Ethical issues in moral and social enhancement

7.8. Why the God Machine is a poor analogy for real-world MB 
The God Machine thought experiment has invited much commentary. It gives us an 
opportunity to consider and flesh out the importance of different aspects of 
freedom, their respective value and importance for moral responsibility and moral 

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life of agents. However, it suffers serious limitations insofar as it is taken to be an 
analogy for the real world or a basis for an argument about MB in the real world.
First, although the God Machine was proposed in the context of the discussion 
about the potential desirability of moral bioenhancement as a solution to society’s 
great problems (Savulescu and Persson, 2012a; DeGrazia, 2014), only a small 
percentage of great harms are likely to result from intentional immoral action on a 
large scale (Fenton, 2010; Harris, 2010). Even for the morally enhanced population 
of the God Machine world, more harm would likely result from dangerous driving, 
negligent action or carelessness about safety than from deliberate harm. If the God 
Machine is programmed with utilitarian principles in mind, it should either 
dismantle itself, or put its computing power towards an aim that provides more 
overall benefit or better strategies of harm prevention. If it is Savulescu and 
Persson’s (2012a) intention to argue for the desirability of moral bioenhancement, it 
is a poor omen that the God Machine is unconvincing even on the level of a thought 
experiment.
Second, the God Machine and pharmacological direct emotion modulation present 
different considerations in relation to PAP and overdetermination. While the issue 
of overdetermination may arise clearly in some specific cases of brain-state 
triggered brain modulation such as Hall’s Brain Implant case from section 7.5, 
generally speaking direct emotional modulation is unlikely to be best understood as 
a clear-cut case of overdetermination. For example, while pharmacological attempts 
at MB may challenge our ability to ascribe responsibility and causation (‘do you 
love me or is it your pill?’) the issues raised here will more likely be related to 
authenticity rather than overdetermination.
Third, although the God Machine scenario is a good opportunity to reflect about the 
kinds of means we want states to have at their disposal in assuring the safety and 
security of citizens, the idealised scenario that we are presented with is very far 
removed from the possible worlds we are likely to experience. Thus, the kinds of 
issues we are likely to grapple with in the context of political freedom are not 
adequately captured by the scenario. Specifically, the justified worries about 
various abuses of power raised by Harris (2014a) do not readily apply to the God 
Machine society. Additionally, the fact that Hall’s Brain Implant scenario is in my 

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view significantly less troubling than the God Machine world means that the main 
problem lies not in the mode of intention change (i.e. via biomedical direct brain 
modulation) but rather with the fact that the modulation is not initiated by the agent 
– the agent is not aware of the external interference and cannot take a stance 
towards it, the agent cannot modify it and that the source of the influence is both 
external and externally controlled, thus undermining the process of creating a ‘free 
will of one’s own.’ In reality that amount of ignorance on the part of the affected 
agent is highly unlikely.
Moreover, I agree with Harris (2010, 2014a) that the problems with specificity and 
the strength of biomedical interventions, together with the fact that large-scale harm 
is at least as likely to result from negligence, means that the application of MB for 
the originally proposed purpose of preventing large-scale harm is a red herring. The 
effects of biomedical modifications may be freedom-subverting or promoting, but I 
am hard pressed to see how beyond the God Machine scenario, MB could provide 
effects strong enough to give raise to a strong argument for compulsory use of MB 
on a population-wide basis (this is an empirical point, and I am open to being 
proven wrong). Yet, only such mandated use would overcome the collective action 
problem that the MB was originally conceived to remedy.
The God Machine scenario is symptomatic of a head-spinning mix of thought 
experiments which are many ‘what ifs…’ removed from the real world (and 
possible worlds that are actually possible for us). The practical conclusions drawn 
from such experiments are limited. To a large extent this chapter engaged with this 
mode of discussion and so some of the conclusions presented here will be 
susceptible to the same criticism. There is nothing in principle wrong with in 
principle arguments. Thought experiments that involve logically possible but 
practically impossible or unlikely worlds have some utility both in philosophical 
scholarship and in applied ethical brain-teasing: they can be helpful in elucidating 
and separating important aspects of a concept or issue, and this is how I intended 
the examples and arguments presented in this chapter to be taken.
However, we run into a serious problem when the optimistic ‘what ifs…’ are 
immediately followed by a sudden jump back to the reality. An example here is a 

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passage from DeGrazia who swiftly follows the section containing an invitation to 
‘[i]magine further that, as a result of MB, there were no more wars or starvation and 
everyone in the world had access to the basic necessities of life’ with a radically 
more practically oriented approach: ‘[i]n the absence of a deity who will give us 
this better world, it is up to us human agents to attain it. Without a substantial 
improvement in moral behaviour, we are highly unlikely to do so. … In view of 
what is at stake, we should open-mindedly consider this non-traditional means of 
moral enhancement’ (2010, p. 367). Nordmann (2007) critique of such approach 
pinpointed the mechanics and effects of such displacement of the hypothetical with 
the actual: 
‘An if-and-then statement opens by suggesting a possible technological 
development and continues with a consequence that demands immediate 
attention. What looks like an improbable, merely possible future in the 
first half of the sentence, appears in the second half as something 
inevitable. And as the hypothetical gets displaced by a supposed actual, 
an imagined future overwhelms the present.’ (p. 32) 
Although I am open to ‘open-mindedly consider’ MB, I do not think that the 
optimism rooted in taking a thought experiment like the God Machine as a close 
analogy for our world is the best justification for such consideration.
The context in which the biomedical modification is likely to be applied if it makes 
its way into our world is much less rosy than the God Machine society. The extent 
to which Savulescu and Persson (2008, 2012a, 2012b) advocate compulsory use is 
troubling, given that biomedical ME will likely be first applied in the context of the 
criminal justice and mental health systems of our morally unenhanced world. I have 
argued that, from the point of view of freedom, and as applied to the prevention of 
serious harm, the God Machine scenario fails to offer a compelling case for 
compulsory use even in its imaginary setting, and this conclusion is likely to be 
even stronger if we tried to more practically imagine it applied in a world more 
prone to abuses of power.

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Finally, the God Machine scenario, with its focus on infallibly changing very 
specific intentions, has very little to say about the cases when (hopefully) voluntary, 
narrowly applied biomedical interventions can prevent harm or promote (or impair, 
if we are convinced by Harris 2014a, 2014b) taking a moral stance and moral 
action, as well as the kind of trade-offs and dilemmas such use would involve. In 
the next chapter, I will discuss some of the important ethical aspects of MB in the 
real (and our) world that could not be considered in the discussion shaped by the 
God Machine scenario.