The moral enhancement of humans by biological or genetic means has recently been urged as a response to the pressing concerns facing human civilization. In this paper, I argue that proponents of biological moral enhancement have misrepresented the facts of human moral psychology. As a result, the likely effectiveness of traditional methods of moral enhancement has been underestimated, relative to biological or genetic means. I review arguments in favor of biological moral enhancement and argue that the complexity of moral psychology (...) raises serious problems for such interventions. I offer a programmatic sketch of the ways in which our improved understanding of moral psychology can help facilitate more traditional methods of moral enhancement. I conclude that the best response to the dangers faced by human civilization is the continued use of traditional methods of moral enhancement and the use of our improved understanding of moral psychology to further refine and develop these methods. (shrink)

A recent article on the front page of The Independent reported that the genetic ‘manipulation’ of IVF embryos is to start in Britain, using a new revolutionary gene-editing technique, called Crispr/Cas9. About three weeks later, on the front page of the same newspaper, it was reported that the National Health Service faces a one billion pound deficit only 3 months into the new year. The hidden connection between these reports is that gene editing could be used to solve issues related (...) to health care allocation. Improving the health of future generations might coincide with public health goals; it might improve the health of individuals and communities, and, if successful, might be seen as a public good. However, enhancing future generations will require In Vitro Fertilisation and Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis. Remarkably, the necessary involvement of women in an enhancing scenario has not been discussed by its proponents. The present discourse on moral obligations of future generations, although not referring to women, seems to imply that women might be required, morally, if not legally, to reproduce with IVF. Enhancing future generations will be gendered, unless the artificial womb is developed. These are challenging issues that require a wider perspective, of both women and men. Despite the lack of a unified feminist conclusion in the discussions about the merits and risks of human genome modification, there is an urgent need to clarify the role of women in this scenario. (shrink)

A faulty understanding of the relationship between morality and politics encumbers many contemporary debates on human enhancement. As a result, some ethical reflections on enhancement undervalue its social dimensions, while some social approaches to the topic lack normative import. In this essay, I use my own conception of the relationship between ethics and politics, which I call “political minimalism,” in order to support and strengthen the existing social perspectives on human-enhancement technologies.

The possibility of performing germline modifications on currently living individuals targets future generations’ health and well-being by reducing the diversity of the human gene pool. This can have two negative repercussions: reduction of heterozygosity, the latter being associated with a health or performance advantage; uniformization of the genes involved in reproductive recombination, which may lead to the health risks involved in asexual reproduction. I argue that germline interventions aimed at modifying the genomes of future people cannot be ethically justifiable if (...) there is no possibility of controlling the intervention either by reversing or altering it, whenever need demands it. This argument is challenged on six different grounds: safety, population versus individual focus, spontaneous mutations, exceptionalism, the intentional pursuit of genetic diversity through germline interventions, and harm reduction potential. (shrink)

Since a number of years, popular and scientific interest in resilience is rapidly increasing. More recently, also neuroscientific research in resilience and the associated neurobiological findings is gaining more attention. Some of these neuroscientific findings might open up new measures to foster personal resilience, ranging from magnetic stimulation to pharmaceutical interventions and awareness-based techniques. Therefore, bioethics should also take a closer look at resilience and resilience research, which are today philosophically under-theorized. In this paper, we analyze different conceptualizations of resilience (...) and argue that especially one-sided understandings of resilience which dismiss social and cultural contexts of personal resilience do pose social and ethical problems. On a social level such unbalanced views on resilience could hide and thereby stabilize structural social injustices, and on an individual level it might even lead to an aggravation of stress-related mental health problems by overexerting the individual. Furthermore, some forms of fostering resilience could be a latent form of human enhancement and trigger similar criticisms. (shrink)

New technologies facilitate the enhancement of a wide range of human dispositions, capacities, or abilities. While it is argued that we need to set limits to human enhancement, it is unclear where we should find resources to set such limits. Traditional routes for setting limits, such as referring to nature, the therapy-enhancement distinction, and the health-disease distinction, turn out to have some shortcomings. However, upon closer scrutiny the concept of enhancement is based on vague conceptions of what is to be (...) enhanced. Explaining why it is better to become older, stronger, and more intelligent presupposes a clear conception of goodness, which is seldom provided. In particular, the qualitative better is frequently confused with the quantitative more. We may therefore not need “external” measures for setting its limits – they are available in the concept of enhancement itself. While there may be shortcomings in traditional sources of limit setting to human enhancement, such as nature, therapy, and disease, such approaches may not be necessary. The specification-of-betterment problem inherent in the conception of human enhancement itself provides means to restrict its unwarranted proliferation. We only need to demand clear, sustainable, obtainable goals for enhancement that are based on evidence, and not on lofty speculations, hypes, analogies, or weak associations. Human enhancements that specify what will become better, and provide adequate evidence, are good and should be pursued. Others should not be accepted. (shrink)

We argue that the fragility of contemporary marriages—and the corresponding high rates of divorce—can be explained (in large part) by a three-part mismatch: between our relationship values, our evolved psychobiological natures, and our modern social, physical, and technological environment. “Love drugs” could help address this mismatch by boosting our psychobiologies while keeping our values and our environment intact. While individual couples should be free to use pharmacological interventions to sustain and improve their romantic connection, we suggest that they may have (...) an obligation to do so as well, in certain cases. Specifically, we argue that couples with offspring may have a special responsibility to enhance their relationships for the sake of their children. We outline an evolutionarily informed research program for identifying promising biomedical enhancements of love and commitment. (shrink)

In enhancement ethics, evolutionary theory has been largely perceived as supporting liberal views on enhancement, where decisions to enhance are predominantly regulated by the principle of individual autonomy. In this paper I critique this perception in light of recent scientific developments. Cultural evolutionary theory suggests a picture where individual interests are entangled with community interests, and this undermines the applicability of the principle of autonomy. This is particularly relevant for enhancement ethics, given how – I argue – decisions to enhance (...) are often influenced by desires to increase social status. The “service view on enhancement”, based on principles of service and trust, is proposed as offering better guidance for the challenges of social living. (shrink)

This article argues that the creation of artificial offspring could make our lives more meaningful. By ‘artificial offspring’ I mean beings that we construct, with a mix of human and non-human-like qualities. Robotic artificial intelligences are paradigmatic examples of the form. There are two reasons for thinking that the creation of such beings could make our lives more meaningful and valuable. The first is that the existence of a collective afterlife—i.e. a set of human-like lives that continue after we die—is (...) likely to be an important source and sustainer of meaning in our present lives. The second is that the creation of artificial offspring provides a plausible and potentially better pathway to a collective afterlife than the traditional biological pathway. Both of these arguments are defended from a variety of objections and misunderstandings. (shrink)

What role should sentient animals play in the current debate on enhancement? The question covers several different philosophical fronts that demand urgent global ethical analysis. This touches issues that go from prohibition, permissivity or obligation that should characterize the new biotechnologies oriented to the enhancement of individuals, to the debate surrounding the moral rights of animals. Furthermore, the difficulty arises not only from the controversial moral categories involved, but also from the very extent of the objective proposed. However, this also (...) gives rise to the pertinence of the above-mentioned question posed at the outset: on the one hand, the need for consistency in an eminently biased debate, and on the other the need to justify the proposal in which all sentient individuals are legitimate protagonists without this necessarily leading to implausible scenarios. (shrink)

Much of the human enhancement literature focuses on the ethical, social, and political challenges we are likely to face in the future. I will focus instead on whether we can make decisions to modify ourselves that are known to be likely to satisfy our preferences. It seems plausible to suppose that, if a subject is deciding whether to select a reasonably safe and morally unproblematic enhancement, the decision will be an easy one. The subject will simply figure out her preferences (...) and decide accordingly. The problem, however, is that there is substantial evidence that we are not very good at predicting what will satisfy our preferences. This is a general problem that applies to many different types of decisions, but I argue that there are additional complications when it comes to making decisions about enhancing ourselves. These arise not only for people interested in selecting enhancements but also for people who choose to abstain. (shrink)