Ethical issues in moral and social enhancement

1.4.
 
Ethical permissibility
The term ‘moral’ in the phrase ‘moral enhancement’ can refer to the overall ethical 
permissibility or obligation of moral enhancement, and so can be a more general 
reflection on the context of moral enhancement and its overall consequences. It can 
be argued that the second and first interpretations of moral enhancement (making 
people better) and the all-things-considered moral assessment of such intervention 
may reasonably be collapsed into one. For example, one might argue that moral 
enhancement is an intervention that will result in people acting more morally, and 
the moral action will be the one that maximises overall utility. At the same time, if 
the moral assessment of interventions is also based on maximising utility, the two 
will likely coincide. We have a similar case if one takes the idea of making people 
more moral to mean being more virtuous and the ethical value of the enhancing 
intervention is judged on the basis of the extent to which it promotes virtue. 
However, there are at least two situations where the two do not have to coincide.

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First, moral enhancement in the second sense (creating better moral agents) may be 
achieved using morally reprehensible means, which in turn will influence our moral 
assessment of the intervention in question. If the moral enhancement of a given 
person can only be achieved at the price of the side-effect of inflicting strong pain 
on another person for a long time, we may reasonably argue that overall it is not 
worth it, even if enhancing the person will lead them to act in a significantly more 
moral way following the intervention. I would propose that, in this context, we 
understand some of Harris’ (e.g. 2011) objections to moral enhancement. If moral 
enhancement was effective (on whatever account) but unjustifiably impaired one’s 
freedom to lead the life one pleases, the moral enhancement might not be morally 
permissible.
Secondly, making a person more concerned with morality may not have a positive 
overall effect under certain circumstances. For example, when the subjective and 
the objective right
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do not coincide, more consistently following what is 
subjectively right at least sometimes leads to morally worse outcomes. A further 
scenario is possible—namely when an enhancing intervention will result in a less 
moral individual, but will have overall good effects.