Ethical issues in moral and social enhancement

2.5.
Conclusions 
I have addressed doubts as to the plausibility of MB based on claims of its low 
effectiveness and context-dependency. Savulescu and Persson in their 2012 book 
Unfit for the future: the need for moral enhancement
argue that we desperately need 
MB. Whether or not we are ‘fit for the future,’ biomedical means are unfit to the 
purpose Persson and Savulescu (2008) envisaged. However, I have argued that we 
should treat MB in a way analogical to cognitive enhancement. If we set more 
modest goals and revisit our expectations about the effects of MB, it is premature to 
conclude that such enhancement is implausible. However, modifications of our 
moral sphere will still be subject to the questions about the balance of costs and 
benefits, the weight of prudential and moral considerations and the ethical 
permissibility of the ways in which they are pursued.

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43 
CHAPTER 3. The moral and the pro-social 
3.1. 
 Introduction 
The idea of direct emotional modulation for moral enhancement (understood as 
making better moral agents) has recently come under criticism (Harris, 2011; 
Jotterand, 2011). Some have criticized the Persson and Savulescu (2008) approach 
as not saying much about moral enhancement at all. Firstly, it has been argued that 
the MB interventions proposed to make morally better agents (such as increases in 
trust or empathy) are more accurately characterized as enhancement of pro-
sociality. However, since the moral and the pro-social are not the same, reducing 
morality to pro-sociality does not take the crucial part of our moral psychology into 
account.
In this chapter, I ask whether or not biomedically modulating pro-social emotions 
and attitudes such as empathy would likely better moral agency. I will examine the 
difference between the moral and the prosocial and outline and examine MB aimed 
at increasing empathetic ability. Further, I will argue that Harris’ and Jotterand’s 
arguments about the importance of rational deliberation from a moral perspective 
are convincing.