Ethical issues in moral and social enhancement

1.3.3. Moral dis-enhancement 
Another issue arises when we consider enhancement as a beneficial intervention in 
the context of the moral sphere. If a similar logic is applied to that applied to 
cognitive enhancement, intervention in the sphere of morality is only an 
enhancement if it is beneficial for the subject of that intervention (see s.1.2.3). 
Consequently, if we understand moral enhancement analogically to cognitive 
enhancement, there is nothing 
prima facie 
inconsistent in saying that moral 
enhancement may run contrary to what is morally good. Moral enhancement thus 
understood might, for example, make people less prone to act on moral reasons, 
give those reasons moral weight or act in a moral way. This is because moral 
enhancement will refer to an intervention in the sphere of morality that brings about 
an overall prudential benefit to an agent.
Take Eric, who is deeply moved by moral considerations. He strives for moral 
integrity and often acts on the basis of his moral beliefs. He spends a substantial 
amount of his time thinking about what is good and what is right, gives most of his 
disposable income to charity, and spends many hours per week volunteering. 
However, his preoccupation with moral obligations has led to problems in his 
family life. His wife has threatened to leave him if he does not stop bringing 
homeless people to their house and does not find some time to spend with her. In 

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this case, acting as he thinks he ought to act has negative consequences for Eric’s 
overall wellbeing. Eric decides to strive to care less about others’ misfortune.
It is plausible that the ability to modify or biomedically affect the moral sphere will 
lead to enhancement guided by non-moral considerations. Moral-disenhancement 
may occur on a relatively small scale and be a matter of individual choice, as in the 
hypothetical case of Eric, but it might also happen on a larger scale and in the 
context of institutionally implemented policies. For example, a large number of 
soldiers suffer post-combat trauma. Post-traumatic stress disorder can have severely 
disabling effects and make the transition into post-military life challenging. This 
problem has enjoyed increased attention, yet remains to be addressed (Brewster, 
2014; Hattenstone and Allison, 2014). Moreover, the cluster of PTSD symptoms 
related to hyperarousal was shown to be significantly associated with violent 
offending (MacManus et al., 2013).
Given the personal and social burden of PTSD on military personnel, it is possible 
to imagine an intervention that targets emotional reactions to others’ distress and 
harm as a preventative intervention. This kind of intervention is highly speculative, 
but not implausible. Military training, just like medical training, necessitates the 
ability to effectively function in the presence of others’ distress. However, while we 
generally see doctors’ actions as aiming at alleviating the suffering of others and 
acting in their interest, at least some military tasks involve the purposeful infliction 
of harm on others. Even if harm to others is justified (e.g. happens in the context of 
just war), one can argue that removing ‘emotional breaks’ can lead to poor moral 
outcomes and negatively affect the ability of the military personnel to be moral 
agents. Thus, one can raise the question of whether moral dis-enhancement of 
agents, even if done in the context of a just cause, is ethically permissible.
This question is not limited to biomedical means. Current military training may 
involve selectively reducing the disposition to empathise with others (e.g. via 
dehumanization of the enemy) and alleviating moral distress via reframing (e.g., 
framing an issue in the form of as a matter of a morally justified fight). Some 
authors argue that by necessity, soldiers depersonalise both themselves and the 
enemy to control the emotions that arise while witnessing deaths and killing other 

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human beings (Bartov, 1992; Ben-Ari, 1998; Nadelson 2005). A US soldier 
stationed in 2007 in Baghdad described this emotional detachment as follows: 
‘If there’s one thing about being in a war zone it is this 
. . . 
the level 
and intensity of the carnage that I’ve seen is unparallel to anything I 
will ever experience again in my life
. . . 
. But like all things in life, 
you become desensitized and used to what you see. That is sadly the 
point in my life where I am. Seeing another dead body, or executed 
Iraqi or whatever no longer has an effect on me. Nothing 
. . . 
cold 
nothingness. (Eddie, 2007) 
Ben-Ari (1998) has argued that although depersonalisation is inevitable in war, it 
turns into dehumanisation when the enemy comes to be seen as a demon. In such 
cases excessive and unnecessary violence becomes justified as morally right. 
According to Bartoy (1992), this happened between US and Japanese, and German 
and Soviet troops during World War Two. Robben (2012) argued that a similar 
process took place in the Iraq War where ‘[t]he hajjis, habibs, ragheads, and sand 
niggers were the enemy, and they were not thought of with a shred of humanity’ 
(Key, 2007, p. 51). Robben argues that the dehumanising message was already 
acquired in the earlier training, but subsequently reinforced by racial stereotypes 
ideologically reinforced by the framing of the conflict as a war against evil and the 
particular kind of combat that the American presence in Iraq involved. All of this 
was conducive to unnecessary violence and killing and led, in turn, to lowering the 
threshold against the mistreatment of civilians and suspects, along with serious 
violations of military ethics.
Robben argues that this has happened alongside ethical behaviour of soldiers: 
‘medical care was provided to wounded insurgents, combat missions were 
complemented by goodwill missions, and empathy was shown for the poor’ (2010, 
p. 146). Robben (2010) states that this does not mean that the moral agency of 
soldiers was undermined, with the previous quote purporting to demonstrate such 
unimpaired moral agency. Such assessment, I think, is more complex. I do not 
attempt to consider all the issues related to moral agency in such situations, but 

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rather point out that biomedical means might be used to achieve a more complete 
state of ‘detachment,’ complementing the more familiar ways of emotion regulation 
aimed at detachment. If effective and selective enough, biomedical means could 
also make it possible to achieve such a state quicker, more easily and perhaps more 
completely. I think this could make a potentially significant difference in how the 
combat unravels, and additionally affect the capacities that underpin the ability for 
noticing and caring about others’ interests.
In such situations some capacity for appropriate emotional reactions underpinned 
by empathy and reaction to others’ distress, although no guarantee of ethical action, 
might have some morally desirable effects. This is a reason why the ideology of the 
Third Reich involved explicit encouragement and even duty to diminish empathetic 
concern for the ‘enemy’ on top of the more traditional dehumanising techniques. 
On the other hand, empathy did not prevent the great evils then, and is even less 
likely to prevent great evils now – where combat becomes even more embedded in 
technology and where the inflicting of harm is less and less direct.