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ORIGINAL PAPER
My Brain Made Me Moral: Moral Performance Enhancement
for Realists
John R. Shook
Received: 18 September 2015 /Accepted: 15 June 2016 /Published online: 20 June 2016
#Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract How should ethics help decide the morality of
enhancing morality? The idea of morally enhancing the
human brain quickly emerged when the promise of cog-
nitive enhancement in general began to seem realizable.
However, on reflection, achieving moral enhancement
must be limited by the practical challenges to any sort
of cognitive modification, along with obstacles particular
to morality’s bases in social cognition. The objectivity
offered by the brain sciences cannot ensure the techno-
logical achievement of moral bioenhancement for
humanity-wide application. Additionally, any limited
moral enhancement will not easily fulfil ethical expecta-
tions. Three hypothetical scenarios involving putative
moral enhancement help illustrate why. Philosophical
concerns about the BDoes-Must Dichotomy^and the
BFactor-Cause Plurality,^as I label them, forbid easy
leaps from views about morality on to conclusions about
ways to enhance morality, and then further on to ethically
justifying those enhancements. A modest and realistic
approach to moral enhancement emerges from exploring
these issues.
Keywords Ethics .Neuroethics .Neurophilosophy .
Moral pluralism .Moral enhancement
Neuroethics, and the neuroscience of sociality and mo-
rality generally, has warmed to Bmoral enhancement^as
a vague idea deserving attention, and perhaps promo-
tion. The morality of modifying morality is an issue as
significant as weighing practicalities to technologically
enhanced morality. Indeed, rightly evaluating those
practicalities should contribute heavily to overall moral
judgments upon this opportunity. Means do factor into
evaluating ends; means also shape what proposed ends
even mean. Defenses of moral enhancement in the ab-
stract too often proceed as if morality’s nature was
already understood, and its improvement would be eas-
ily confirmed and approved. That seemingly smooth
path towards consensus is both conspicuous, and
suspicious.
Moral enhancement, if achievable (though few tech-
niques show much promise), is by no means automati-
cally moral in every sense. There is plenty of room for
reservations towards potential moral enhancers. Skepti-
cism starts from noticing that Benhancement^and
Bmorality^should not be separately explicated and then
simply conjoined; their ambiguity allows for impreci-
sion, and their combination affects how one conceives
both terms. A primary purpose of this discussion is to
deny that Bmoral enhancement^could be straightfor-
wardly defined. Instead, the reader is invited to con-
sider why the context of morality requires
problematizing the notion of enhancement, and
Neuroethics (2016) 9:199–211
DOI 10.1007/s12152-016-9270-y
J. R. Shook (*)
Philosophy Department, University at Buffalo, 135 Park Hall,
Buffalo, NY 14260, USA
e-mail: jrshook@buffalo.edu
J. R. Shook
Science Education in the Graduate School of Education,
University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA
why the connotations to Benhancement^require
questioning our understanding of morality.
One’s sense of Benhancement,^typically enough,
may start from a vague notion of improvement, but no
one’s view of enhancement should stop there, and no
dictionary provides a precise definition of enhancement
itself. Any rigid conception for enhancement in isolation
is an intellectual trap, unfit for philosophical premising.
More pliable conceptions of enhancement only multiply
complexities. Semantically, enhancement can indicate a
marked improvement in addition to just an incremental
increase [1], so Bmoral enhancement^is doubly norma-
tive, eliciting divergent views about what is, and what
should be, morally commendable. Physiologically, al-
terations to brain processes guiding morality will likely
affect more than a person’s ability to moralize and might
cause unacceptable side-effects to one’s character and
conduct. Clinically, if moralizing could be verifiably
improved without side-effects, that improvement may
reach effectiveness only within bounded contexts and
suitably controlled conditions. Theoretically, an impres-
sive clinical improvement to a few subjects should not
be mistaken for a sure way to enhance anyone’smorality
to any desired degree. Ethically, in light of our highest
standards for such things as personal integrity and social
harmony, enhanced moral performance may yet fall
short.
Enhancement, despite basic meanings, resists simplis-
tic explication for normative evaluations. The word
needn’t be abandoned entirely, however. My deeper
analyses of performance enhancements and their appli-
cability across real-world settings are available elsewhere
[2], and this essay’s conclusion yields my basic criteria
for moral performance enhancement. The broader lesson
is that moral enhancement can appear moral in the deed,
while non-extendable even in theory and immoral after
ethical reflection. Neuroethics bears a special responsi-
bility for understanding that difference, and ensuring that
scientifically-advised ethics has an opportunity to be
decisive over intuition and convention. A modest and
realistic approach to moral performance enhancement,
grounded in sound neurophilosophy, can emerge from
exploring these issues.
Whose Morality Needs Enhancing?
Where some moral consensus happens to prevail, both
subjects and observers can confirm how much moral
improvement is experimentally reached –but only up to
that measure of consensus, and not beyond. Advocating
moral enhancement for severely immoral behavior, such
as unprovoked physical harm, takes advantage of civic
consensus to acquire plausibility [3]. However, that
plausibility is gained by restricting its scope. What
counts as unwarranted aggression varies from culture
to culture, while reductions of maniacal violence (some-
thing few cultures tolerate) is less like paradigmatic
moral enhancement and more like remedying moral
incapacity [4]. Enhancement, whatever it can be, would
not be mainly for very bad people that no one wants
around. We shall therefore pursue the idea of improving
morality, not treating its absence.
Enhancement is retaining enough operational mean-
ing to indicate a reach for expectations beyond thera-
peutic goals [5], even if therapy is also hard to define.
Ambiguity can be managed by distinguishing contexts
for separate definitional precision. Useful conceptions
of enhancement require careful elaboration beyond ei-
ther reducing it to therapy or dichotomizing it apart from
therapy [6–10]. Although enhancement does not auto-
matically begin where remedial therapy stops, restoring
or rehabilitating the capacity for commonly expected
moral conduct deserves separate philosophical
consideration.
Offering enhancements to morality arouses hopes
that whatever we take ourselves to be morally doing
today, we could have more of that tomorrow. Morality is
surely good, if anything is. Why wouldn’tmoreofa
good thing be moral? Enhancement could be tautolo-
gously connected to the good, too. John Harris has done
so: BIn terms of human functioning, an enhancement is
by definition an improvement on what went before. If it
wasn’t good for you, it wouldn’t be enhancement.^
1
If
more morality is good, and enhancing is good, wouldn’t
more morality be truly enhancing? Logic forbids that
conclusion (the fallacy of undistributed middle), since
the ‘good’of morality might not be the same as the
‘good’of enhancing. Identifying them can’tbeaccom-
plished by asserting yet another tautology. Furthermore,
this argument relies on an ambiguity to Bmore morality^
–does this refer to improving upon morality, or increas-
ing the number of moral people? If morality sets the
standard for what is best, trying to surpass what is best
only deviates away from morality. If morality is instead
something that we want more people to have, we will be
1
Quoted in [11], p. 9.
200 Shook J.R.
looking around at our neighbors before we look into a
mirror at ourselves.
An audience receptive to the enhancement of their
own morality may turn out to be quite small. People
would rightly question the methods and results, as they
already have close familiarity with morality’simprove-
ment. Cultures put vast effort into the moral improve-
ment of their members towards meeting or exceeding
social expectations though entirely conventional and
non-technological means. But cultures cannot be faulted
for falling short of homogenous moral conformity. Even
societies with high success rates must tolerate disagree-
ments over moral priorities, disputes over ethical prob-
lems, and discrepancies between ethical theories. These
clashes over morality and moral values would not be
erased or overridden by any putative moral enhancer
[12–15]. Anyone would be wise to wonder how moral
enhancement could fit into that complicated moral
landscape.
That wonder about morality’s complexities is not
dispelled by noting how plenty of people think that they
know what is best for everyone. Moral cacophony is not
an occasion for imposing some moral order, despite Guy
Kahane and Julian Savulescu’sassurances:BIn numer-
ous discussions on enhancement, a recurring objection
is that we do not know what is good, or what would
constitute an improvement in human well-being or mor-
al dispositions. This is, perhaps, the best diagnosis for
the status quo bias that infects so many protagonists in
the debate –since we don’t know what would be better,
we should remain where we are.^
2
But a practical
motivation to depart from the status quo is not the same
thing as knowing a good moral direction to go. If I lack
sufficient reasons for prioritizing my moral agenda, I do
not immunize it from ethical criticism by noting how no
else appears to have sufficient reasons for their moral
priorities either. Selecting one direction that seems sen-
sible, even if only a few people go there while other
people go elsewhere, is still a social experiment in ethics
requiring the closest scrutiny. Nor is one’spreference
immunized from scrutiny by pointing out how critics
might lean towards a different direction, or none at all
for now. Thinking that the justificatory burden is heavier
on the cautious than on the bold is a more worrisome
bias here.
Neuroethical proposals to apply unconventional
means for adjusting common morality can turn out to
be culture-bound, tacitly parochial, or openly partisan.
No matter how moral a proposal to enhance morality in
the brain may appear to a few neurophilosophers or a
large public, people will still use their heads to fully
evaluate such a potentially divisive or even deleterious
goal.
Brains Won’tBeEnough
People using their brains to think about moral matters for
themselves can seem like an unhelpful intrusion upon the
world of brain research into morality. However, the ob-
jectivity offered by the brain sciences cannot elevate the
achievement of moral bioenhancement (through physio-
logical alterations to the biological functioning of the
nervous system) or moral technoenhancement (through
indirect adjustments of neurological functions using tech-
nological means) to any similarly objective status.
Whether a procedure is invasive or not, and whether it
is reversible or not, makes no difference to this objectiv-
ity deficit, a deficit which makes a huge difference to any
practical and moral evaluation of that procedure.
Due to that objectivity deficit, simplistic chartings for
the territory of moral enhancement would be mislead-
ing. A supposition that the meaning of enhancement can
be clarified by linking it to therapy’s seeming objectivity
is a tempting start, but ultimately unsatisfactory.
Allowing enhancement to be just a subjective matter is
a dead-end, too. Supposing that moral enhancement
must either be defined objectively in terms of neuro-
physiological improvements to some natural human
capacity, or defined relatively in terms of some preferred
normative standard for human conduct [17], wrongly
presumes that the first option is achievable. Discerning
measurable improvements to brain functioning for mo-
rality cannot be accomplished without consulting what
is regarded as sound moral judgment and conduct. Mor-
al enhancement won’t be defined so objectively, so
moral enhancement needn’t be defined so subjectively,
either. That objective-relative dichotomy collapses –
allowing the organic and the normative to be understood
as interrelated and even interwoven together, and per-
mitting more complex options to come into view.
Normative matters are not eliminable here, nor are
they subsidiary. Objective knowledge about the brain’s
functioning does not automatically count as objective
knowledge about moral psychology, or about what is
moral. Labelling the introduction of, for example, a
2
Quoted in [16], p. 142.
My Brain Made Me Moral: Moral Performance Enhancement 201
pharmaceutical or transcranial modification to the brain
as a reliable Bmoral bioenhancer^just because that
modification targets some type of neurological activity
contributory to a certain mode of moral cognition is
misleading at best. Likewise, labelling the application
of, for example, real-time EEG or fMRI neurofeedback
as a reliable Bmoral technoenhancer^simply because
the subject can hit upon some type of psychological
activity positively correlated with a certain mode of
moral cognition, is similarly rash. Furthermore, any
limited manifestation of genuinely effective moral en-
hancement will not easily fulfill higher ethical expecta-
tions, and may fail to be fully moral in that elevated
sense. The literature on moral enhancement does not fail
to occasionally mention such neurophilosophical
worries, but detailed justification for such worries are
rare, and insights into overcoming them are rarer.
We shall accordingly pursue two main agendas. First,
serious issues are raised about prevalent presumptions,
stated or tacit, rampant in the moral enhancement liter-
ature. One common presumption is that morality has,
and can rightly be taken as, a fairly unified core of
morals/virtues accepted across a society, so moral plu-
ralism is ignored. Another common presumption is the
tendency to think that what counts as suitably moral
conduct is pretty stable across social situations, so that
moral contextualism is dismissed. A further presump-
tion is the way that discerning a neurological process
contributing to moral cognition is taken for a moral
neurological process to be manipulated with predictable
results, so that moral systematicity is overlooked. This
article doesnot directly argue for moral pluralism, moral
contextual, or moral systematicity, although these alter-
natives receive favorable consideration here. Their plau-
sibility is strengthened by this article’s second agenda.
Valid philosophical concerns about the BDoes-Must
Dichotomy^and BFactor-Cause Plurality,^as I label
them, forbid easy leaps from views about morality on
to conclusions about ways to enhance morality, and then
further on to ethically justifying those enhancements.
Taken together, these two agendas help to advance
investigations into this key question: How can neuro-
scientific realities and ethical theories work together to
help decide the morality of enhancing morality? No-
where is Bmorality^explicated in advance, since my
point is not to comfort familiar certainties about moral-
ity, but rather to compel philosophical doubts about
what is meant by morality in neuroethical discussions.
Should people try to make some brains more moral?
And if that attempt is made, whose morality will judge
the results?
Various sorts of concerns have been raised about
clearly identifying what is to be improved when moral-
ity gets enhanced. Ethics can inadvertently fuel skepti-
cism towards successful clarification. If ethicists cannot
agree on what concretely counts as morality and morally
correct judgment, in some conceptual respect or actual
realization, how could ethics help decide the morality of
enhancing morality? Skepticism may also inadvertently
arise from scientific inquiry into morality. If scientists,
to be scientific, must avoid pre-defining morality too
narrowly ahead of the evidence gathered, many varieties
or types of moralities may be observed during inquiry.
Scientists distinguishing among moralities, finding
some commonalities along with many differences,
aren’t so novel –cultural anthropologists and social
psychologists have long done so [18]. Any scientist
speaking of moral behavior or morality must explain
what is specifically meant while describing a discovery.
Regardless of skepticism arising from ethical dispu-
tations or scientific discriminations, ethicists or scien-
tists failing to elaborate what is meant by Bmoral^or
Bmorality^while discussing moral enhancement leave
confusion in their wake [19–21]. Generic factors to
morality in general can be identified by common sense
and moral psychology, clarifying a few psychological
matters practically needed for whatever is regarded as
morality [22]. However, expecting these factors taken
together or separately to enjoy systematic connections
deeper than their common relation with morality is an
unwise demand. Moral holism or moral universalism
may remain an ethicist’s dream. Various generic factors
involved with moral conduct –such as moral sensitivi-
ties, sentiments, values, intentions, or beliefs –cannot be
neatly identified with processes at neuronal levels,
which have been explored only to a superficial degree.
Debates over whether moral psychology is more reliant
on Bsystem 1^or Bsystem 2^or some other system will
not resolve this deeper issue. It appears likely that key
features of human behavior receiving the honorific label
of Bmorality^in one culture or another actually have no
common neurological basis and share no normative
essence [23,24]. This moral pluralism can still acknowl-
edge how basic factors involved with the human ability
to moralize are genuine enough, even if they are not all
involved to the same degree or directed towards the
same moral norms. That plurality of factors conducive
to varieties of morality must confound overconfident
202 Shook J.R.
justifications for moral enhancement that seemingly rest
secure on solid brain science.
The next sections offer a series of three scenarios to
further illustrate why it cannot be a simple matter to
specify what counts as a genuine moral enhancement, or
to determine when practical moral enhancement is eth-
ical to utilize. The first scenario yields an opportunity to
reflect on the issue of whether some core to morality
enjoys society-wide approval.
Moral Scenario One: Make Our Child Moral
The scene is a pregnancy clinician’s office, in the not too
distant future. A diagnostic report is clutched in a young
couple’shands,astheylistentotheclinician.BAt four
months, we can see that your baby’s physical health will
be within all the usual parameters, so no worries there.^
The mother relaxed, but her partner asked, BWhat about
the moral indications?^The clinician found more good
news on the charts. BNo chance of sociopathy or narcis-
sism or anything like that. There’s a tendency towards
aggression and bullying, but that will get modified along
with the five-month infusion at your next visit.^The
partner frowns, repeating half-remember diagnostics:
BThat cognitive infusion for math, right?^BYes , ^the
clinician says, BTo ensure good math skills, as you
requested. The math infusion isn’t legally required, but
the civility infusion for anti-aggression is the law, as you
know.^Seeing an opportunity, the clinician suggests in
a helpful voice, BThere are a few moral infusions avail-
able, all proven quite effective.^The mother sharply
asks, BDid you see something wrong?^The clinician
replied, BNo, nothing is wrong. From these numbers, I
see compliance around authority, enjoying conformity,
and playing it safe. I’d say that your child will grow up
to respect the rules and expect others to do the same. I
also see tendencies for disapproving people who won’t
live a respectable lifestyle and support themselves.^The
mother seemed relieved. BSo our child will be a moral
person, then.^
After the pleased couple left the office, the clinician
picked up another report, but his mind was dwelling on
the previous case. With different fetal numbers, that
couple might have picked the Proteneo brand as the
moral infusion best for their child. There are moralities
to fit many predilections and budgets. Few parents
wanted their children to stand out for any saintly, heroic,
or radical kind of life, though. Their questions make
them sound mostly worried about whether their off-
spring will fit in, stay out of trouble, have lots of friends,
and be able to keep a job. If there were any worries
there, simple sociable infusions always work, he’dreas-
sure them. He refocused on the report in his hands.
BNext couple. What’s the chances they’ll want a moral
infusion?^His eyes widened. It looked like a truly rare
case. BEmpathy numbers are very high, and lots of
openness to difference. This one’s going to hate any
rules leaving people out. Plus low self-prioritization.
The non-conformist and generosity indicators are all
there, too.^Now it was the clinician’sturntosmile.
The last couple wouldn’t have liked that kind of news.
They would have asked for that Proteneo moral infusion
to reverse those numbers. But he knew his next clients
pretty well. He could almost hear their reaction: BSo our
child will be a moral person, then.^
What is the moral to this story? In this futuristic
scenario, fetal Bmoral infusions^are occasionally select-
ed by the public, along with legally mandated civic
infusions which the public has accepted as necessary,
and cognitive and social infusions that have proven
popular. As far as this fetal clinician can see, with a
catalog of moral infusions to select or turn down, the
customer can always be right. So long as the product
isn’t illegal or dangerous, of course. That’s not a worry
on this clinician’smind–how could morality be illegal,
or dangerous?
It is not necessary to assume that some singular
morality prevails so that genetic moral enhancement
has a unique target [25]; multiple moralities could each
be upheld by a segment of a future society, much like
today. People don’t suppose that what they think is truly
moral is best kept illegal –morality must be beneficial,
according to common opinion. With this in mind, any
purveyor of moral infusions would suppose that busi-
ness will stay legal. After all, the public of this future
scenario approves sociable adjustment; indeed, most
people apparently regard civility and sociability to be
sufficient for good morals. Broad moral tolerance and
available moral enhancement could be compatible with
legal enforcement of civility and general concern for
conforming sociability.
Are any of today’s societies heading in the di-
rection of that hypothetical society? Some may
easily drift in that direction, depending on the so-
cial worth attached to types of moral enhancement.
The next hypothetical scenario further illustrates
how moral enhancement is one thing, while the
My Brain Made Me Moral: Moral Performance Enhancement 203
evaluation of such enhancement within different
social contexts is quite another.
Moral Scenario Two: the Right Morality for the Job
The next scene takes place in a large investment firm’s
personnel department, at some future date. Two charac-
ters discuss a chemical compound called talcapone, a
catechol-O-methyl transferase inhibitor that selectively
results in a dopaminergic augmentation. Subjects given
a dosage of talcapone show egalitarian tendencies dur-
ing interactions with others, indicating that talcapone
heightens their aversion to being responsible for inequi-
table distributions of resources [26].
A job candidate awaits the final interview, after the
profiling and drug testing were completed. The employ-
ment officer and a vice president are deciding whether to
make the hire for a position managing investments for
clients. BThere’s more than a trace amount of a talcapone
variant in his system,^the officer said. The VP’seye-
brows went up, recalling how talcapone was just the first
dopaminergic to cause generously fair behavior, and
later variants had few side-effects. Over-the-counter
dosages labeled as Benevolium became legal in many
countries. BYou remember what happened when we
started testing for that, right?^The officer’sfaceturned
grim, recalling how several investment managers had to
be fired. BWould he agree to stop taking Benevolium?^
he asked. BPerhaps,^the VP replied, BWe have the right
to ask him.^The officer agreed, saying, BAfter all, we
wouldn’t ask him to take alcapone instead.^Startled, the
VP glanced back. BDo we still test for that, too?^she
asked. BNo, no, not anymore,^the officer replied with a
laugh. BAfter everyone found out that the firm was
promoting people on alcapone, testing was pointless.^
They both smiled. Because it induced the opposite effect
of Benevolium, the number of people secretly taking
alcapone was probably far greater. Few people knew, or
cared, what the original generic name for that drug was.
Plenty of people loved the idea of going Bgangster^like
the notorious Al Capone, while they are taking
alcapone. It really worked, though. The utter ruthless-
ness of investment advisors on alcapone stood out, and
the extra fees extracted from clients produced big finan-
cial results. The VP took another look through the
candidate’sresumé.BI see business management here.
What about human resources?^The officer’s query into
the system brought up an opening in employee benefits.
Pleased, the VP said, BTell him that the investment job
has been filled, but benefits position is open.^If the
candidate takes that job, she thought, employees would
appreciate a staunch advocate of fairness who looks out
for them. So long as he kept taking Benevolium, of
course.
This second scenario provokes more questions. Does
the egalitarianism produced by Benevolium permit it to
count as a genuine moral enhancer? Must people on
Balcapone^get classified as morally degenerate? Going
further, are these scientific questions as well as ethical
questions? More question ensue. Among the characters
we meet in these stories, who is truly moral? Can they be
ranked from more moral to less moral? And, most
importantly, does figuring out answers to such questions
require taking a broader civic context, or at least a
smaller-scale institutional context, into account?
Finding it necessary to ask these higher-level ques-
tions is the larger point here, since speculation about
enhancement, and moral enhancement, in any detached
and abstract manner is clearly inadequate. Knowing that
we should enhance morality, or even figuring out how to
reliably enhance morality, will not reasonably follow
simply from pointing out common notions of morality
or psychological features of morality, or identifying
some neurological processes making morality possible.
Neurophilosophy should guide the ability of neuroethics
to identify logical gaps and fallacies endemic to sketchy
proposals for artificially adjusting morality.
The Does-Must Dichotomy
In many neuroethics discussions, which I have encoun-
tered, I have noticed how the author proceeds for some
time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, concerning facts
about what the brain does, or observations about what
public opinion says or how social affairs proceed; when
all of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the
usual copulations of propositions, does,anddoes not,I
meet with no proposition that is not connected with a
must,oramust not. Recalling Hume’sfamousIs-Ought
dichotomy, I wonder how, what seems altogether im-
possible, this similar Does-Must relation may be
established.
3
This Does-Must gap is boldly leaped by typical ar-
guments for or against the use of some new brain-related
3
Paraphrasing David Hume [27], book III, part I, section I.
204 Shook J.R.
treatment or technology to achieve a putative enhance-
ment. Neuroethics, with the latest information about
moral neurophysiology in hand, could attempt to autho-
rize arguments determining what is the better (or even
best) morality exemplified by well-functioning brains.
4
However, when brain science labels certain brain pro-
cesses as ‘moral’, that identification does not establish
that their improvement must be acknowledged as moral.
The Does-Must Gap will not be narrowed that way –the
normative must also have its say. Philosophically, the
issue could be posed like this: Does one’s brain make
one moral, or does one’s morality make one’s brain
moral?
Reasoning gaps proliferate as the distance grows
between the things that people are heard to say about
morality and the things that should be changed about
brains. Realistically, there may not be enough
neuroethics or neuroscience to bridge them. The sys-
temic, and even organic, relations involved with moral-
ity, its factors, and its practitioners does not lend itself to
a conception of morality as an autonomous and self-
sustaining matter that stays aloof from concrete mani-
festations in the lives of socialized and moralized indi-
viduals. Consider the following argument, where a so-
ciety agrees that X is a needed factor for morality:
1. BFor morality, X is needed.^
2. If A is needed for B, then more of Ayields more of
B.
3. Increasing or intensifying X improves morality.
(from 1 and 2)
4. Morality should be improved.
Therefore, X should be used for enhancing morality.
(from 3 and 4).
The Does-Must gap seems smaller thanks to premise
2, but an argument relying on 2 commits a fallacy of
Bguaranteed causation.^Even if the presence of factor A
is needed for B, that doesn’tmeanthatABcauses^B,
and it cannot guarantee that more A will positively
influence B. And even if a little more A can (under
certain conditions) positively influence B, that cannot
guarantee that even more A will do so as well. (Factor-
Cause Plurality is responsible, to be discussed next.)
Premise 3 can make it seem like improving morality
could be easily accomplished, but confirming 3 remains
far out of reach.
Neuroethics is vulnerable to this difficulty. It has
taken an interest in arguments sharing in this schema:
5. 3. Increasing or intensifying X improves a person’s
morality.
6. Physiological intervention P causes a neurological
alteration N, which results in X increasing/
intensifying in some measureable way.
Therefore, P causes an improvement in a person’s
morality.
A concrete example could be devised by briefly
looking at the supposed effect that talcapone has pro-
social behavior. Imagine an egalitarian arguing as
follows:
7. For morality, taking responsibility for equitable dis-
tributions of resources is needed.
8. Increasing responsibility for equitably distributing
resources improves a person’smorality.
9. Ingesting talcapone causes a neurological alteration,
which results in increasing responsibility for equi-
tably distributing resources.
Therefore, Ingesting talcapone causes an improve-
ment in a person’smorality.
Doubts about the universal validity, or even real-
world plausibility, of premise 6 are already familiar.
As for the argument as a whole, logical gaps between
the premises and the conclusion persist, due to Factor-
Cause Plurality.
Factor-Cause Plurality
Logical gaps endemic in neuroethics are often due to
overlooking Factor-Cause Plurality. A single factor
can’t automatically count as a significant cause so long
as many causal factors may be involved too, and a
causal factor probably has a range of possible effects
leading to various results depending on surrounding
conditions. For example, undergoing a physiological
intervention probably won’t reliably cause a neurologi-
cal alteration to any guaranteed degree while local phys-
iological or neurological conditions are fluctuating, as
they usually are [30]. Ceteris paribus clauses proliferate
in the course of regular scientific inquiry. However, the
4
Ranking moral theories as more or less ethical can be handled by
moral psychology and moral neurology, according to Joshua
Greene [28,29].
My Brain Made Me Moral: Moral Performance Enhancement 205
more that carefully controlled trials handle unwanted
variables, the less those trials resemble real-world situ-
ations calling for the behaviors under study.
Furthermore, increasing something needed for mo-
rality may cease to improve morality, or even begin to
reverse its positive effects, if that increase proceeds
beyond some definite point. Nor will increasing some-
thing needed for morality reliably improve morality as
expected for just any person, under varying social con-
ditions. The organic systematicity to morality and its
multi-level factors cannot be overlooked by moral psy-
chology, neurophilosophy, or neuroethics.
It is a symptom of an immature moral neuroscience
that popular moral psychology drives the Bdiscovery^of
brain functions necessary for moral cognition, and not
the reverse. Examples are readily at hand. For many
reasons, altruism has enjoyed that popular status recent-
ly –if only unselfishness dominated our motivations,we
would do the right thing without second thoughts get-
ting in the way. If we could invent a neurophysiological
intervention ‘A’for an altruistic emotion –empathy is
often mentioned –in order to make this altruistic moti-
vation more easily dominate psychological matters,
would improved morality surely ensue?
10. For morality, acting on an altruistic emotion is
needed.
11. Acting on an altruistic emotion improves a per-
son’smorality.
12. Neurophysiological intervention A causes a neu-
rological alteration, which results in increasing an
altruistic emotion.
Therefore, intervention A causes an improvement in
aperson’s morality.
This argument suffers from logical gaps in the ex-
pected places, as many real-world psychological and
environing matters have to be factored in. First, acting
from altruism infrequently guarantees moral conduct,
since bestowing our energies upon each and every per-
son arousing that an altruistic sentiment is naive and
wasteful, and a failure to do the truly right thing be-
comes inevitable over the course of a day. Premise 11
cannot easily follow from 10. Thoughtfully discriminat-
ing who truly needs and deserves aid and comfort is still
required, and all the more so if altruistic emotions are
dominating one’s thoughts. We would need guarantees
that only the right people enjoy our beneficence. But no
such guarantee can be made, when an emotion is taken
for a fine driver of morality. Emotions are strongest
concerning whatever happens to come into view, and
not necessarily what should be attended to, so a person’s
altruistic-driven morality would depend heavily on how
that person already perceives the world. The ethical idea
that BI should care about distant people I’ll never see^is
not an idea that an emotional reaction will directly
inspire. Not even BI should start thinking about distant
people I’ll never see^is a thought for which an emo-
tional reaction will be responsible. Furthermore, emo-
tional reactions are not generalizable the way that
reason-based judgments can be. No matter how strongly
IhappentofeelthatBPaulina must get my aid now,^that
is not a compelling reason for you to also aid Paulina,
even if we agree on all the relevant facts about Paulina.
The same goes for my feeling that Manuel needn’tget
any consideration from me. No matter how many sound
judgments I think that I can make about who receives
the due measure of my attentive considerations, many
altruistic people will still appear to be foolishly making
the wrong decisions, by attending to nearby cases too
intently, or by being too accommodating to unworthy
cases.
To forestall such impractical and unethical outcomes,
advocates of emotion-based moral enhancement have to
resort to additional (clearly dubious) assumptions, such
as: (a) only people at risk of serious moral deficiencies
will be recipients of moral enhancement (yet it won’tb
e
just our emotions identifying who they are), or (b) the
Bmoral^emotions will somehow be directed only at
truly moral cases (so reasons somehow get built into
emotions); or (c) everyone will get their emotions ad-
justed to just the Bright^degree (how will that be calcu-
lated?) at the same time; or (d) everyone’scapacityfor
respecting fairness and justice can be taken for granted
(yet we can’t take that for granted now) so we don’t
bestow undue clemency upon the unworthy; or (e) ev-
eryone’s capacity for fairness and justice will also get
enhanced to just the right degree to moral emotions from
violating those norms (but that measured re-balancing
leaves our moral judgments as conflicted as before). The
embedded assumptions are unrealistic, of course.
5
Even
if some of those assumptions were satisfiable, cognitive
reasoning is asked to play a large role, and emotions
5
These kinds of concerns have bases in moral psychology [31]
and get raised in reviews [32–35] of Ingmar Persson and Julian
Savulescu’sUnfit for the Future [36].
206 Shook J.R.
won’t end up being primarily responsible for any moral
improvement.
Admirers of cognitive improvement for moral en-
hancement do not gain ground as emotion-based moral
enhancement proves unrealistic. Parallel problems can be
raised wherever any singular psychological/neurological
factor is proposed as the right place to artificially improve
morality. The greater neurophilosophical lesson has to
eventually be learned. Respecting Factor-Cause Plurality
requires relying upon more than just linear and mecha-
nistic causation where complex physiological and psy-
chological processes are concerned, at every level of
embodiment from synaptic to social levels [37,38].
Appreciation for dynamically cyclical and systemic pro-
cesses, and complexities to interventions affecting them,
is a matter calling for refined analysis.
There are six primary ways that achievable im-
provements to something’s dynamic capacities
could fail to yield desired performance enhance-
ments if those improvements are extended beyond
some certain amount or degree. These general lim-
itations apply to human capacities, and where the
issue is improving morality, all six must be care-
fully considered.
I. Asymmetric Improvement. Further improvement is
futile because any additional alteration causes a
divergence away from the optimal level achievable.
Examples: the professional skills of photography
applied to taking a realistic picture of an ordinary
object; or the skills of tuning Steinway pianos ap-
plied to an inexpensive piano of mediocre
construction.
II. Asymptotic Improvement. Further improvement
produces fewer results as the optimal level is
approached. Examples: making finer and finer ad-
justments in the effort to precisely copy an original
diagram; or playing a game such as bowling or
poker with greater proficiency, reaching some sort
of maximal performance level constrained only by
uncontrollable chance.
III. Asymptomatic Improvement. Further improve-
ment produces undetectable measurements of real
enhancement. For example, improving one’s
playing of chess may reach the point of winning
every game over all opponents, but after winning
so consistently, how can any further enhancement
of chess playing be detected by the competition, or
even by this supreme master?
IV. Asynoptic Improvement. Further improvement
confusingly produces differing results from differ-
ent perspectives, so it become difficult to objec-
tively recognize enhancement. For example,
attempting artistic improvements to surpass a
genre’s standards will lead observers to disagree
over what kind of art is the result; or engaging in
competitive dancing in an effort to surpass expect-
ed dance forms would not be judged by dance
experts in the same way.
V. Asynchronic improvement. Further improvement
only causes a more and more delayed result, obvi-
ating the point of the activity. For example, consider
aperson’s skill at making witty remarks at a gath-
ering –the wittier the remark, the longer period of
time is needed for comprehension by one’saudi-
ence, so producing extreme wit is not consistent
with displaying clever wittiness.
VI. Asymphonic improvement. Past a certain degree
of improvement, discord is generated to the point
of destroying the context in which improvement
had made sense. For example, playing an instru-
ment in an orchestra could get excessively en-
hanced to the point that the overall orchestral
performance is disrupted; or playing soccer could
be done so exceedingly well that other players
become less relevant and the game is distorted or
eroded.
These six limits to improvement place serious restric-
tions on potential enhancements. For example,
talcapone could only moderately enhance moral perfor-
mance in a narrow range of real-world situations. Con-
trolled trials for interactions between the subject on
talcapone and a participant find modest degrees of fairer
behavior, but no ‘optimum’fairness would be reached
with more and more talcapone, since a subject would
eventually reach some personal equilibrium (Limit II)
and any further Bimprovement^would amount to un-
fairness against the subject (Limit I) instead of the other
person. Even if the goal of talcapone treatment is to
attain what society wants as true fairness, increasing a
subject’s talcapone dosage while she negotiates a busi-
ness contract or handles a customer complaint cannot
ensure that observers can notice if ideal fairness is ever
attained (Limit III). Going further, many real-world
situations calling for fairness involve multiple partici-
pants. A judge taking a heavy dose of talcapone might
control trials or issue decisions in ways that stray from
My Brain Made Me Moral: Moral Performance Enhancement 207
standard judicial practice, provoking the prosecution or
defense to make an appeal to a higher court (Limit IV).
A local public official on talcapone, faced with a deci-
sion affecting thousands of people, might deliberate too
intensely for so long that the public won’tunderstand
either the delay or the eventual decision (Limit V).
Finally, putting a large committee of state officials on
plenty of talcapone and asking them to re-write tax laws
would make it less likely that consensus is reached and
more likely that community discord erupts (Limit VI).
6
Some readers may feel a rising frustration with so
many convoluted considerations. Enthusiasts of moral
bioenhancement may only be asking for a straightfor-
ward way to get people to see what is good and do the
right thing. Could distractions away from pure morality
be the real problem? Perhaps less is more: improve-
ments might be made indirectly or passively by divert-
ing or diminishing the role of certain factors, instead of
enlarging them [44–46]. Do the means really matter that
much, morally? The third scenario is about providing
morality by whatever means are effective when people
want morality to be evident.
Moral Scenario Three: Just Deliver Us Morality
The Rector looked at his watch. Hopefully this candidate
would be on time. The previous ministerial candidate
sauntered in 30 minutes late. There was a good excuse,
the rector recalled. That candidate was full of excuses,
and shameless about giving them. BWhen I ended up at a
gas station to ask directions, it couldn’t have been by
accident,^she had explained. BHow else could I have
met that grandmother, so worried about her old car? We
had to pray together, and it set her day right again.^Her
demeanor during the entire interview was like that.
Whatever happened, no matter how it happened, always
seemed so good, and so right. The Deacon was
impressed. BWhat we need is a minister who just knows
when something is right!^The rest of the search com-
mittee didn’t disagree, having reached the consensus that
their chosen minister has to truly know goodness and
morality. Their previous minister had finally retired, to
the relief of the congregation, because he couldn’t make
tough moral judgments and take firm moral stands.
Dissensions were growing over various issues, almost
splintering the congregation. The next minister was go-
ing to be different, the search committee vowed.
Moral confidence exuded from all three finalists, as
expected. No one on the committee was surprised to
find out that all three were applying brain stimulations
as moral enhancers. The theological seminaries mostly
tolerated them now. A few seminaries held out for
Bauthenticity^or Bethics,^but no one seemed to know
exactly what those things really meant. Graduates
weren’t all the same, though. The tardy candidate, so
sure about good things when she saw them, was apply-
ing Pacifica. It was developed for people with anxieties
about moral shame or moral tragedies. For ordinary
people, it was apparently like feeling certain that what-
ever happens, happens for some good reason. As the
Rector could tell from talking with people using Pacif-
ica, each one could quickly intuit some good reason for
whatever is going on, but there’s never much consisten-
cy. Not that people on Pacifica ever cared about consis-
tency. Whatever story needed to be told in the moment is
always the best account, of course.
The first candidate had proudly mentioned how he
was on Proregula. The Deacon had said, BIf you want
someone who always knows the rules, then he’s the one
for us!^That’s the effect of Proregula, as the committee
reminded the Deacon. That candidate couldn’t help
coming across as judgmental about everything, because
applying Proregula diverts the brain from comparing
one’s judgments with what other people hold to be right
and wrong. The behavior was unmistakable. That ex-
pression of sheer incredulity that anyone disagrees was
the first clue. BHow could you ever think that!^Then the
lecturing, as if anyone who dared to disagree was in dire
need of an elementary education about right and wrong.
Fortunately, few people used Proregula. If two of them
start an argument over some moral question, it will
never end. The running joke at the seminaries went,
BYou’d argue with God on Proregula, except God al-
ways agrees with you!^
The Rector’s musings halted, as the next candidate
was right on time. The Rector had never met someone
applying Purimente. Opponents said that Purimente just
made people imagine that their actions are always mor-
ally fine, by dampening the activity of brain regions
estimating how one’s acts are evaluated by others.
6
Critics of moral enhancement by various means, not just involv-
ing fairness, have appealed to these Limits. Examples for each
Limit are: Limit I –[12] on losing freedom; Limit II –[39]on
negative feedback systems; Limit III –[40]ontrustingmorally
enhanced persons; Limit IV –[41] ch. 8 on the morality of
posthumans; Limit V –[42] on chasing moral perfectionism; Limit
VI –[43] ch 3 on overcoming prejudice in institutions.
208 Shook J.R.
People using Purimente can tell when others have dif-
ferent opinions, but they never feel judged by another
person, or even feel like judging themselves. The com-
mittee soon observed its effects, when the candidate
informed the shocked committee that she had already
contacted the disgruntled group of congregants within
the church. BIf you don’tselectmeasyourminister,I’m
going to help them start a new church,^she announced.
She seemed to barely notice the unhappy mutterings
around the table as she admitted, BThis all could seem
improper.^Her smile widening with self-assurance, she
added, BBut I assure you that this comes from nothing
but good intentions.^
The main lesson from the third scenario is that advo-
cating moral enhancement by improving just a person’s
ability to intuit what is right, stay true to what is right, or
intend only what is right, does not seem sufficient for
genuinely moral conduct. It is not enough to suppose
that an enhanced ideational or motivational purity to
one’s moral capacity can guarantee moral outcomes.
Two additional issues stand out. First, from a first-
person perspective, acting from mysterious promptings
that masquerade as reasons to be moral will seem oddly
unlike acting from authentic beliefs and genuine rea-
sons. It will become apparent to subjects that they act
from certainties that do not merit such trust, and they
may come to doubt whether they should act on their
moral beliefs [47]. Second, from a third-person perspec-
tive, people sincerely trying to be moral may be viewed
as exerting undue control over others, or causing harm
to other’s interests, as all three scenarios illustrate.
There is no way to abstractly define moral enhance-
ment to forestall these issues. To give another example,
defining moral enhancement as Bhaving morally better
future motives,^as Douglas [3] stipulates, appears to
promise a fail-safe proviso: if a person does an action
causing harm to another, either that person was not truly
morally enhanced, or that person had purely moral
motives to excuse the act. This is quite abstract and all
too convenient. Selecting some key factor to our moral
psychology as the best way to assuredly enhance any-
one’s morality acquires intuitive plausibility at the ex-
pense of real-world practicability. What we would all
like to know in advance is precisely what kinds of
actions would a Bmorally enhanced^person do to
others, or allow to happen to others? That level of detail
is almost never provided; the moral enhancement enthu-
siast resorts to citing some familiar moral platitudes or a
preferred ethical theory.
Proponents of ethical theories can recognize elements
of their views in the hypothetical Benhancements^imag-
ined in the three futuristic scenarios. However, no ethi-
cal theory has to approve those interventions as genuine
moral enhancements. Theorizing about morality can,
and should, take into account neurological, psycholog-
ical, institutional, and social factors. These factors are
tightly interrelated matters to be carefully examined for
their relevance to morality, and for their contribution to
(or detraction from) any improvements to a person’s
morality, if improvements are even possible under actual
circumstances.
Making My Brain Make Me Moral
It will never be a simple matter to start from common
sense opinions about morality or fine ideals for moral
progress and proceed to formulate a matching method
for enhancing morality. The Does-Must Dichotomy and
Factor-Cause Plurality, along with the ordinary diver-
gence of views about what morality should be, raise
many obstacles. If the systemically and socially organic
nature of morality and moral performance is surveyed,
reasonable bridges between narrowly specified goals
and their delimited practical means can be realistically
designed.
Supplying that content and context can restore a
measure of objectivity. Where a scientific identification
of moral behavior can be consistent with an ethical
theorist’s description of some kind of moral conduct,
they could together objectively discern alterations to a
subject’s enactment of that morality. The alterations
managing to meet the ethical theorist’s expectations for
moral improvement past certain confirmable criteria
could then be (tentatively) classified as a moral enhanc-
er. Like following a line from one starting point on
through another point in a certain direction for a speci-
fied distance, moral enhancing figuratively appears to be
ataskforBmoral vectoring.^Moral vectoring requires at
minimum these factors: the identification of two
‘points’, taken to be on a common moral ‘plane’,sothat
transitioning from the first to the second is a moral
transition in the same sense of Bmoral,^and finally
determining this transition’s progress beyond that sec-
ond point, to the degree of enhancement anticipated.
Moral vectoring permits some concrete and empirical
meaning for Bmoral performance enhancement.^Moral
performance enhancement, to be clearly identifiable,
My Brain Made Me Moral: Moral Performance Enhancement 209
sets at minimum three criteria for a moral enhancer: (a) a
statement of moral vectoring; (b) an effective procedure
for realizing that vector in a subject’s conduct; and (c)
observational confirmations of that planned vector’s
fulfilment. Next, before judging that an identified moral
enhancer is thereby realizable, checking its usage within
specified social contexts and comparing it against the six
Limits to enhancement is required. Finally, after these
hurdles have been cleared, approval may still be with-
held. A realizable moral performance enhancement may
yet be quite disputable (due to differing standards for
enhancing), highly objectionable (due to divergent un-
derstandings of morality), or even irredeemable (due to
violations of human rights, for example), but at least it is
concretely available for these sorts of ethical and civic
evaluations.
Specifying moral vectors within a social group prac-
ticing a morality, setting the fulfilment of vectors into
their proper environing contexts, and evaluating the
many impacts of moral vectors throughout those con-
texts, should take priority in discussions of practical
moral enhancement. Only identifiable, realizable, and
ethical moral enhancements should be candidates to
undergo rigorous approval processes before any kind
of broader application is permitted. For all its complex-
ities, ethics is still what we must use together in order to
decide whether and how to make an individual’sbrain
more moral.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Submission Statement This submission has not been pub-
lished, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
Conflict of Interest No conflicts declared
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