Ethical issues in moral and social enhancement

2.3.2. Effectiveness 
Another issue is the expected magnitude of change. The plausibility of MB for the 
purpose of making better moral agents may be put in doubt if the interventions 
available seem to be insufficiently effective. If we were to adopt the goal of MB 
that Persson and Savulescu adopt (2008), we would expect morally enhancing 
intervention to result in the overriding of any inclination or reason for inflicting 
large-scale harm. Among ‘the wicked’ who are willing to inflict large-scale harm, 
there are likely to be both those whose vector sum of reasons largely points towards 
causing a disaster, and others riddled with doubt but who in the end decide to 
follow through. There will be opportunists who will change their minds with a little 
nudge, and those for whom causing large-scale harm is a purpose in life and is 
consistent with at least some of their strongly held beliefs. The impact of morally 
enhancing interventions would indeed have to be great to override all the subjective 
reasons for inflicting large-scale harm, strong attitudes and the impact of deeply 
engrained beliefs. With the bar of expectations regarding effectiveness set so high, 
other commentators (e.g. Harris, 2011) are right to doubt that sufficiently effective 
MB will be possible. However, there is no reason why we should understand 
‘sufficient’ as Persson and Savulescu (2008) do for the purpose of their paper. 
It is important to note another potential reservation. One could argue that since no 
MB likely to be possible in the near future will be capable of making 
any 
of the 
7
In the sense of being conducive to the good and affecting the moral sphere 

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wicked people good, MB is implausible. This objection seems to be especially 
illustrative because it is misguided; it remains so 
even if 
we agree with the factual 
premise. First, it misunderstands enhancement as necessarily bringing people from 
one extreme of the spectrum to another, and, secondly, it grossly oversimplifies the 
issue. We do not necessarily expect cognitive enhancers to turn stupid people into 
smart ones; rather we expect that they will improve certain aspects of cognition, 
improve ability to deal with certain kinds of tasks, and so on. Although we may 
think about prototypically ‘smart’ and prototypically ‘stupid’ people, ‘being smart’ 
can mean many different things, and requires a whole range of cognitive processes. 
Secondly, ‘smart drugs’ do not make people smart or even smarter. They modify a 
narrow aspect of functioning that partly underlies abilities and behaviours that we 
then see as signs of being smart. Whether any particular case of modifying an 
aspect of cognitive functioning amounts to an enhancement may very well be 
context-specific. If cognitive enhancement does not make stupid people smart, why 
should we expect MB to turn wicked people into virtuous ones? I suggest that we 
should not.
This is not to say that we could not 
want 
cognitive enhancers and moral enhancers 
to have this magnificent effect. We may hope for, imagine, and talk about the 
possibilities of radical human enhancement of a cognitive and moral realm, but 
even if radical enhancement is impossible, there is no reason why we should come 
to the conclusion that any enhancement is implausible. Naturally, we could point 
out that the effectiveness of enhancers is disappointing. It may indeed be the case 
that some enhancing interventions will have such a small influence on functioning 
that, for most of us, they are not worth the hassle. However, as some have pointed 
out, the cumulative and long-term impact of small changes can be substantial, yet 
are easily underestimated or overlooked altogether (Turner and Sahakian, 2006). 
Another issue is that of comparative effectiveness as well as comparative cost-
effectiveness. It may be the case that any pharmacologically induced change in 
moral functioning will be much less effective than more traditional means such as 
moral education. Even if that is the case, it may still be worth pursuing. It may be 
worth pursuing if pharmacological methods will be significantly cheaper or more 
accessible, and thus ultimately cost-effective. Moreover, it may be the case that 

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application of pharmacology and other novel means of enhancement may be more 
effective or cost-effective in certain specific circumstances, for specific groups or 
as a method that complements traditional means.
If we are going to consider pharmacological interventions that affect morality or 
cognition, there is no reason to be 
automatically 
discouraged if they have limited 
effectiveness (ie, they do not turn maths idiots into maths geniuses or morally 
corrupt people into paragons of virtue). We would likely find an analogical 
threshold for efficiency impossible to reach for many pharmacological 
interventions. What we should rather look at is whether the effect of a single 
intervention or/and its repeated use is great enough, including the cumulative 
benefits of small beneficial changes to the extent possible, and look at comparative 
cost-effectiveness. It seems to be grossly premature to make strong judgements 
about those issues, given that neuroscientists only turned their interest to the 
cognitive science of morality a short time ago and that empirical research into the 
effects of different interventions in the moral sphere of individuals is far from 
extensive. If we align our expectations to those we have of cognitive enhancement 
and treatments for mental health disorders, the prospects of finding 
pharmacological or other moral enhancers seem to be much better.