Soon we’ll use science to make people more moral

[Damajin]

And now for your creepy thought control article of the day:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...le-more-moral/

James J. Hughes is executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and the associate provost for institutional research, assessment and planning at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Sometimes, people do terrible things because they have a tragic misunderstanding of what it means to be good. Sometimes we do regrettable things because we aren’t strong enough to be as good as we would like. Fortunately, emerging neuroscience suggests that we will soon be able to both fix those with broken moral compasses and tune up our own internal morality.

Social neuroscience is revealing that much of our capacity for virtue is set at birth. Qualities like self-control, empathy, deliberation and fairness are substantially genetically and neurologically determined. For instance, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the likelihood of ending up in the criminal justice system have all been linked to the genes that regulate the neurochemical dopamine. Self-control has been linked to having a larger, more active and better-connected prefrontal cortex, which is able to control the more impulsive parts of the brain.

Today, the medications used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder boost dopamine signaling and help give prefrontal executive control the upper hand. These stimulants are just one of the “moral enhancers” that are already in common use. More are on the way.

Drugs, devices and gene therapies will soon allow us to safely suppress our appetites with a level of control only seen in ascetics and achieve transcendent states previously only accessible to yogis. Addictions will be treatable with implants, vaccines and therapies that enable the brain to unlearn dependencies. Psychedelic drug studies and brain imaging of meditators are suggesting ways to turn off neurotic self-absorption and tune into oneness and awe.

The emerging debate over the use of drugs and devices for moral enhancement has had three principal viewpoints: those who focus on boosting moral sentiments such as empathy; those who would just boost moral reasoning; and the skeptics. While the former two groups accept the goal of moral enhancement — and differ over the best method — the skeptics reject the project. They argue that moral enhancement therapies are overhyped, and that even if morality drugs were effective, they would be bad for our character to rely on them.

It is certainly true that the initial enthusiasm for certain moral enhancement therapies has been tempered by subsequent research. Dozens of studies have suggested that genes that regulate oxytocin, the “cuddle hormone,” affect trust and empathy, and that empathy is boosted when subjects snort oxytocin. But it now appears that the effects of boosting oxytocin were over-reported and that some of the hormone’s effects are less than cuddly — oxytocin tends to boost empathy only for people like us, increasing ethnocentric “in-group bias.”

To the extent that drugs, devices or therapies do boost positive moral impulses, the skeptics are also right that they could be too much of a good thing. Too much self-control can make Jack a dull boy, and too much empathy can lead to unfairness. Antidepressants increase our sensitivity to the pain of others, but they also reduce our willingness to punish wrongdoers and increase our tolerance of injustice.

This is one of the arguments for moral enhancement by making people smarter rather than nicer; to find the golden mean, we need to be able to distinguish between the right and wrong times to be caring, impartial or courageous. On the other hand, as the ancients have also long suggested, to be truly moral a person must not only understand the right course of action but also want to do the right thing. The cognitively enhanced psychopath will only be more effective in his or her selfishness. We need to fix broken impulses and broken thinking.

Clearly, the field of moral enhancement will need to reengage with the wisdom traditions to flesh out a more sophisticated understanding of what a mature moral character entails. For optimal flourishing, we need to balance wisdom and compassion, self-control and transcendence. Given the freedom to experiment with our growing toolbox for self-improvement, we will each need to discover our ideal morality settings.

Yet it is likely that the front line of moral enhancement experimentation will not be voluntary as we begin using these new therapies to treat psychopaths and criminals. Many governments already offer testosterone suppression to sex offenders, substance abuse treatments to the chemically dependent and psychiatric medications to mentally ill offenders. Eventually we will also develop treatments for psychopathy and violent impulsiveness and fulfill the promise of actual rehabilitation. At the same time, these tools will enable more effective forms of brainwashing and enforced conformity (the defense of cognitive liberty will require strictly circumscribing who is subject to involuntary moral enhancement).

I believe that free societies will be able to achieve collective security and moral progress without neurological coercion, by tolerating individual experimentation with morally enhancing technologies. With the aid of science, we will all be able to discover our own paths to technologically enabled happiness and virtue.

[Independent voter]

I was watching the BBC show Psychopaths, I think that was the name, it was a science show and they were talking about the only way to "fix" a psychopath would be to add some kind of chip to his brain that would turn the psychopath into a normal human being.

[apepi]

Nope screw that, don't screw with people that you disagree with. Who's morals is right?

[primalmatter]

Nope screw that, don't screw with people that you disagree with. Who's morals is right?

Clearly mine are duh.

[Azadina]

Nope screw that, don't screw with people that you disagree with. Who's morals is right?

How about the ones who doesn't want to harm others?

[Sunseeker]

I'm down with a person wanting to edit themselves to be a more "moral" person, whatever the hell that means to them.

- - - Updated - - -

How about the ones who doesn't want to harm others?

Define harm. Define others.

[Ahovv]

I'm soon reminded of Equilibrium.

[Xjev]

That shit is scary, we will all have to obey masters or get cured!

[Azadina]

Define harm. Define others.

Others = other people
Harm = "raw, me no like your skylord, me want behead you" or "gays should burn"

Something such as that. It isn't hard to figure out what is and what isn't harming others.

[Sunseeker]

Others = other people
Harm = "raw, me no like your skylord, me want behead you" or "gays should burn"

Something such as that. It isn't hard to figure out what is and what isn't harming others.

So, we can still harm animals and everyone who isn't considered a "person"?

[klogaroth]

Define harm. Define others.

Then once you've done that work out what to do in situations where harm to someone cannot be avoided. All you can do is choose who ends up being harmed.

[Ghostpanther]

That shit is scary, we will all have to obey masters or get cured!

It is not only scary, but also a bunch of bullshit.

[Azadina]

So, we can still harm animals and everyone who isn't considered a "person"?

You can figure it out yourself.

[spinner981]

How about the ones who doesn't want to harm others?

Only took 5 posts before this gem was revealed, so I am just going to go straight into the meat of the subject: Why is 'harm' the determinant for morality? Who gets to determine what is and isn't 'harmful', since 'harm' is a subjective term? What about self-defense? Is that still immoral? What about medical shots? They hurt, are they immoral? What about hurt feelings? Do hurt feelings count?

[Sunseeker]

You can figure it out yourself.

My point is obviously that it's not that simple. If it was we wouldn't have this problem.

[klogaroth]

You can figure it out yourself.

You can try, but people have spent almost the entirety of human history debating around the edge cases.

It's easy to define a person for most of the time, but around the beginning and end of life it becomes considerably more complex. It's here that disagreements are found.

[spinner981]

Others = other people
Harm = "raw, me no like your skylord, me want behead you" or "gays should burn"

Something such as that. It isn't hard to figure out what is and what isn't harming others.

That's a terrible definition of harm. You're basically just giving examples that you deem as 'harmful' but don't in any way explain why they are harmful. It would be like if I asked you "What makes a fruit a fruit?" and you simply answered with "Apples are fruit and bananas are fruit and oranges are fruit!"

[Azadina]

That's a terrible definition of harm. You're basically just giving examples that you deem as 'harmful' but don't in any way explain why they are harmful. It would be like if I asked you "What makes a fruit a fruit?" and you simply answered with "Apples are fruit and bananas are fruit and oranges are fruit!"

Stupid question gets stupid answer. You guys can go look the definition of harm on wikipedia or something, if you really have no concept of what it means. This is just complete waste of time.

[klogaroth]

Stupid question gets stupid answer. You guys can go look the definition of harm on wikipedia or something, if you really have no concept of what it means. This is just complete waste of time.

What do we do in situations where the only option is different degrees of something harmful?
Look at the debates around the right to die. What's more harmful? Keeping someone alive when they wish to die because they live in constant pain or killing them?
Different people come up with different answers.

[spinner981]

Stupid question gets stupid answer. You guys can go look the definition of harm on wikipedia or something, if you really have no concept of what it means. This is just complete waste of time.

No, this is your being incapable of answering the question.

Harm
physical injury or mental damage; hurt:

Injury
harm or damage that is done or sustained:

Damage
injury or harm that reduces value or usefulness:

Hurt
to cause bodily injury to; injure:

So instead of just tossing words around without caring for what they mean, or who gets to determine what it constitutes to be 'harmed', how about you explain why morality is determined by the presence or absence of harm, and then give me a list of all things that causes 'harm' or 'injury' or 'damage' because Dictionary.com doesn't want to, instead preferring to just give us an endless circle of definitions.

What does it mean to harm? To injure. What does it mean to injure? To destroy. What does it mean to destroy? To hurt. What does it mean to hurt? To harm. Etc. Etc. Etc.