ABSTRACT
Moral bioenhancement (MBE) is broad umbrella term covering a wide range of concerns. This chapter will present various types of moral enhancement given in the literature and the chief justifications given for pursuing them. Moral enhancement is also subject to strong critique. The chapter will present the various criticisms laid against moral enhancement, against its desirability and feasibility. The chapter will draw a distinction between “realistic” and “salvatory” kinds of MBE. Realistic MBE will be presented as indirect, weak, and diffuse in operation – but somewhat practicable for that. In contrast, salvatory MBE will be presented as insisting that such bioenhancement offers some direct and substantive potential to concretely alter human moral functioning. The chapter will argue that the latter is neither possible nor desirable, but that the former, under very tight and person-centered constraints, might be presented in a desirable and morally worthwhile form. Finally, given the weight of the criticisms raised against salvatory MBE (its practical difficulties and the philosophical confusions involved in the biologization of morality), it is concluded that such discourse should be generally resolved into either a purely speculative vehicle for exploring moral intuitions or a discourse concerned with the pressing dangers of covert social control.
