Ethical issues in moral and social enhancement

7.4.4. Conclusions 
In this section I have argued that the God Machine affects agency on the level of 
creating a will of one’s own. Using Frankfurt’s approach, I have distinguished 
between free action, free will and will of one’s own. On a minimal intervention 
view, the most likely change involves the change to something ‘upstream’ to 
second 
order 
volition and 
not 
the first-order 
or 
second-order 
desires. 

---

150 
The modification of the roots of second-order volition is indicated by the fact 
that a) agents are not aware that they were subject to the God Machine’s 
intervention and, b) there is no repeatedly arising second order volition to do evil. 
Strictly speaking, that means that subjects' ability to act on a will of their own as 
well as their free will remains intact, even if the content of the motivationally 
effective desire has been changed as a result of changes ‘up-stream’ in the process.
7.5. Free thought and will of one’s own 
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, 
more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, 
destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established 
institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, 
indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. ... 
Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief 
glory of man. 
Bertrand Russell, 
Why Men Fight
 
7.5.1. Introduction 
Firstly I examine the claim that what is problematic in Frankfurt-like cases is 
overdetermination and that the main problem lies in the foreclosure of meaningful 
alternative options for action (formulated most cogently in Harris, 2014a). Firstly, 
using a modification of a Savulescu and Persson (2012a) thought experiment 
nicknamed the Rational Persuader Machine, I suggest that in the God Machine 
scenario, it is not ‘the ability to do otherwise’ that protects from the loss of 
freedom. Rather, it is the break in the chain leading to rational agency, or, as Harris 
puts it, the ‘divorce of thought and action’ (2014a, p. 252). However, what is 
important is that the break happens at the level of agents’ appropriate engagement 
with reasons. Secondly, I seek to undermine the view that the ‘foreclosure of 
options’ represents the chief problem with the God Machine. The insights of the 
above sections provide the basis for arguing that cases of overdetermination leave 
alternative possibilities untouched by Frankfurt-like cases – alternative possibilities 
sufficiently meaningful to ground moral responsibility.

---

151