William P. Kabasenche

Moral Formation and Moral Enhancement

Consider a pill that engineers a morally desirable trait or behavioral tendency into a person. We might call this virtue engineering, and this would count as a naive form of moral enhancement: naive because it is both scientifically and biotechnologically implausible (Wiseman 2014) and because the kinds of positive moral attributes worth having are sufficiently complex that they are very unlikely to ever be produced via the effects of a pill of this sort (Kabasenche 2012). Moral enhancement worth pursuing would ultimately be more than just a one-time behavioral change. We should seek a long-term stable pattern of behavior. And it would surely be more than just a behavior that is alienated from the agent’s moral psychology—that is, lacking context-appropriate emotion dispositions to accompany it. And it would surely be more than a kind of autonomic behavior, divorced from one’s practical judgment. This pictures a moral ideal to be sure, but the many criticisms of lesser forms of moral enhancement push us in the direction of this ideal (Wiseman 2016). I leave aside for now the prospect of neuroscientific interventions that might count as instances of moral correction or reformation, reversing or moderating seriously problematic forms of unethical behavior. These do appear more likely to have some positive effects, though even here there are questions about what we ought to want (Shook 2012). We might be very happy to prevent crude expressions of racism in verbal outbursts, but we should not think of a pharmaceutically induced restraint as the same thing as not being a racist. Nor should we see it as engineering in the corrective virtues, such as hospitality or respect for equality. The preceding account suggests that the kind of moral enhancement we ought to value and pursue is really moral formation, where a moral agent does not just come to embody altered behaviors or emotion states but acquires something like robust virtues. In previous work, I’ve argued for this claim (Kabasenche 2013). And while the kinds of biotechnological interventions available do not engineer virtues into us, they might play a role in a more holistic type of moral formation. That there are biological conditions that make us more or less capable of acting in morally desirable ways seems pretty clear. On an everyday level, most individuals recognize that hunger or fatigue compromises salutary ethical action. And many wisdom traditions around the world have long embraced the idea that there are biological conditions that make us more or less able to engage in successful moral formation practices. Moral formation is rarely, if ever, only a cognitive or pedagogical exercise. For many in the ancient world, philosophy was a form of therapy, correcting out-of-control desires and emotions and generally aiming at the formation of good moral character (Nussbaum 1994; Sorabji 2000). This therapy took the form of using a variety of physical and mental exercises to achieve the desired aims. The physical exercises in particular seem to have come from some sort of recognition of the kinds of biological conditions that optimize one’s ability to achieve certain character states. For instance, Sorabji discusses the views of the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry (c.234–305 CE) and the desert ascetic and theologian Evagrius (345–399 CE) on fasting (2000, at 271 and 365). Both of these ancients consider abstaining from food or from certain kinds of foods, for periods of time, as an important part of the process of moral formation. They connected discipline with respect to food with the ability to overcome gluttony, greed, and lust. Thus, a physical, bodily condition created by abstaining from foods was seen to be conducive to achieving a particular state of character. Indeed, Sorabji reports that the use of physical exercises was widespread throughout the ancient world and that these exercises were considered to be neutral between different wisdom traditions, such that they could be used by individuals in various traditions to pursue the ideals of character variously embraced. Some religious traditions continue to encourage ascetic practices like fasting, but these are rarely explicitly connected to projects of moral formation, as they were in the ancient world. In earlier times, there were accounts that we might now find implausible about how these bodily exercises work, but that they work remains a conviction of a wide variety of mostly (but not entirely) religious traditions. And in a different way, contemporary work on moral enhancement also seems to be reappropriating this ancient idea. If moral enhancement worth having is moral formation, then it is also embedded in a set of practices, for moral formation is, on the long-standing view I am appealing to, practiced as opposed to being imposed, maybe by lecture or reading. And Nakazawa and colleagues’ (2016) proposal that decoded neurofeedback (DN) could be used as part of a practice of moral enhancement strikes me as

Moral Enhancement Worth Having: Thinking Holistically

It is uncontroversially true that if Joe were able to read, he would not have turned down the one-way street, but Joe’s ignorance does not make him blameworthy; rather, it makes him less likely to succeed in his goals than a literate person. (Joe might be blameworthy for failures in his education, but this is outside the scope of our moral assessment of this case.) Joe intended to save his father’s life, did everything in his power he could, and failed while a literate counterpart would have succeeded. Literacy wouldn’t have made Joe more praiseworthy; it would have made him more successful. Note, again, that observers have good reason to judge Joe blameworthy, but would uncontroversially revise this judgment were they to learn of his intentions and illiteracy. With education as our model, moral enhancement doesn’t make people more praiseworthy—it makes people more successful. Neurological enhancement that increases one’s critical thinking skills, memory, and ability to learn and raises one’s level of awareness can be considered moral enhancement insofar as it makes it easier and more likely that virtuous agents succeed in their goals. Of course, the same can be said for vicious moral agents. Moral enhancement is any enhancement that improves the likelihood that a moral agent will achieve his or her moral goals, where moral goals can be either praiseworthy or blameworthy depending on their intentional content and epistemic character. For example, Joe is prima facie praiseworthy because he acts to save his father’s life, while Bob is prima facie blameworthy because he acts without regard for other’s (property) rights. Shook draws a distinction between what he calls cognitive enhancements and moral enhancements, contending that the latter depends upon the social concerns. He says “enhanced attention or memory remains enhanced regardless of residence,” but “classifying moral enhancement must take into account environing social contexts.” This distinction is at odds with the account of moral enhancement I’ve set out here. Shook seems committed to moral relativism here, saying, “There will be endless disagreement over whether modifications are genuinely moral enhancements, and no universal accord on what constitutes moral enhancers should be predicted.” This is absurd. It is one thing to say that social convention and agreement play a role in determining what is right in some situations; it is quite different to say that all of ethics is merely social convention. Violating Bob’s free will is wrong regardless of residence, religion, legality, or contractual obligation. Much as there is little agreement between ethicists in regard to moral responsibility, there is little agreement concerning what would constitute moral enhancement. Rather than stake out a robust position on the issue, Shook defines moral enhancement so broadly that it includes almost anything that could be called moral enhancement, including moral compulsion. Oddly, Shook excludes uncontroversially beneficial cognitive enhancements—but these just are the sort of enhancements that make it more likely persons will succeed in their moral goals. Moral compulsion undermines free will, while genuine moral enhancement is concerned with facilitating the exercise of one’s will by removing impediments that might stand in the way of our doing what is right.

What It Is: The Biology and Moral Status of Parthenotes and Embryos

I agree with the judgment of Rodriguez and colleagues that parthenotes lack moral status and thus should not be conflated with embryos; however, I seek to clarify the moral reasoning by which they come to this judgment. Their accounts of the alleged moral status of embryos do not get to the heart of why embryos might have moral status. This is grounded ultimately, though not entirely, in the embryo’s containing a biological developmental program, with both genetic and epigenetic elements, that essentially constitutes a human life. Establishing the moral status, or personhood as Rodriguez and colleagues discuss it, of human embryos and related biological entities requires at least two steps. First, one must demonstrate that human embryos have a certain kind of metaphysical status, that they are essentially distinct individual human organisms with a particular trajectory of development. Second, one must show that these human individuals should enjoy a certain kind of moral consideration. A typical way of making this second argument is to argue against any attempts to distinguish human lives at different stages of development or to argue that any distinctions concern accidental and not essential properties. However, the second stage of the argument will not be my concern here. Rodriguez and colleagues focus their argument that parthenotes should not be subject to the restrictions of the Dickey–Wicker Amendment on the first part of the argument for moral status. That is, they argue that scientifically parthenotes are not the same kind of thing as embryos, which is to say that they have a different metaphysical status. Thus, parthenotes are not even candidates for further consideration of alleged moral status. Human embryos contain within themselves all of the genetic and epigenetic information necessary to undergo the full trajectory of human development. They are, when healthy, intact biological developmental programs, which we can readily recognize as human lives in the early stages of development. This is not a claim about what embryos potentially are, but rather a claim about what they actually are. Biologically, we cannot describe embryos as clumps of cells or contingently related cells. Rather, unless acted upon, the embryo acts as an internally directed, unified organism.

Poets in the Clinic: Recasting “Virtue Essentialist” Arguments About Enhancement in Prototype Form

John Banja (2011) proposes to criticize the argumentative strategy of some moral conservatives whom he identifies as using illicit essentialist language. Of Kass’s and Sandel’s arguments concerning enhancement, he says that they “do not pass neuroanalytical muster.” By that, Banja means that these moral conservatives’ arguments rely on appeals to essentialist versions of moral concepts whereas prototypes are more true to life. But I suspect that much of the argumentative work Kass and others hope to do can be done by appeal to prototypes rather than essences. If so, it is not clear that Banja’s argument has much traction against the kinds of arguments moral conservatives use to critique enhancement. I argue that the so-called moral conservatives could be read as engaging in a kind of poetry—an attempt to impose an order and meaning on our understanding of debates about enhancement. In doing so, they are engaging in a process of pointing to the salience of considerations neglected by others engaged in these same debates. A key distinction between the essentialism that Banja criticizes and the prototype theory he embraces seems to be that the former involves invariant properties possessed by all individuals sharing an essence. Prototype theory, by contrast, rejects invariant properties and appeals instead to co-occurring properties that show up often enough for us to make the rough and ready judgments that enable us to go on in the world. This distinction in itself may be overstated. When we talk about essential considerations in moral deliberation, we are speaking about those considerations on which the judgment turns. So, to use Banja’s example, it became clear in time that the debate about Caster Semenya’s gender hinged, ultimately, on whether she gained a competitive advantage through gender ambiguity or something like it. As Banja reports, the IAAF’s own team seems to have zeroed in on just such considerations in their report (though much of it remains protected—appropriately—by medical confidentiality). If we are going to have athletic competition for women and men we will need some kind of criteria for determining who should compete in which category. After the furor over gender and race, a reasonable case seems to emerge that we should assign individuals to categories, where there are questions, by using the considerations most relevant to activities or practices at hand. In this case, the considerations seem to center on two empirically testable

(The Ethics of) Teaching Science and Ethics: A Collaborative Proposal

I offer a normative argument for a collaborative approach to teaching ethical issues in the sciences. Teaching science ethics requires expertise in at least two knowledge domains—the relevant science(s) and philosophical ethics. Accomplishing the aims of ethics education, while ensuring that science ethics discussions remain grounded in the best empirical science, can generally best be done through collaboration between a scientist and an ethicist. Ethics as a discipline is in danger of being misrepresented or distorted if presented by someone who lacks appropriate disciplinary training and experience. While there are exceptions, I take philosophy to be the most appropriate disciplinary domain in which to gain training in ethics teaching. Science students, who must be prepared to engage with many science ethics issues, are poorly served if their education includes a misrepresentation of ethics or specific issues. Students are less well prepared to engage specific issues in science ethics if they lack an appreciation of the resources the discipline of ethics provides. My collaborative proposal looks at a variety of ways scientists and ethicists might collaborate in the classroom to foster good science ethics education.

Review of Gregory Pence,How to Build a Better Human: An Ethical Blueprint

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