Bogdan Olaru 2 Bypassing Morality Through Conventional and Unconventional Forms of Moral Enhancement 2.1 The argument emanating from similarity After vigorous promotion of moral bioenhancement (Douglas 2008, 2013; Persson and Savulescu 2008, 2013, 2016; DeGrazia 2014), its prospect has encountered much criticism (Harris 2011, 2014, 2016; Schaefer 2015; Focquaert and Schermer 2015). Moral bioenhancement refers broadly to the idea that we should use biomedical means, if available and safe, to extend or supplement the efforts of bettering our moral nature. These new means work directly on the biological level of emotions, motivations, and attitudes. While serving the same aim of ameliorating human interactions from a moral point of view, such direct and unconventional tools are expected to catch up with more traditional and indirect means of moral enhancement, such as education, socialization, parental supervision, wise public policy, as well as classical tools of fostering reason and decision-making, such as advancing knowledge and spreading reliable information. Moral bioenhancement supplements this repertoire of well- established means, helps strengthen morality, and is in the service of a better world. However, one of the most important objections against moral bioenhancement (Harris 2011) is that manipulations of human functioning at the biochemical or neuronal level undercut a person’s freedom and moral reasoning. Because of deep- rooted connections between reason, autonomy, and morality, praised by many philosophers, this criticism amounted to exposing a self-defeating feature of any attempt of what might be qualified as moral bioenhancement. If, as the proponents assume, the new envisioned techniques focus on suppressing or increasing the biological layer of emotions, motivations, and/or attitudes to shift the behavioral output in the right direction, the change into a better person seems to occur in ways that are at least dissociated from, if not at odds with, rational scrutiny and moral agency. In other words, enhancing morality through biotechnological means seems to obliterate a hard-to-avoid relation between the idea of morality and moral person on the one hand and reason and justification on the other. As John Harris puts it, “The intervention is designed to bypass reasoning and act directly on attitudes. When such attitudes are manipulated, not only is freedom subverted but also morality is bypassed.” (Harris 2014, 372) A fundamental flaw lies at the heart of any attempt at moral bioenhancement: it can only take place in a manner that threatens to erode, generally and in the long term, the very idea of morality. Moral bioenhancement thus falls short of reaching the aim of supporting and safeguarding morality itself. Unauthenticated Download Date | 11/1/18 10:16 AM