Ethical issues in moral and social enhancement

The Rational 
Persuader Machine would never influence the behaviour or 
intentions directly but create circumstances under which a 
person would attend to previously ignored considerations, 
acquire a wider outlook, learn something about the 
consequences of their actions or attend to reasons they 
already had but which they had not given sufficient weight 
to.
It would never influence other people directly, but, through 
a network of hired staff and changes to inanimate objects, it 
would create the circumstances in which a person would 
change her mind. Sometimes it would be a closely falling brick 
that would make them reflect on how short life is. Sometimes it 
would be an anonymous email with just the right content, or a 
hologram of a street preacher saying just the right words. 
The 
Machine is never a sophist; a constraint put on its action 
was that it is supposed to increase the person’s ability (or 
provide the relevant information) for making an all-things-
considered judgement.
Since the Rational Persuader Machine 
was monitoring the thoughts, beliefs and desires of everyone 
and had run simulations, every intervention would be effective. 
As before, it would only intervene once the threshold of harm 
to others’ interest was reached. Murder of innocent people no 
longer occurred and everyone was given the best chance to 
(inevitably) change their minds. 
It appears to me that interference from the Rational Persuader Machine, although 
still somewhat troubling (and shortly we shall explore some of the possible reasons 
why), would be significantly less problematic than that of the God Machine. The 
main difference is that there is no 
direct
change of mental phenomena leading to the 
change of the second order volition and that, consequently, the scenario allows 
agents to engage with the input in a ‘right way’ , i.e., the agent develops a will on 
her own on the basis of reasons.

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One could object by pointing out that the Rational Persuader Machine is indeed 
troubling because it is an instance of manipulation; although valid reasons or 
nudges to consider reasons are given, they might be interpreted as tendentious and 
instrumental in achieving a certain behavioural result. Such a scenario would be 
similar to propaganda, or to living in a society with tendentious media reporting. I 
admit that it is a valid consideration, yet my basic point stands: the difference 
between the Rational Persuader and the God Machine signals the importance of the 
agent’s engagement with reasons.
Moreover, this scenario could be conceived of as a high-tech version of a well-
known story. In Dickens’ 
A Christmas Carol
, Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by four 
ghosts: Marley, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. Shown 
images of the past, present and future and warned by the ghosts, Scrooge ‘changes 
his mind’ and re-shapes his life. Although the ghosts’ intervention could be 
considered as leading to a desired outcome, while at the same time the images 
brought to Scrooge’s attention seen as tendentious, ultimately Scrooge seems to 
take into account more of the morally relevant considerations than previously. By 
this reading, his ability to make an all-things-considered judgement has increased, 
even if he remains an imperfect moral agent.
26
The potentially relevant difference between Scrooge and the Rational Persuader 
Machine scenario is that in the latter case the agent does not know that another will 
is involved in shaping the information they can access – that there is a purposeful 
activity shaping their environment. Since the intervention is done in order to 
achieve a certain outcome, the whole exercise may be seen as manipulation. 
Moreover, since the person is unaware of the intervention they cannot take that 
factor into account. I think that this intuition arises from the fact that in our every-
day context we have good reasons to distrust information from people who have a 
vested interest in us doing a certain thing – often, the information may be 
26
For the purpose of this argument it is sufficient to contend that Scrooge is somewhat 
better
at making an all-considered judgement from a moral perspective, despite the 
questions about the reasons for him adopting the moral perspective and how good of a 
moral agent he is after the ghost’s appearance.

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misleading or unreliable. Yet, in our rather removed- from-the-real-world scenario, 
the constraint on the Machine’s interference is that agent’s ability to make an all-
things-considered judgement increases. Thus, this last objection turns out to be 
weak.
As a result, I think that it is unimportant that the Rational Persuader Machine 
provides necessarily compelling reasons, as long as the agent is able to engage with 
them in a right way. Moreover, although for both the machines the outcome is 
known from the start, the fact that the Rational Persuader Machine is less 
problematic than the God Machine signals that freedom of action is not the only, 
and perhaps not even the main, consideration. It appears that it is not the ability to 
do otherwise – in the sense of having possible futures in which one commits a gross 
immorality – that is of utmost importance. Rather, it is the appropriate engagement 
of the agent with reasons that is important. This is not a novel point (e.g. DeGrazia, 
2014; Harris, 2014a),
and put this way it may seem uncontroversial. Compatibilist 
accounts of free will often include emphasis on the appropriate engagement with 
moral reasons: what matters is that there is an appropriate causal connection 
between agent’s actions and preferences. A reason-responsive mechanism guiding 
action seems to be an important component of that account (for more details see: 
section 7.7.1). Consequently, if there are necessarily compelling reasons given, it 
does not necessarily mean that the freedom of will is diminished, even if we could 
not have done otherwise based on the reasons given.
Here we can note a certain asymmetry in interpretation of the God Machine and 
Rational Persuader Machine. Savulescu and Persson interpret the meaning of the 
God Machine’s intervention as follows: 
‘We have argued that there might be interventions, such as the 
God Machine, that do indeed produce more moral behaviour that 
do control the moral agent, subjugating that person to the will of 
another and removing the freedom to act immorally. Such 
interventions and such control are not plausibly moral 
enhancements of that person – they rather undermine autonomy 
by substituting moral for immoral intentions.’ (2012a, p. 417) 

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While in the God Machine scenario, the changes seem to undermine free will and 
free action (as interpreted by various commentators (e.g. Harris, 2014a; Savulescu 
and Persson, 2012a), this does not seem to apply to the Rational Persuader scenario, 
despite the fact that the agent cannot do otherwise. For the purpose of the outcome 
of action, the agent could just as well be locked in Locke’s room.
27
This does not, 
however, seem to be as problematic in the Rational Persuader Machine scenario. As 
a result, it seems that the crucial factor in the assessment of the God Machine is not 
the undermining of the freedom of will or free action – the main problem is the 
inability to form a will of