What drives public attitudes towards moral bioenhancement and why it matters: an exploratory study

The paper represents an empirical study of public attitudes towards moral bioenhancement. Moral bioenhancement implies the improvement of moral dispositions, i.e. an increase in the moral value of the actions or character of a moral agent. The views of bioethicists and scientists on this topic are present in the ongoing debate, but not the view of the public in general. In order to bridge the gap between the philosophical debate and the view of the public, we have examined attitudes towards moral bioenhancement. The participants were people from Serbia older than 15, who voluntarily completed an online questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of a brief introduction to moral bioenhancement, seven general questions, 25 statements about participants’ attitudes towards moral bioenhancement, and five examples of moral dilemmas. The questionnaire also included questions which were used to reveal their preference of either deontology, or utilitarianism. Participants were asked to what degree they agree or disagree with the statements. The results showed that the means used to achieve moral enhancement, the level of education, and preference for deontology or utilitarianism do have an impact on public attitudes. Using exploratory factor analysis, we isolated four factors that appear to drive the respondents' attitudes toward moral bioenhancement, we named: general—closeness, fear of change, security, and voluntariness. Each factor in relationship to other variables offers new insights that can inform policies and give us a deeper understanding of the public attitudes. We argue that looking into different facets of attitudes towards moral bioenhancement improves the debate, and expands it.

Moral Bioenhancement: Widespread Harm and Broad Cooperation

<p>A controversial issue in contemporary bioethics has emerged in recent years: moral bioenhancement (MB). Human bioenhancement in general has seen its share of controversy, but it is generally agreed that there is potential to improve human physical and mental capacities through biotechnological interventions such as medicinal drugs and genetic modification. The discussion has turned to whether biotechnological interventions could similarly improve human moral capacities. Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu have argued that MB is imperative if humans are to survive into the future, because our current moral capacities do not equip us to address future catastrophic problems, Ultimate Harm, which will be caused by modern advanced scientific progress. I suggest related but distinct reasons why MB is appealing: scientific progress and deficient human moral capacities are jointly responsible for enormous amounts of harm all over the world, Widespread Harm, and MB has the potential to reduce that harm. Human moral capacities are deficient because of their dependence on what I call ‘moral intuitions’; evolved psychological traits that shape our many societies’ varied moral values, resulting in moral disagreement and the disruption of inter-group cooperation. Addressing modern problems requires a broader level of cooperation that is unlikely to be achieved by depending on our current moral intuitions. This is why our moral capacities should be improved. However, typical accounts of MB do not describe interventions that will improve our moral capacities in this way. They are focused on the vague objective of ‘making people morally better’, assuming that this will address human moral deficiency and that this will in turn address the resulting problems. ‘Making people morally better’ means making them more satisfactory to our current moral intuitions, which are the root of moral deficiency, so these MB strategies are unlikely to be effective. An alternative MB strategy, which I propose, instead focuses on the objective of modifying current moral intuitions so that they promote broad cooperation. This will result in improved moral capacities in the sense that our moral capacities will be more practically useful to us. However, because this strategy disregards the importance of satisfying our current moral intuitions, it will be morally unpalatable. This is its main disadvantage over the typical MB strategy, though it is better at handling many common objections. Ultimately, there are a number of practical concerns that cannot be completely satisfactorily responded to even by my new MB strategy, such as the issues of mandatory MB and of fine-tuning our moral capacities. These concerns may mean that MB is too risky, and therefore not the best course of action in response to modern problems rooted in scientific progress and moral deficiency, particularly since we have promising alternatives available such as traditional moral enhancement techniques and further scientific progress. The prospect of MB should continue to be investigated, but it should focus on improving upon our current problematic moral intuitions rather than better satisfying them.</p>

Moral Bioenhancement: Widespread Harm and Broad Cooperation

<p>A controversial issue in contemporary bioethics has emerged in recent years: moral bioenhancement (MB). Human bioenhancement in general has seen its share of controversy, but it is generally agreed that there is potential to improve human physical and mental capacities through biotechnological interventions such as medicinal drugs and genetic modification. The discussion has turned to whether biotechnological interventions could similarly improve human moral capacities. Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu have argued that MB is imperative if humans are to survive into the future, because our current moral capacities do not equip us to address future catastrophic problems, Ultimate Harm, which will be caused by modern advanced scientific progress. I suggest related but distinct reasons why MB is appealing: scientific progress and deficient human moral capacities are jointly responsible for enormous amounts of harm all over the world, Widespread Harm, and MB has the potential to reduce that harm. Human moral capacities are deficient because of their dependence on what I call ‘moral intuitions’; evolved psychological traits that shape our many societies’ varied moral values, resulting in moral disagreement and the disruption of inter-group cooperation. Addressing modern problems requires a broader level of cooperation that is unlikely to be achieved by depending on our current moral intuitions. This is why our moral capacities should be improved. However, typical accounts of MB do not describe interventions that will improve our moral capacities in this way. They are focused on the vague objective of ‘making people morally better’, assuming that this will address human moral deficiency and that this will in turn address the resulting problems. ‘Making people morally better’ means making them more satisfactory to our current moral intuitions, which are the root of moral deficiency, so these MB strategies are unlikely to be effective. An alternative MB strategy, which I propose, instead focuses on the objective of modifying current moral intuitions so that they promote broad cooperation. This will result in improved moral capacities in the sense that our moral capacities will be more practically useful to us. However, because this strategy disregards the importance of satisfying our current moral intuitions, it will be morally unpalatable. This is its main disadvantage over the typical MB strategy, though it is better at handling many common objections. Ultimately, there are a number of practical concerns that cannot be completely satisfactorily responded to even by my new MB strategy, such as the issues of mandatory MB and of fine-tuning our moral capacities. These concerns may mean that MB is too risky, and therefore not the best course of action in response to modern problems rooted in scientific progress and moral deficiency, particularly since we have promising alternatives available such as traditional moral enhancement techniques and further scientific progress. The prospect of MB should continue to be investigated, but it should focus on improving upon our current problematic moral intuitions rather than better satisfying them.</p>