An Ethical Analysis of Moral Enhancement: A Free-Will Perspective
Section: Articles
Abstract
Moral bioenhancement (MB) is the use of biomedical technology to improve people's moral cognitive ability and enable them to achieve certain moral purposes. On the basis of the bioconservative thesis, one major criticism of MB is that it would undermine people's "freedom to fall," but this objection may itself lead critics into difficulty. In response, we replace "freedom to fall" with "alternative possibility," while noting that supporters of MB can still avoid falsification by adopting a compatibilist position. Starting from a new moral-conservative perspective informed by Dennett's theory of the evolution of consciousness representation, this paper argues that supporters of MB will ultimately fall into the paradox of "MB uselessness" and the "abolition of the moral meaning of direct human conscious control."
This article develops a free-will-centered analysis of moral enhancement and considers the ethical implications of interventionist approaches to moral agency.