Ethical issues in moral and social enhancement

more
deliberation.
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One might object that this gap might be best addressed by means of 
better practical 
deliberation. However, I would think that therapy is, generally speaking and permitting 
differences in approaches, as close to good practical deliberation as we have. Moreover, 
patients are most often motivated to gain from therapy, and are in therapy because 
something in their lives needs to change. Even if the method could be improved, I think the 

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This problem is not new – as correctly Harris pointed out, weakness of will is a 
perennial problem. Harris (2013a) argues that: 
‘Where there is weakness of will, (akrasia), the problem is 
not one that requires moral enhancement but something 
akin to ‘stiffening the sinews’ and ‘summoning up the 
blood’…
Socrates was surely close when he saw it as a 
combination of knowing the good and doing the good. If 
and when there is a gulf between these two there may be 
no reliable way of filling it. Weakness of will seems to be 
a perennial problem but it is not the same as absence of 
moral emotions and no one has yet shown that emotional 
enhancement has any greater likelihood of bridging the 
gap between thought and action that [sic] anything else. 
Feeling the good is no closer to doing the good than is 
knowing the good.’ (p. 172) 
I agree with Harris that merely ‘feeling the good’ does not bring us any closer to 
doing the good than knowing the good – for the sufficient reason that on Harris’ 
account (and the one I would agree with contra moral intuitionists) 
feeling
the 
moral
good is not possible. However, I think that much of the population has little 
problem with knowing the good. As argued in Chapter 4, we might disagree on 
some of the goals, priorities and means of achieving the good, but the scope of 
agreement is also substantial. Yet, despite such agreement and the awareness of the 
vivid presence of preventable suffering, many local and global problems that could 
eventually be addressed by simply doing what we already know we should remain 
undone. Although weakness of will is not the same as absence of moral emotions, 
the issue of what means are necessary to address the often quite literally fatal 
results of the widespread and perennial akrasia remains open. I have suggested that 
enhancing deliberation is not enough if we want to support moral agency in action.
discussed results are a strong indication that it is not deliberation or belief change that 
many of patients are lacking in order to make the needed change 
even if
change in beliefs is 
a necessary precondition for that change.

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