Moral enhancement and freedom of choice: When does moral enhancement become devil enhancement?

Abstract

This essay contests the plausibility of David DeGrazia’s claim that moral enhancement would not significantly threaten human freedom. He argues that morally enhanced persons would necessarily fulfil the three conditions for free action: “‘A autonomously performs intentional action X if and only if (1) A does X because she prefers to do X, (2) A has this preference because she (at least dispositionally) identifies with and prefers to have it, and (3) this identification has not resulted primarily from influences that A would, on careful reflection, consider alienating.’” I employ two arguments to show the implausibility of DeGrazia’s argument. First, I introduce a thought experiment called ‘devil enhancement’ directed at enhancing immoral capacities as an analogy to the type of moral enhancement proposed by DeGrazia. This thought experiment will show that if devil enhancement impairs freedom of choice, moral enhancement will do the same. I situate my response within Afro-communitarianism. In particular, I evoke Ifeanyi Menkiti’s normative account of personhood to argue that moral enhancement, like devil enhancement, will significantly threaten human freedom and undermine an individual’s ability to decide whether to comply or not with relevant social norms required to attain full personhood. Second, this inquiry raises the question: what is the probability that moral enhancement could result in devil enhancement? Given the incomprehensibility of enhancement technologies, namely the uncertainties surrounding their outcome, I contend that this probability is high. It is not clear what the result of enhancement technologies will be, and DeGrazia did not do enough to support his claims that the outcome would always be moral excellence.