Imagining Moral Enhancement Practices

Since 2008, the so-called ‘moral enhancement debate’ asks whether we should actively pursue the development of moral enhancement technologies, and whether it would be permissible – or even obligatory – to put them to use, provided that these interventions would be effective and safe? Whereas ‘traditional methods’ of moral betterment (such as upbringing, socialization and education) are arguably as old as humanity itself, the debate on moral bioenhancement focuses on the desirability of methods based on novel biomedical insights and the use of biomedical methods. The debate follows a significant rise in fundamental research on the (neuro)biological and genetic underpinnings of morality. Potential interventions that are being discussed range from various types of psychopharmaceuticals, neurostimulation, and genetic selection and engineering. Until now, the theoretical debate on moral (bio)enhancement has a strong speculative character and mostly precedes and runs ahead of realistic scientific possibilities. Moreover, to date, the debate risks lacking focus and real world impact, as different commentators fail to agree on how to understand and define moral enhancement. This under-examination of potential practices of moral enhancement is significant because without specifying intended users, contexts of implementation, and the goals and objectives of developing and applying potential biomedical possibilities for optimizing morally relevant capacities, it is not clear who should be concerned about this debate. At the same time, existing or emerging practices that already contain elements of ‘moral enhancement’ but as yet lack ethical attention and ethical scrutiny, risk staying out of sight. In order to address this problem, this thesis focuses on (present and emerging) moral enhancement practices, in order to identify ethical issues that are not necessarily part of the current debate on moral enhancement. Rather than distinguishing in a blanket fashion desirable from undesirable moral enhancement technologies, this thesis intends to formulate conditions and ethical requirements for ethically justifiable moral enhancement practices

Forensic practitioners’ views on stimulating moral development and moral growth in forensic psychiatric care

In the context of debates on (forensic) psychiatry issues pertaining to moral dimensions of (forensic) psychiatric health care are frequently discussed. These debates invite reflection on the question whether forensic practitioners have a role in stimulating patients’ moral development and moral growth in the context of forensic psychiatric and psychological treatment and care. We conducted a qualitative study to examine to what extent forensic practitioners consider moral development and moral growth to be a part of their current professional practices and to what extent they think that stimulating moral development is a legitimate objective in the context of forensic psychiatric treatment. In addition, we asked how forensic practitioners balance pubic safety and risk management concerns with the interests and wellbeing of the individual patient. We conclude that: (i) elements of moral development and moral growth in forensic psychiatric care practices are to a certain extent inevitable and not necessarily questionable or undesirable; (ii) yet, as in similar debates these elements need to be made explicit in order to discuss the accompanying ethical challenges and boundaries. An open academic, professional and public debate on aspects of stimulating moral betterment within current practices is therefore desirable

Defining moral enhancement: a clarificatory taxonomy

Recently there has been some discussion concerning a particular type of enhancement, namely 'moral enhancement'. However, there is no consensus on what precisely constitutes moral enhancement, and as a result the concept is used and defined in a wide variety of ways. In this article, we develop a clarificatory taxonomy of these definitions and we identify the criteria that are used to delineate the concept. We think that the current definitions can be distinguished from each other by the criteria used for determining whether an intervention is indeed moral enhancement. For example, some definitions are broad and include moral enhancement by any means, while other definitions focus only on moral enhancement by means of specific types of intervention (e.g. biomedical or genetic interventions). Moreover, for some definitions it suffices for an intervention to be aimed or intended to morally enhance a person, while other definitions only refer to 'moral enhancement' in relation to interventions that are actually effective. For all these differences in definitions we discuss some of their ( more normative) implications. This shows that definitions are significantly less descriptive and more normative than they are regularly portrayed to be. We therefore hope that the taxonomy developed in this paper and the comments on the implications for the normative debate of the variety of definitions will provide conceptual clarity in a complex and highly interesting debate

Forensic Practitioners’ Views on Stimulating Moral Development and Moral Growth in Forensic Psychiatric Care

In the context of debates on (forensic) psychiatry issues pertaining to moral dimensions of (forensic) psychiatric health care are frequently discussed. These debates invite reflection on the question whether forensic practitioners have a role in stimulating patients’ moral development and moral growth in the context of forensic psychiatric and psychological treatment and care. We conducted a qualitative study to examine to what extent forensic practitioners consider moral development and moral growth to be a part of their current professional practices and to what extent they think that stimulating moral development is a legitimate objective in the context of forensic psychiatric treatment. In addition, we asked how forensic practitioners balance pubic safety and risk management concerns with the interests and wellbeing of the individual patient. We conclude that: (i) elements of moral development and moral growth in forensic psychiatric care practices are to a certain extent inevitable and not necessarily questionable or undesirable; (ii) yet, as in similar debates these elements need to be made explicit in order to discuss the accompanying ethical challenges and boundaries. An open academic, professional and public debate on aspects of stimulating moral betterment within current practices is therefore desirable

Public Attitudes Towards Moral Enhancement. Evidence that Means Matter Morally

To gain insight into the reasons that the public may have for endorsing or eschewing pharmacological moral enhancement for themselves or for others, we used empirical tools to explore public attitudes towards these issues. Participants (N = 293) from the United States were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and were randomly assigned to read one of several contrastive vignettes in which a 13-year-old child is described as bullying another student in school and then is offered an empathy-enhancing program. The empathy-enhancing program is described as either involving taking a pill or playing a video game on a daily basis for four weeks. In addition, participants were asked to imagine either their own child bullying another student at school, or their own child being bullied by another student. This resulted in a 2 × 2 between-subjects design. In an escalating series of morally challenging questions, we asked participants to rate their overall support for the program; whether they would support requiring participation; whether they would support requiring participation of children who are at higher risk to become bullies in the future; whether they would support requiring participation of all children or even the entire population; and whether they would be willing to participate in the program themselves. We found that people were significantly more troubled by pharmacological as opposed to non-pharmacological moral enhancement interventions. The results indicate that members of the public for the greater part oppose pharmacological moral bioenhancement, yet are open to non-biomedical means to attain moral enhancement. [248 words]

The ethical desirability of moral bioenhancement: A review of reasons

Background: The debate on the ethical aspects of moral bioenhancement focuses on the desirability of using biomedical as opposed to traditional means to achieve moral betterment. The aim of this paper is to systematically review the ethical reasons presented in the literature for and against moral bioenhancement. Discussion: A review was performed and resulted in the inclusion of 85 articles. We classified the arguments used in those articles in the following six clusters: (1) why we (don't) need moral bioenhancement, (2) it will (not) be possible to reach consensus on what moral bioenhancement should involve, (3) the feasibility of moral bioenhancement and the status of current scientific research, (4) means and processes of arriving at moral improvement matter ethically, (5) arguments related to the freedom, identity and autonomy of the individual, and (6) arguments related to social/group effects and dynamics. We discuss each argument separately, and assess the debate as a whole. First, there is little discussion on what distinguishes moral bioenhancement from treatment of pathological deficiencies in morality. Furthermore, remarkably little attention has been paid so far to the safety, risks and side-effects of moral enhancement, including the risk of identity changes. Finally, many authors overestimate the scientific as well as the practical feasibility of the interventions they discuss, rendering the debate too speculative. Summary: Based on our discussion of the arguments used in the debate on moral enhancement, and our assessment of this debate, we advocate a shift in focus. Instead of speculating about non-realistic hypothetical scenarios such as the genetic engineering of morality, or morally enhancing 'the whole of humanity', we call for a more focused debate on realistic options of biomedical treatment of moral pathologies and the concrete moral questions these treatments raise