making people morally better’, assuming that this will address human moral deficiency and that this will in turn address the resulting problems. ‘Making people morally better’ means making them more satisfactory to our current moral intuitions, which are the root of moral deficiency, so these MB strategies are unlikely to be effective. An alternative MB strategy, which I propose, instead focuses on the objective of modifying current moral intuitions so that they promote broad cooperation. This will result in improved moral capacities in the sense that our moral capacities will be more practically useful to us. However, because this strategy disregards the importance of satisfying our current moral intuitions, it will be morally unpalatable. This is its main disadvantage over the typical MB strategy, though it is better at handling many common objections. Ultimately, there are a number of practical concerns that cannot be completely satisfactorily responded to even by my new MB strategy, such as the issues of mandatory MB and of fine-tuning our moral capacities. These concerns may mean that MB is too risky, and therefore not the best course of action in response to modern problems rooted in scientific progress and moral deficiency, particularly since we have promising alternatives available such as traditional moral enhancement techniques and further scientific progress. The prospect of MB should continue to be investigated, but it should focus on improving upon our current problematic moral intuitions rather than better satisfying them.</p>

Moral Bioenhancement: Widespread Harm and Broad Cooperation

<p>A controversial issue in contemporary bioethics has emerged in recent years: moral bioenhancement (MB). Human bioenhancement in general has seen its share of controversy, but it is generally agreed that there is potential to improve human physical and mental capacities through biotechnological interventions such as medicinal drugs and genetic modification. The discussion has turned to whether biotechnological interventions could similarly improve human moral capacities. Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu have argued that MB is imperative if humans are to survive into the future, because our current moral capacities do not equip us to address future catastrophic problems, Ultimate Harm, which will be caused by modern advanced scientific progress. I suggest related but distinct reasons why MB is appealing: scientific progress and deficient human moral capacities are jointly responsible for enormous amounts of harm all over the world, Widespread Harm, and MB has the potential to reduce that harm. Human moral capacities are deficient because of their dependence on what I call ‘moral intuitions’; evolved psychological traits that shape our many societies’ varied moral values, resulting in moral disagreement and the disruption of inter-group cooperation. Addressing modern problems requires a broader level of cooperation that is unlikely to be achieved by depending on our current moral intuitions. This is why our moral capacities should be improved. However, typical accounts of MB do not describe interventions that will improve our moral capacities in this way. They are focused on the vague objective of ‘making people morally better’, assuming that this will address human moral deficiency and that this will in turn address the resulting problems. ‘Making people morally better’ means making them more satisfactory to our current moral intuitions, which are the root of moral deficiency, so these MB strategies are unlikely to be effective. An alternative MB strategy, which I propose, instead focuses on the objective of modifying current moral intuitions so that they promote broad cooperation. This will result in improved moral capacities in the sense that our moral capacities will be more practically useful to us. However, because this strategy disregards the importance of satisfying our current moral intuitions, it will be morally unpalatable. This is its main disadvantage over the typical MB strategy, though it is better at handling many common objections. Ultimately, there are a number of practical concerns that cannot be completely satisfactorily responded to even by my new MB strategy, such as the issues of mandatory MB and of fine-tuning our moral capacities. These concerns may mean that MB is too risky, and therefore not the best course of action in response to modern problems rooted in scientific progress and moral deficiency, particularly since we have promising alternatives available such as traditional moral enhancement techniques and further scientific progress. The prospect of MB should continue to be investigated, but it should focus on improving upon our current problematic moral intuitions rather than better satisfying them.</p>

Evaluating the Debate Thus Far over Moral Bioenhancement

To avoid “ultimate harm,” or human extinction, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu maintain that a species-wide, biological upgrade of human morality is required. To support their claim that we already possess biological kernels of their featured, prosocial attitudes, they rely implausibly on evolutionary psychology. Further, they support “neuroessentialism” and misconceive what genetic manipulation could deliver regarding complex phenotypic traits. Alongside their talk of augmenting prosocial attitudes, Persson and Savulescu stress that, to forestall ultimate harm, what we ultimately require is the elimination of antisocial acts. Though presented as two interpretive lenses on one endeavor, their prosocial and antisocial focuses represent different agendas for our moral alteration. Further, from their utilitarian standpoint, if making antisocial acts impossible to perform were a streamlined route to avoiding extinction, then this is what we should do. Persson and Savulescu’s antisocial focus, in particular, reflects a willingness to forgo what makes human existence worth conducting.

The epidemiology of moral bioenhancement

In their 2008 paper, Persson and Savulescu suggest that for moral bioenhancement (MBE) to be effective at eliminating the danger of ‘ultimate harm’ the intervention would need to be compulsory. This is because those most in need of MBE would be least likely to undergo the intervention voluntarily. By drawing on concepts and theories from epidemiology, this paper will suggest that MBE may not need to be universal and compulsory to be effective at significantly improving the collective moral standing of a human populace and reducing the threat of ultimate harm. It will identify similarities between the mechanisms that allow biological contagions (such as a virus) and behaviours (such as those concerned with ethical and unethical actions) to develop, spread, and be reinforced within a population. It will then go onto suggest that, just as with the epidemiological principle of herd immunity, if enough people underwent MBE to reach a minimum threshold then the incidence and spread of immoral behaviours could be significantly reduced, even in those who have not received MBE.

The Received View and Its Rivals

Chapter 3 considers the received view’s answers to the book’s final two questions, as well as the answers given by rival theories to all five of its questions. It begins by challenging three rival theories of the responsibility to combat injustice. These ground it in a duty of universal altruism or equity, in duties we acquire if we could at least potentially harm the injustice’s victims, or in the theory that oppression makes both the oppressed and the oppressor unfree, so that both have reason to abolish it. The chapter then challenges the received view’s theory that only the victim group are made unfree by oppression, as well as the theory saying that the unfree are the oppressor and the oppressed. It concludes by challenging theories holding that oppression’s ultimate harm is that it alienates or dehumanizes victims, constrains them from achieving their potential, or prevents them from living as free equals.

Introduction

Among the world’s liberal elites today, a received view answers all five of the questions put by this book, arguing that systematic injustice is, essentially, persecution by a government; that there are no global social injustices; that individuals have a strong reason to challenge injustices only if they perpetrated or were victimized by them; that the individuals made unfree by systematic injustice are only its direct victims; and that the ultimate harm done by oppression is the unjust denial, to the oppressed, of the ability to live as free and equal citizens. Against this, the book’s introduction presents the theory of “Unfreedom for All,” which argues that oppressions are also institutional structures that privilege one group and unjustly harm another; that global systematic injustices of, say, race, gender, and poverty do exist; that all are harmed by oppressions because all are made unfree by them; and that this should be everyone’s main reason for joining in solidarity against them.

An Unfit Future: Moral Enhancement and Technological Harm

This essay addresses two aspects of Persson and Savulescu's case for moral enhancement: 1) the precise technological nature of ultimate harm, particularly as it applies to the ecological crisis, and 2) what is at stake in the solution they propose. My claim is that Persson and Savulescu's treatment of both issues is inadequate: the ecological crisis is a more complex phenomenon than they suppose, and more is at stake in moral enhancement than they claim. To make my case I draw on the work of Hans Jonas, who presciently and insightfully dealt with related questions. Jonas’ philosophy unites bioethical, technological, and environmental concerns and so offers a useful contrast to Persson and Savulescu's proposal. If my analysis is correct then we have both practical and principled reasons to be sceptical about the prospect of moral bioenhancement, which I assume, for the sake of argument, to be feasible.1

‘Material contribution’ after Williams v The Bermuda Hospitals Board

This paper reviews the status of the principle that a claimant can demonstrate a causal link between the defendant's wrongful act or omission and his or her damage by establishing that the act/omission made a ‘material contribution’ to the damage. This principle has been reviewed, in the context of cumulative causes that cannot be ‘compartmentalised’, by the Privy Council in Williams v The Bermuda Hospitals Board. There, the Privy Council regarded the cases of Bonnington Castings v Wardlaw (leaving aside the point as to the divisibility of the disease pneumoconiosis), Bailey v Ministry of Defence and Williams itself as essentially similar to each other. They were to be regarded as cases where the court was entitled to conclude that it was the totality of the exposures/delay in question that caused the ultimate harm. As regards Bailey, this was said in terms not to involve any modification of the but-for test; presumably the same holds good for Bonnington Castings and Williams itself. So orthodoxy appears to be preserved/restored. But is that so?