209
the character of Huckleberry Finn. This is how Doucet
summarises the relevant
details of Huck’s story:
‘Huck is an uneducated boy from antebellum Missouri with many of
the values and beliefs common to that place. He does not question the
moral justifiability of slavery, and he believes that slaves should be
treated as property. During the course of Twain’s story, Huck
befriends Jim, a slave, and helps him escape. This action goes against
Huck’s strong belief that he ought to turn Jim in, since, as a slave, Jim
is someone’s lawful property. On two separate occasions, however,
Huck is faced with an opportunity to turn Jim in, and on both
occasions, he finds that he cannot, despite
his belief that it would be
the right thing to do. This causes him to feel intense regret; he berates
himself for aiding in what he considers to be “theft,” and believes that
he has a duty to return Jim to Miss Watson, Jim’s owner. Far from
believing that he acted rightly, his conviction that he has repeatedly
acted both weakly and badly convinces him that he is destined to
remain a “bad boy”.’ (c.f. Doucet, 2014,
pp. 3-4)
Twain’s description of Huck’s psychology seems coherent and can serve as an
analogy for MB-induced inclinations. I would like
to consider two plausible
interpretations of what happens in Huck’s case, and the conclusions they offer for
thinking about biomedical emotion modulation.
On the first interpretation Huck acts merely on the basis of unreasoned emotional
‘pull’ of sympathy. Bennett (1974) argues that although in Huck’s case the outcome
of his action is consistent with what is morally good, his actions cannot be
considered to be properly ‘moral’. He emphasises that ‘
feelings
must not be
confused with
moral judgments
’ (p.124). This interpretation is supported by the fact
that Huck’s conviction that Jim is rightfully considered property and thus should be
returned to
his owner seems to be strong; moreover, Huck does not entertain
reasons that would question this conviction. On this interpretation, a feeling of
sympathy leads Huck to override his moral judgement. The moral review of his
actions is preserved, yet moral control is not.
210
This appears closely analogical to Persson and Savulescu's (2008) proposals of how
MB would look. Since Persson and Savulescu want to
eliminate vice leading to
great evils and do not mind creating permanent Ulysses’ (Savulescu and Perssons,
2014a), it follows they would endorse creating Huck Finns – agents whose
endorsed belief has been overridden by a strong, uncontrolled pro-social
motivation. As such, their interest does not lie in creating virtue but rather
substituting inverse-akrasia for vice. Although moral review may be preserved,
both online and offline moral control would
ideally
be diminished. If that indeed is
the rationale for their MB project, I agree with John Harris (2011, 2014a, 2014b)
that it would diminish freedom. Moreover, making agents
act against their better
judgement and not being able to modify their behaviour seems indeed like a recipe
for decline in moral agency, and as such, is not desirable where MB is to aim at
creating better moral agents.
However, the difference between Huck Finn and anti-vice MB is that Huck does act
on an emotional pull that is both consistent with and stems from his moral
worldview, or at least part of it. This brings us to the second interpretation of
Huck’s case. Doucet (2014) argues that Huck’s case is better considered to be a
case of conflict between competing moral reasons.
59
The first time Huck decides to
turn Jim in, two things Jim says cause him not to follow on his resolve:
Jim calls
Huck the best friend he ever had and ‘the only white gentleman to ever keep a
promise to him’ (Twain, chapter 16). Huck’s emotions and attitudes are rationally
grounded as they depend on his having a series of beliefs about Jim, friendship,
promises, and loyalty. Doucet argues that even though Huck acts irrationally from
his own point of view, the problem is less due to the fact that he has been overtaken
by an uncontrollable pang of sympathy and more to do with the fact that he failed to
consider all of the reasons he has for acting. Thus, Huck sees his judgement as a
‘better judgement’ but in fact he fails to make an all-things-considered judgement,
and the ignored reasons catch up with him; since
Huck failed to consider
any
reasons for helping Jim escape when he was deliberating about what to do, yet
those reasons came to his attention when he was about to act, he certainly did not
59
A similar argument was made in Audi (1990).
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