the benefits and risks of virtue engineering
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The Benefits and Risks of Virtue Engineering. James J. Hughes Ph.D. Executive Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies Public Policy Studies, Trinity College [email protected] ieet.org. Moral Brain Conf – New York Univ – Mar 30-Apr 1, 2012. Civilization is Moral Enhancement. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
THE BENEFITS AND THE BENEFITS AND RISKS OF VIRTUE RISKS OF VIRTUE ENGINEERINGENGINEERING
James J. Hughes Ph.D.
Executive Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging TechnologiesPublic Policy Studies, Trinity [email protected]
Moral Brain Conf – New York Univ – Mar 30-Apr 1, 2012
Civilization is Moral Enhancement
The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization. ~Sigmund Freud
Alasdair Macintyre: Virtues are social skills specific to societies
Moral Enhancement Has Always InvolvedBoth Enculturation and Neurotechnology Shamanic use of
entheogens
Iayuvredic vegetarianism: vegan diet makes people calmer, more pure
Chinese herbs for moral control
Moral benefits of fasting
Alcohol and drugs lead to loss of moral self-control
Broad Moral Enhancement
Neurotechnology is continuous with neural software modification and external technology
Internal
External
Hardware Software
Mirror neurons Innate sentimentsSelf-control capacityChemical, genetic, nanotech moral therapies
LawsSocial normsEthical software (decision support, plagiarism checkers, trading surveillance, ethical warbots, etc.)
Internalized normsMoral reasoningPedagogical methodsMeditation
Schools and churchesPolice and prisonsMoral gadgets (wiring teeth, diet trackers, FitBit, etc.)
Morality Gadgets
Religious clothing, hair shirts, tefillin
Behavior-triggered morality aids: e.g. email language filters, sobriety locks on cars
Suppressing Vice is Enhancing of Virtue
Causes of auto accidents Driving norms
Traffic laws and policing
Alcohol
Cell-phones
Fatigue
Immorality of intoxication when it endangers others
Immorality of not drinking coffee or taking modafinil when it endangers others
Moral Enhancement Makes Us More Responsible
Understanding neurological causes of behavior allegedly undermines personal accountability
But moral enhancement technologies make us even more responsible
Did you take your pill? Using moral enhancement
tech will be both motivated by social control and be an exercise in self-control
Binding Ourselves is Self-Control
The Enlightenment and Moral Enhancement
Focusing and shaping our moral sentiments with moral reasoning and technology instead of faith and magic
In 1780 Benjamin Franklin wrote to Joseph Priestley, “It is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter. …all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured (not excepting even that of old age) and our lives lengthened at pleasure, even beyond the antediluvian standard. Oh that moral science were in as fair a way of improvement, that men would cease to be wolves to one another, and that human beings would at length learn what they now improperly call humanity.“
Benjamin Franklin:“Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance.”
Coffee and the Enlightenment
(Eidelman et al 2012) Alcohol makes people more conservative, caffeine more open minded
Beer was a “Foggy Ale” that “besieg'd our Brains”
Coffee:
...that Grave and Wholesome Liquor,
that heals the Stomach, makes the Genius quicker,
Relieves the Memory, revives the Sad,
and cheers the Spirits, without making Mad.
Anonymous 1674
Coffeehouses: “penny universities” and hotbeds of Enlightenment radicalism
Haidt’s Five Moral Intuitions
Liberals: Harm/care Fairness/reciprocityConservatives Ingroup loyalty Respect for
authority Purity/sanctityBeing ethical may require
suppressing some moral intuitions and enhancing others
Suppressing (Im)moral Sentiments
Harris’ objection: more to morality than sentiment
Haidt argues for tolerance of all moral sentiments
Enlightenment values and moral reasoning compel us to suppress some moral sentiments – disgust, in-group loyalty, submission to authority
Propranolol suppresses disgust/fear, racism
Irony of Haidt’s appeal for tolerance of conservative values
Pinker and violence – the gradual victory of Enlightenment moral codes
Universalism
Tolerance of diversity
Reinforcing Reasonable Sentiments
Oxytocin & in-group empathy
Serotonin and harm aversion
What is fairness? Who is a cheater/cheated?
Empathy towards who? Expressed how? The over-taxed 1% or the 99%
or the poorest?
Paternalism versus tolerance
Discriminating Wisdom
Moral character is a balanced composite of sentiments, habits and reasoning
Truth is not always virtuous
Wisdom & compassion: The ability to determine right action in the situation is a virtue
Flynn effect means that capacities for rational reflection, complex moral reasoning, and abstract empathy are growing
Enhancement of alertness, memory, cognitive speed, predictive accuracy
Overcoming cognitive biases
Cognitive Liberty
Bodily autonomy: right to control own body
Freedom of conscience, thought: right to control your brain
Liberal democracy’s goal of facilitating self-realization
Decriminalizing psychoactive drugs
Brain privacy
Moral Progress and Cognitive Liberty
Moral enhancement will change social norms and definition of criminality
Need to continually redraw boundaries of cognitive liberty
Slippery slopes apply as much to cultural norms as to moral enhancement technologies
All societies have evolving lines of what constitutes criminal or insane behavior
Sex/gender nonconformity
Rape: from Leviticus, execution and castration to prison and testosterone suppression
Risks to Cognitive Liberty
Moral enhancement doesn’t pose novel challenges, but offers novel solutions
Lack of PrivacyOvert ControlOwnership Social NormsAddictionInequality
Needed: Positive Liberal Model of the Good Personality
Liberal but still positive normative model of the good life
Some ways of thinking and feeling should be discouraged and others encouraged
Better Citizens and Persons
More compassion and wisdom
More self-aware & independent
Better moral & political decision-making