:Several lines of reasoning have been employed to both approve and disapprove two of Nicholas Agar’s positions: his argument that the creation of postpersons is imaginable and possible and his inductive argument disfavoring the creation of postpersons. This article discusses a number of these lines of reasoning, arguing that1)The creation of postpersons is imaginable if they are envisaged as morally enhanced beings.2)The creation of postpersons is justified, subject to the condition that we create morally enhanced postpersons.The reason given for (...) the first point is that it is possible to imagine postpersons who are morally enhanced, provided that we consider moral enhancement as an augmented inclination to act in line with how we believe we ought to act. There are two reasons offered for the second point: the first indicates probability, and the second offers proof. That is, if we assume that the higher moral status of postpersons implies their enhanced morality, we can conclude, inductively, that postpersons will not be inclined to annihilate mere persons. For if mere persons have moral inhibitions against obliterating some species of a lower moral status than their own, morally enhanced postpersons will be even less likely to do the same to mere persons. In fact, they might consider it their moral duty to preserve those beings who enabled them to come into existence. Moreover, even if morally enhanced postpersons decide to annihilate mere persons, we can conclude, deductively, that such a decision is by necessity a morally superior stance to the wish of mere persons to continue to exist. (shrink)

I discuss the argument of Persson and Savulescu that moral enhancement ought to accompany cognitive enhancement, as well as briefly addressing critiques of this argument, notably by John Harris. I argue that Harris, who believes that cognitive enhancement is largely sufficient for making us behave more morally, might be disposing too easily of the great quandary of our moral existence: the gap between what we do and what we believe is morally right to do. In that regard, Persson and Savulescu's (...) position has the potential to offer more. However, I question Persson and Savulescu's proposal of compulsory moral enhancement, proposing the alternative of voluntary moral enhancement. (shrink)

This paper addresses the possible effects of psychedelic drugs, notably psilocybin, on moral bio-enhancement (MBE). It will be argued that non-psychedelic substances, such as oxytocin, serotonin/serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or vasopressin, have indirect effects on M(B)E, whereas psilocybin has direct effects. Additionally, morality and happiness have been shown to operate in a circularly supportive relationship. It will be argued that psilocybin also has more direct effects on the augmentation of human happiness than non-psychedelic substances. Hence, psilocybin multiplies its effects on morality (...) and on moral enhancement (as well as on happiness) if compared with non-psychedelic substances. Still, caution is advised if psilocybin is being used, and the correct dosage should be prescribed by an appropriate physician. Furthermore, the use of psilocybin has additional effects on moral enhancement and happiness if combined with meditation, preferably under the guidance of an experienced meditation specialist. (shrink)

The belief that the spirits of the dead can return to haunt the living exists either as a tenet or as a marginal conviction in all civilizations, whether ancient or modern. More often than not, the dead do not return to reunite the living with their loved ones but rather to lead them into some dreadful snare, entrapping them with disastrous consequences. To be sure, all the departed may return, but some are predestined to haunt: the dead who have been (...) shamed during their lifetime or those who took unspeakable secrets to the grave. From the brucolacs, the errant sprits of outcasts in ancient Greece, to the ghost of Hamlet’s vengeful father, and on down to the rapping spirits of modern times, the theme of the dead—who, having suffered repression by their family or society, cannot enjoy, even in death, a state of authenticity—appears to be omnipresent on the fringes of religions and, failing that, in rational systems. It is a fact that the “phantom,” whatever its form, is nothing but an invention of the living. Yes, an invention in the sense that the phantom is meant to objectify, even if under the guise of individual or collective hallucinations, the gap that the concealment of some part of a loved one’s life produced in us. The phantom is, therefore, also a metapsychological fact. Consequently, what haunts are not the dead, but the gaps left within us by the secrets of others.Because the phantom is not related to the loss of a loved one, it cannot be considered the effect of unsuccessful mourning, as is the case of melancholics or of all those who carry a tomb within themselves. It is the children’s or descendants’ lot to objectify these buried tombs through diverse species of ghosts. What comes back to haunt are the tombs of others. The phantoms of folklore merely objectify a metaphor active within the unconscious: the burial of an unspeakable fact within the loved one.Here we are in the midst of clinical psychoanalysis and still shrouded in obscurity, an obscurity, however, that the nocturnal being of phantoms can, paradoxically, be called upon to clarify. The most recently published book of essays by Nicolas Abraham is Rythmes de l’oeuvre, de la traduction et de la psychanalyse . “Notes on the Phantom” is the preliminary statement of his theory of transgenerational haunting. Nicholas Rand, assistant professor of French at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, is the English-language editor of Abraham’s works. (shrink)

Seyla Benhabib has displayed a deeply normative concern for the origin, properties, condition and destiny of the modern world in work running from Critique, Norm, and Utopia (1986), to Situating the Self (1992), The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt (1996), and Another Cosmopolitanism (2006). I hope to show that Benhabib's view of modernity is ambiguous, and that inconsistencies in her position reach back, through Habermas and Weber, to Kant. I begin with a sketch of Benhabib's sense of what modernity is (...) about, turn then to what I think makes her position ambiguous, and conclude with a discussion of what I think is missing in her treatment of modernity. The gap I identify is strikingly pointed up when she uses the term modernism but does not talk about modernism at all. (shrink)

This book offers an innovative approach to moral enhancement. We, as humans, have a moral duty to be as good as we can be. Hence, moral bio-enhancement, if effective and safe, is our moral duty. However, it has to be voluntary because if it is made compulsory, human freedom would be curtailed. As freedom is an essential component of humanness, compulsory MBE would infringe upon our humanness. An essential question is; what will motivate humans to subject themselves voluntarily to MBE?The (...) book argues - and supports by using empirical/experimental evidence - that morality and happiness operate in a circularly supportive relationship that applies to most humans most of the time: the better they are, the happier they will be; the happier they are, the better they will be. Hence, the grounding rationale for MBE ought not to be the prevention of “ultimate harm” based on compulsory MBE, but human happiness based on voluntary MBE. The primary objective of the book is to provide the readers with an original view on moral enhancement, whilst proposing a novel conception of moral enhancement that is informed by new biotechnological developments. (shrink)

This book deals with good, evil, happiness and morally enhanced post-humans. It offers a succinct historical elaboration of philosophical stances towards morality and happiness, focusing on Kant's ideas in particular. Human augmented ethical maturity in a futuristic version of Kant’s Ethical Commonwealth implies, among else, voluntary moral bio-enhancement ; consequently, more happiness – as morality and happiness are in a circularly supportive relationship; ultimate morality. UM is in its own way a universal morality. In line with the contention that Kant’s (...) vision of the future of humanity is one of a cosmopolitan moral order in which humans act virtuously in the broadest possible community, that is, humanity, it is justified to conclude that successful VMBE is conducive to Kant’s vision. In this context the book is of great interest to a broad audience, such as those interested in VMBE and novel conceptions of morality, and those with an interest in the historical development of morality and happiness, in philosophy and in post-humanity. (shrink)

The question will be raised whether oxytocin can serve as an effective moral enhancer. Different types of moral enhancement will be addressed, one of them being compulsory moral enhancement. It will be argued that oxytocin cannot serve as an effective moral enhancer if its use is being made compulsory. Hence, compulsory administration of oxytocin does not result in genuine moral enhancement. In order to demonstrate this, a stipulation of the main potentially beneficial outcomes of using oxytocin as a moral enhancer (...) will be offered, as well as a discussion of objections to the notion that oxytocin can be an effective moral enhancer. It will be concluded that mandatory administration of oxytocin is ineffective because of a combination of two reasons: mandatory administration of oxytocin renders moral reflection practically superfluous; without moral reflection the beneficial outcomes of the use of oxytocin do not outweigh its drawbacks to the degree that we could speak of effective moral enhancement. (shrink)

:This article continues and expands differences I have with Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu concerning issues of moral bioenhancement and free will. They have criticized my conception of voluntary moral bioenhancement, claiming that it ignores the extent to which freedom is a matter of degree. Here, I argue that freedom as a political concept is indeed scalar in nature, but that freedom of the will is to be understood as a threshold concept and therefore not as subject to degree. Consequently, (...) I contend, by asserting that freedom is a matter of degree, that Persson and Savulescu have not undermined my arguments favoring voluntary moral enhancement. In addition, I add three further arguments against compulsory moral bioenhancement. (shrink)

The series friends, rivals, enemies is a seemingly ‘natural’ classification for the relations of states, while the parallel series kin, neighbors, strangers functions as an informal classification system for social relations in general. That we may owe foreigners the hospitality due to strangers has become a matter of discussion among normative theorists, thanks to Kant's Perpetual Peace. Thus the conjunction of friendship and hospitality calls for a conceptual assessment. This assessment uses Aristotle's treatment of friendship (and Derrida's treatment of Aristotle's (...) ‘familial schema’) to establish three primary models of social relations (father to sons, husband to wife, brother to brother). Only ‘brothers’ (agents modeled as brothers) can be friends, rivals, or enemies. Only ‘fathers’ can be hosts who offer strangers the hospitality of the household. By the same token, only ‘fathers’ can be guests or take hostages. Such an assessment brings the conceptual concerns of two fields — international relations and political theory — closer together. In so doing, it rejects anarchy's conceptual hegemony in the field of international relations. (shrink)

Rakić has serious misgivings about Wiseman's inability to frame ethical issues in the context of transcending existing realities with the aim of achieving what we believe is morally right. This inability to think beyond the present is misguided in ethics. He also criticizes Wiseman for making the unimaginative and unsubstantiated assumption that moral bioenhancement technologies have reached their zenith already. Rakić argues that MBE will become more effective in the time to come, that it ought to be optional for every (...) free individual, and that it should be directed at enhancing our motivation to act in line with how we believe we ought to act. He concedes however that the enhancement of our motivation to act morally can only be effective in a limited number of morally unambiguous cases. In response, Wiseman argues that Rakić's reflections epitomize a way of articulating MBE that is unhelpful, misguidedly optimistic, and missing the most important things needing discussion. Such reflections are based on inappropriate metaphors, a too future-oriented view detached from basic realities, and a false sense of what is possible on the global level should MBE be applied. Such ways of thinking about MBE are misguided from the outset, and indicative of the enthusiasm for a discourse in need of realignment. This should take the form of a more modest, synergistic outlook acutely aware of the inexorable limitations imposed on MBE by the internal complexity of moral goods, human agents, and the contexts in which moral action occurs. (shrink)

It will be argued that humans have a rational self-interest in voluntarily opting to subject themselves to moral bioenhancement. This interest is based on the fact that goodness appears to be conducive to happiness. Those who understand that will be more inclined to opt for safe and effective moral bioenhancement technologies that have the potential to augment our motivation to become better. The more people decide to follow this path, the likelier it is that states will adopt suitable policies that (...) incentivize moral bioenhancement. Hence, goodness, happiness and state incentivized moral bioenhancement can operate in a circularly supportive fashion. (shrink)

Religious outlooks on the use of new bio-technologies for the purpose of cognitive enhancement of humans are generally not favorably disposed to interventions in what is regarded as ordained by God or shaped by nature. I will present a number of perspectives that are derived from these outlooks and contrast them to the liberal standpoint. Subsequently, I will discuss two views that are compatible with religious outlooks, but that do not exclude cognitive enhancement altogether. They only pose significant moral limitations (...) to it. These two views are: 1) cognitive enhancement of the human ought to be preceded by moral enhancement; 2) cognitive enhancement is morally permissible only as a means to moral enhancement. I will argue in favor of the superiority of the second view and assert that this view might be a sound platform for defining the relationship between religion(s) and bioethics in the decades and centuries to come. (shrink)

We outline an argument favoring voluntary moral bioenhancement as a response to existential risks humanity exposes itself to. We consider this type of enhancement a solution to the antithesis between the extinction of humanity and the imperative of humanity to survive at any cost. By opting for voluntary moral bioenhancement; we refrain from advocating illiberal or even totalitarian strategies that would allegedly help humanity preserve itself. We argue that such strategies; by encroaching upon the freedom of individuals; already inflict a (...) degree of existential harm on human beings. We also give some pointers as to the desirable direction for morally enhanced post-personhood. (shrink)

During the previous years, Harris Wiseman has devoted substantial attention to my stance on voluntary moral bioenhancement. He argued that he has been influenced by that position, but nonetheless criticized it. I haven’t replied to his criticisms yet and wish to do so now. One of the reasons is to avoid my position being misrepresented. By replying to Wiseman’s criticisms, I also wish to clarify those issues in my standpoint that might have given rise to some of the misinterpretations. With (...) the same purpose in mind, I will demarcate my concept of voluntary moral bioenhancement from related standpoints, in particular from Persson and Savulescu’s notion of compulsory moral bioenhancement that, as I argued, diminishes our freedom. Furthermore, I will consider the possibility of adding another essential element to my position—one that I have not discussed in my earlier publications. It is designed to propose a novel explanation of why humans would be motivated to opt for voluntary moral bioenhancement if its outcome is not a lowering of the likelihood of “Ultimate Harm” or a milder form of self-destruction of humanity. This explanation will be based on the conception that an increase in happiness, rather than Ultimate Harm prevention, might be the grounding rationale for moral bioenhancement. (shrink)

The paper represents an empirical study of public attitudes towards moral bioenhancement. Moral bioenhancement implies the improvement of moral dispositions, i.e. an increase in the moral value of the actions or character of a moral agent. The views of bioethicists and scientists on this topic are present in the ongoing debate, but not the view of the public in general. In order to bridge the gap between the philosophical debate and the view of the public, we have examined attitudes towards (...) moral bioenhancement. The participants were people from Serbia older than 15, who voluntarily completed an online questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of a brief introduction to moral bioenhancement, seven general questions, 25 statements about participants’ attitudes towards moral bioenhancement, and five examples of moral dilemmas. The questionnaire also included questions which were used to reveal their preference of either deontology, or utilitarianism. Participants were asked to what degree they agree or disagree with the statements. The results showed that the means used to achieve moral enhancement, the level of education, and preference for deontology or utilitarianism do have an impact on public attitudes. Using exploratory factor analysis, we isolated four factors that appear to drive the respondents' attitudes toward moral bioenhancement, we named: general—closeness, fear of change, security, and voluntariness. Each factor in relationship to other variables offers new insights that can inform policies and give us a deeper understanding of the public attitudes. We argue that looking into different facets of attitudes towards moral bioenhancement improves the debate, and expands it. (shrink)

This paper is structured in three sections. The first discusses the institutional framework pertaining to bioethics in Serbia. The functioning of this framework is critically assessed and a number of recommendations for its improvement presented. It is also emphasized that philosophers are underrepresented in public debate on bioethics in Serbia. Second, this underrepresentation will be related to two issues that figure prominently in Serbian society but are not accompanied by corresponding bioethical discourses: the first is abortion and the second is (...) the largely unrestricted use of neuropharmacology since the 1990s, both for therapeutic and for cosmetic/recreational purposes. Finally, the perspective of bioethics in Serbia is addressed. It is asserted that this perspective can be based on the enhancement of public philosophical debate on bioethical issues, especially those with notable features in Serbian society . Such enhancement would also strengthen the corresponding institutional and legal frameworks. (shrink)

Moral bioenhancement is a topic that will only increase in controversy as neuroscience advances.

Robert Sparrow (2022) concludes his article “Human Germline Genome Editing: On the Nature of Our Reasons to Genome Edit” with the following sentence: “The issues around genome-editing are complex e...

As Russell's paradox of "the set of all sets that do not contain themselves" indicated long ago, matters go seriously amiss if one operates an ontology of unrestricted totalization. Some sort of restriction must be placed on such items as "the set of all sets that have the feature F' or "the conjunction of all truths that have the feature G." But generally, logicians here introduce such formalized and complex devices as the theory of types or the doctrine of impredictivity. (...) The present paper argues for the informal and elementary idea that the items invoked in a proper identification have themselves already been identified. Even as an explanation is not satisfactory that proceeds in terms of items that themselves require prior explanation, so the same holds with identification. And heed of this elementary idea suffices to sideline those otherwise paradoxical perplexities. (shrink)

Various kinds of human bioenhancement represent a major topic of contention in both bioethics and futures studies. Moral enhancement is one of them. It will be argued that voluntary moral bio-enhancement should be based on an opt out moral enhancement scheme. Such a scheme would avoid the challenges of a voluntary moral enhancement opt in scheme. The former has a proper place in a minimal state. It will be explained why such a state can be called Utopia. The concept of (...) voluntary opt out moral enhancement in Utopia will be highlighted in detail. (shrink)