Moral enhancement and the good life

Hazem Zohny
Med Health Care and Philos (2018).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-018-9868-4

Abstract

One approach to defining enhancement is in the form of bodily or mental changes that tend to improve a person’s well-being. Such a “welfarist account”, however, seems to conflict with moral enhancement: consider an intervention that improves someone’s moral motives but which ultimately diminishes their well-being. According to the welfarist account, this would not be an instance of enhancement—in fact, as I argue, it would count as a disability. This seems to pose a serious limitation for the account. Here, I elaborate on this limitation and argue that, despite it, there is a crucial role for such a welfarist account to play in our practical deliberations about moral enhancement. I do this by exploring four scenarios where a person’s motives are improved at the cost of their well-being. A framework emerges from these scenarios which can clarify disagreements about moral enhancement and help sharpen arguments for and against it.

The article is here.

Evolutionary Psychology

Downes, Stephen M.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

Evolutionary psychology is one of many biologically informed approaches to the study of human behavior. Along with cognitive psychologists, evolutionary psychologists propose that much, if not all, of our behavior can be explained by appeal to internal psychological mechanisms. What distinguishes evolutionary psychologists from many cognitive psychologists is the proposal that the relevant internal mechanisms are adaptations—products of natural selection—that helped our ancestors get around the world, survive and reproduce. To understand the central claims of evolutionary psychology we require an understanding of some key concepts in evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. Philosophers are interested in evolutionary psychology for a number of reasons. For philosophers of science —mostly philosophers of biology—evolutionary psychology provides a critical target. There is a broad consensus among philosophers of science that evolutionary psychology is a deeply flawed enterprise. For philosophers of mind and cognitive science evolutionary psychology has been a source of empirical hypotheses about cognitive architecture and specific components of that architecture. Philosophers of mind are also critical of evolutionary psychology but their criticisms are not as all-encompassing as those presented by philosophers of biology. Evolutionary psychology is also invoked by philosophers interested in moral psychology both as a source of empirical hypotheses and as a critical target.

The entry is here.

Natural-born existentialists

Ronnie de Sousa
aeon.com
Originally posted December 10, 2017

Here are two excerpts:

Much the same might be true of some of the emotional dispositions bequeathed to us by natural selection. If we follow some evolutionary psychologists in thinking that evolution has programmed us to value solidarity and authority, for example, we must recognise that those very same mechanisms promote xenophobia, racism and fascism. Some philosophers have made much of the fact that we appear to have genuinely altruistic motives: sometimes, human beings actually sacrifice themselves for complete strangers. If that is indeed a native human trait, so much the better. But it can’t be good because it’s natural. For selfishness and cruelty are no less natural. Again, naturalness can’t reasonably be why we value what we care about.

A second reason why evolution is not providence is that any given heritable trait is not simply either ‘adaptive’ or ‘maladaptive’ for the species. Some cases of fitness are frequency-dependent, which means that certain traits acquire a stable distribution in a population only if they are not universal.

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The third reason we should not equate the natural with the good is the most important. Evolution is not about us. In repeating the well-worn phrase that is supposed to sum up natural selection, ‘survival of the fittest’, we seldom think to ask: the fittest what? It won’t do to think that the phrase refers to fitness in individuals such as you and me. Even the fittest individuals never survive at all. We all die. What does survive is best described as information, much of which is encoded in the genes. That remains true despite the fashionable preoccupation with ‘epigenetic’ or otherwise non-DNA-encoded factors. The point is that ‘the fittest’ refers to just whatever gets replicated in subsequent generations – and whatever that is, it isn’t us. Every human is radically new, and – at least until cloning becomes routine – none will ever recur.

The article is here.

Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit

Benedict Carey & Robert Gebeloff
The New York Times
Originally posted April 7, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Dr. Peter Kramer, a psychiatrist and author of several books about antidepressants, said that while he generally works to wean patients with mild-to-moderate depression off medication, some report that they do better on it.

“There is a cultural question here, which is how much depression should people have to live with when we have these treatments that give so many a better quality of life,” Dr. Kramer said. “I don’t think that’s a question that should be decided in advance.”

Antidepressants are not harmless; they commonly cause emotional numbing, sexual problems like a lack of desire or erectile dysfunction and weight gain. Long-term users report in interviews a creeping unease that is hard to measure: Daily pill-popping leaves them doubting their own resilience, they say.

“We’ve come to a place, at least in the West, where it seems every other person is depressed and on medication,” said Edward Shorter, a historian of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. “You do have to wonder what that says about our culture.”

Patients who try to stop taking the drugs often say they cannot. In a recent survey of 250 long-term users of psychiatric drugs — most commonly antidepressants — about half who wound down their prescriptions rated the withdrawal as severe. Nearly half who tried to quit could not do so because of these symptoms.

In another study of 180 longtime antidepressant users, withdrawal symptoms were reported by more than 130. Almost half said they felt addicted to antidepressants.

The information is here.

Not Noble Savages After All: Limits to Early Altruism

Karen Wynn, Paul Bloom, Ashley Jordan, Julia Marshall, Mark Sheskin
Current Directions in Psychological Science 
Vol 27, Issue 1, pp. 3 - 8
First Published December 22, 2017

Abstract

Many scholars draw on evidence from evolutionary biology, behavioral economics, and infant research to argue that humans are “noble savages,” endowed with indiscriminate kindness. We believe this is mistaken. While there is evidence for an early-emerging moral sense—even infants recognize and favor instances of fairness and kindness among third parties—altruistic behaviors are selective from the start. Babies and young children favor people who have been kind to them in the past and favor familiar individuals over strangers. They hold strong biases for in-group over out-group members and for themselves over others, and indeed are more unequivocally selfish than older children and adults. Much of what is most impressive about adult morality arises not through inborn capacities but through a fraught developmental process that involves exposure to culture and the exercise of rationality.

The article is here.

Evolution and Human Behavior: A Field Guide for Teaching Evolution in the Social Sciences

Cristine Legare John Opfer Justin Busch Andrew Shtulman
Published January 21, 2018

Abstract

The theory of evolution by natural selection has begun to revolutionize our understanding of perception, cognition, language, social behavior, and cultural practices. Despite the centrality of evolutionary theory to the social sciences, many students, teachers,and even scientists struggle to understand how natural selection works. Our goal is to provide a field guide for social scientists on teaching evolution, based on research in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and education. We synthesize what is known about the psychological obstacles to understanding evolution, methods for assessing evolution understanding, and pedagogical strategies for improving evolution understanding. We review what is known about teaching evolution about nonhuman species and then explore implications of these findings for the teaching of evolution about humans. By leveraging our knowledge of how to teach evolution in general, we hope to motivate and equip social scientists to begin teaching evolution in the context of their own field.

The field guide is here.

Moral Hard-Wiring and Moral Enhancement

Introduction

In a series of papers (Persson & Savulescu 2008; 2010; 2011a; 2012a; 2013; 2014a) and book (Persson & Savulescu 2012b), we have argued that there is an urgent need to pursue research into the possibility of moral enhancement by biomedical means – e.g. by pharmaceuticals, non-invasive brain stimulation, genetic modification or other means directly modifying biology. The present time brings existential threats which human moral psychology, with its cognitive and moral limitations and biases, is unfit to address.  Exponentially increasing, widely accessible technological advance and rapid globalisation create threats of intentional misuse (e.g. biological or nuclear terrorism) and global collective action problems, such as the economic inequality between developed and developing countries and anthropogenic climate change, which human psychology is not set up to address. We have hypothesized that these limitations are the result of the evolutionary function of morality being to maximize the fitness of small cooperative groups competing for resources. Because these limitations of human moral psychology pose significant obstacles to coping with the current moral mega-problems, we argued that biomedical modification of human moral psychology may be necessary.  We have not argued that biomedical moral enhancement would be a single “magic
bullet” but rather that it could play a role in a comprehensive approach which also features cultural and social measures.

The paper is here.

Christian self-enhancement

Gebauer, Jochen E.; Sedikides, Constantine; & Schrade, Alexandra.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 113(5), Nov 2017, 786-809

Abstract

People overestimate themselves in domains that are central to their self-concept. Critically, the psychological status of this “self-centrality principle” remains unclear. One view regards the principle as an inextricable part of human nature and, thus, as universal and resistant to normative pressure. A contrasting view regards the principle as liable to pressure (and subsequent modification) from self-effacement norms, thus questioning its universality. Advocates of the latter view point to Christianity’s robust self-effacement norms, which they consider particularly effective in curbing self-enhancement, and ascribe Christianity an ego-quieting function. Three sets of studies examined the self-centrality principle among Christians. Studies 1A and 1B (N = 2,118) operationalized self-enhancement as better-than-average perceptions on the domains of commandments of faith (self-centrality: Christians ≫ nonbelievers) and commandments of communion (self-centrality: Christians > nonbelievers). Studies 2A–2H (N = 1,779) operationalized self-enhancement as knowledge overclaiming on the domains of Christianity (self-centrality: Christians ≫ nonbelievers), communion (self-centrality: Christians > nonbelievers), and agency (self-centrality: Christians ≈ nonbelievers). Studies 3A–3J (N = 1,956) operationalized self-enhancement as grandiose narcissism on the domains of communion (self-centrality: Christians > nonbelievers) and agency (self-centrality: Christians ≈ nonbelievers). The results converged across studies, yielding consistent evidence for Christian self-enhancement. Relative to nonbelievers, Christians self-enhanced strongly in domains central to the Christian self-concept. The results also generalized across countries with differing levels of religiosity. Christianity does not quiet the ego. The self-centrality principle is resistant to normative pressure, universal, and rooted in human nature.

The research can be found here.

The Wellsprings of Our Morality

Daniel M.T. Fessler
What can evolution tell us about morality?
http://www.humansandnature.org

Mother Nature is amoral, yet morality is universal. The natural world lacks both any guiding hand and any moral compass. And yet all human societies have moral rules, and, with the exception of some individuals suffering from pathology, all people experience profound feelings that shape their actions in light of such rules. Where then did these constellations of rules and feelings come from?

The term “morality” jumbles rules and feelings, as well as judgments of others’ actions that result from the intersection of rules and feelings. Rules, like other features of culture, are ideas transmitted from person to person: “It is laudable to do X,” “It is a sin to do Y,” etc. Feelings are internal states evoked by events, or by thoughts of future possibilities: “I am proud that she did X,” “I am outraged that he did Y,” and so on. Praise or condemnation are social acts, often motivated by feelings, in response to other people’s behavior. All of this is commonly called “morality.”

So, what does it mean to say that morality is universal? You don’t need to be an anthropologist to recognize that, while people everywhere experience strong feelings about others’ behavior—and, as a result, reward or punish that behavior—cultures differ with regard to the beliefs on which they base such judgments. Is injustice a graver sin than disrespect for tradition? Which is more important, the autonomy of the individual or the harmony of the group? The answer is that it depends on whom you ask.

The information is here.

A Primatological Perspective on Evolution and Morality

Sarah F. Brosnan
What can evolution tell us about morality?
http://www.humansandnature.org

Morality is a key feature of humanity, but how did we become a moral species? And is morality a uniquely human phenomenon, or do we see its roots in other species? One of the most fun parts of my research is studying the evolutionary basis of behaviors that we think of as quintessentially human, such as morality, to try to understand where they came from and what purpose they serve. In so doing, we can not only better understand why people behave the way that they do, but we also may be able to develop interventions that promote more beneficial decision-making.

Of course, a “quintessentially human” behavior is not replicated, at least in its entirety, in another species, so how does one study the evolutionary history of such behaviors? To do so, we focus on precursor behaviors that are related to the one in question and provide insight into the evolution of the target behavior. A precursor behavior may look very different from the final instantiation; for instance, birds’ wings appear to have originated as feathers that were used for either insulation or advertisement (i.e., sexual selection) that, through a series of intermediate forms, evolved into feathered wings. The chemical definition may be even more apt; a precursor molecule is one that triggers a reaction, resulting in a chemical that is fundamentally different from the initial chemicals used in the reaction.

How is this related to morality? We would not expect to see human morality in other species, as morality implies the ability to debate ethics and develop group rules and norms, which is not possible in non-verbal species. However, complex traits like morality do not arise de novo; like wings, they evolve from existing traits. Therefore, we can look for potential precursors in other species in order to better understand the evolutionary history of morality.

The information is here.

Men Can Be So Hormonal

Therese Huston
The New York Times
Originally posted June 24, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

People don’t like to believe that they’re average. But compared with women, men tend to think they’re much better than average.

If you feel your judgment is right, are you interested in how others see the problem? Probably not. Nicholas D. Wright, a neuroscientist at the University of Birmingham in Britain, studies how fluctuations in testosterone shape one’s willingness to collaborate.  Most testosterone researchers study men, for obvious reasons, but Dr. Wright and his team focus on women. They asked women to perform a challenging perceptual task: detecting where a fuzzy pattern had appeared on a busy computer screen. When women took oral testosterone, they were more likely to ignore the input of others, compared with women in the placebo condition. Amped up on testosterone, they relied more heavily on their own judgment, even when they were wrong.

The findings of the latest study, which have been presented at conferences and will be published in Psychological Science in January, offer more reasons to worry about testosterone supplements.

The article is here.

Sapolsky on the biology of human evil

Sean Illing
Vox.com
Originally posted May 23, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

The key question of the book — why are we the way we are? — is explored from a multitude of angles, and the narrative structure helps guide the reader. For instance, Sapolsky begins by examining a person’s behavior in the moment (why we recoil or rejoice or respond aggressively to immediate stimuli) and then zooms backward in time, following the chain of antecedent causes back to our evolutionary roots.

For every action, Sapolsky shows, there are several layers of causal significance: There’s a neurobiological cause and a hormonal cause and a chemical cause and a genetic cause, and, of course, there are always environmental and historical factors. He synthesizes the research across these disciplines into a coherent, readable whole.

In this interview, I talk with Sapolsky about the paradoxes of human nature, why we’re capable of both good and evil, whether free will exists, and why symbols have become so central to human life.

The article and interview are here.

Scientists Hack a Human Cell and Reprogram it Like a Computer

Sophia Chen
Wired Magazine
Originally published March 27, 2017

CELLS ARE BASICALLY tiny computers: They send and receive inputs and output accordingly. If you chug a Frappuccino, your blood sugar spikes, and your pancreatic cells get the message. Output: more insulin.

But cellular computing is more than just a convenient metaphor. In the last couple of decades, biologists have been working to hack the cells’ algorithm in an effort to control their processes. They’ve upended nature’s role as life’s software engineer, incrementally editing a cell’s algorithm—its DNA—over generations. In a paper published today in Nature Biotechnology, researchers programmed human cells to obey 109 different sets of logical instructions. With further development, this could lead to cells capable of responding to specific directions or environmental cues in order to fight disease or manufacture important chemicals.

Their cells execute these instructions by using proteins called DNA recombinases, which cut, reshuffle, or fuse segments of DNA. These proteins recognize and target specific positions on a DNA strand—and the researchers figured out how to trigger their activity. Depending on whether the recombinase gets triggered, the cell may or may not produce the protein encoded in the DNA segment.

The article is here.

Are You Creeped Out by the Idea of a “Moral Enhancement” Pill?

Vanessa Rampton
Slate.com
Originally posted March 20, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

In its broad outlines, the idea of moral bioenhancement is as follows: Once we understand the biological and genetic influences on moral decision-making and judgments, we can enhance (read: improve) them with drugs, surgery, or other devices. A “morality pill” could shore up self-control, empathy, benevolence, and other desirable characteristics while discouraging tendencies toward violent aggression or racism. As a result, people might be kinder to their families, better members of their communities, and better able to address some of the world’s biggest problems such as global inequality, environmental destruction, and war.

In fact, the attempts of parents, educators, friends, philosophers, and therapists to make people behave better are already getting a boost from biology and technology. Recent studies have shown that neurological and genetic characteristics influence moral decision-making in more or less subtle ways. Some behaviors, like violent aggression, drug abuse and addiction, and the likelihood of committing a crime have been linked to genetic variables as well as specific brain chemicals such as dopamine. Conversely, evidence suggests that our ability to be empathetic, our tolerance of other racial groups, and our sensitivity to fairness all have their roots in biology. Assuming cutting-edge developments in neuroscience and genetics have been touted as able to crack the morality code, the search for a morality pill will only continue apace.

The article is here.

CRISPR helps evo-devo scientists to unpick the origins of adaptions

Editorial Comment
Nature
Originally published August 17, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

The field of evolutionary developmental biology — evo-devo — is full of such creations: from mice with longer, bat-like limbs to fruit flies with torsos segmented like beetles’. But until now, the brute tools used to create these creatures have been imperfect.

This is about to change. In a paper published online on 17 August, a team used CRISPR–Cas9 to inactivate the genes involved in zebrafish development, resulting in fin tips more like the feet and digits of land vertebrates (T. Nakamura et al. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature19322; 2016). Other recent CRISPR experiments have tinkered with butterflies to learn how they see more colours than flies do, and done away with crustaceans’ claws to understand the origin of these specialized appendages.

The article is here.

Scientists debate effort to build a human genome

By Andrew Joseph
STAT
Originally posted  on June 4, 2016

Here is an excerpt:

Church said the core science of assembling a human genome from basic molecular ingredients dates back to at least 2009. And he noted that scientists have been grappling with related ethical questions for more than a decade, since the early days of synthetic biology opened the door to the idea of someone being able to build a pathogen from basic genetic components.

He said that although the project has no intention of spawning actual humans, the project’s leaders would not ignore the “ethical, social, legal” issues that inherently materialize given where the project could lead.

The article is here.

Biological determinism and its enemies

Radosław Zyzik
Philosophy in Neuroscience, eds. Jerzy Stelmach, Bartosz Brożek, Łukasz Kurek, Copernicus Center Press 2012.

Here is an excerpt:

Little research (if any) has addressed the problem of determinism from more than one perspective at the same time. On the one hand, one can read about the neuroscience of free will and the renaissance
of determinism due to the work of neuroscientists. On the other, a new face of genetic determinism is discussed as a result of the progress made in genetics. Moreover, today we can also learn about the impact of biological factors on the development of model organisms in neurogenetics. With this in mind, we have tried to investigate how determinism is understood in neuroscience, behavioural genetics and in a new discipline which combines knowledge from many disciplines – neurogenetics.

We believe that only such a broad perspective will eventually allow an understanding of determinism in biology with all of its shortcomings. Therefore, the aim of our study is to evaluate the philosophical interpretations of neuroscientific, genetic and neurogenetic experiments that can be seen to be in line with the thesis of biological determinism. The paper re-examines the tacit philosophical assumptions, applied methodology and interpretation of the results of the experiments.

The book chapter is here.

Where do minds belong?

by Caleb Scharf
Aeon
Originally published March 22, 2016

As a species, we humans are awfully obsessed with the future. We love to speculate about where our evolution is taking us. We try to imagine what our technology will be like decades or centuries from now. And we fantasise about encountering intelligent aliens – generally, ones who are far more advanced than we are. Lately those strands have begun to merge. From the evolution side, a number of futurists are predicting the singularity: a time when computers will soon become powerful enough to simulate human consciousness, or absorb it entirely. In parallel, some visionaries propose that any intelligent life we encounter in the rest of the Universe is more likely to be machine-based, rather than humanoid meat-bags such as ourselves.

These ruminations offer a potential solution to the long-debated Fermi Paradox: the seeming absence of intelligent alien life swarming around us, despite the fact that such life seems possible. If machine intelligence is the inevitable end-point of both technology and biology, then perhaps the aliens are hyper-evolved machines so off-the-charts advanced, so far removed from familiar biological forms, that we wouldn’t recognise them if we saw them. Similarly, we can imagine that interstellar machine communication would be so optimised and well-encrypted as to be indistinguishable from noise. In this view, the seeming absence of intelligent life in the cosmos might be an illusion brought about by our own inadequacies.

The article is here.

The Illusion of Free Will

Originally published on Jul 7, 2015

Daniel Do asked us to reconsider whether we are the authors of our own thoughts.

Daniel is a student deeply engaged in brain science and philosophy of mind. He is an aspiring neuroscientist, writer, educator, and science communicator. In his free time, he enjoys biking, meditating, composing music, reading books, debating with his friends and family, and being alone with his thoughts.

The predictive brain and the “free will” illusion

Dirk De Ridder, Jan Verplaetse and Sven Vanneste
Front. Psychol., 30 April 2013
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00131

Here is an excerpt:

From an evolutionary point of our experience of “free will” can best be approached by the development of flexible behavioral decision making (Brembs, 2011). Predators can very easily take advantage of deterministic flight reflexes by predicting future prey behavior (Catania, 2009). The opposite, i.e., random behavior is unpredictable but highly inefficient. Thus learning mechanisms evolved to permit flexible behavior as a modification of reflexive behavioral strategies (Brembs, 2011). In order to do so, not one, but multiple representations and action patterns should be generated by the brain, as has already been proposed by von Helmholtz. He found the eye to be optically too poor for vision to be possible, and suggested vision ultimately depended on computational inference, i.e., predictions, based on assumptions and conclusions from incomplete data, relying on previous experiences. The fact that multiple predictions are generated could for example explain the Rubin vase illusion, the Necker cube and the many other stimuli studied in perceptual rivalry, even in monocular rivalry. Which percept or action plan is selected is determined by which prediction is best adapted to the environment that is actively explored (Figure 1A). In this sense, predictive selection of the fittest action plan is analogous to the concept of Darwinian selection of the fittest in natural and sexual selection in evolutionary biology, as well as to the Mendelian selection of the fittest allele in genetics and analogous the selection of the fittest quantum state in physics (Zurek, 2009). Bayesian statistics can be used to select the model with the highest updated likelihood based on environmental new information (Campbell, 2011). What all these models have in common is the fact that they describe adaptive mechanisms to an ever changing environment (Campbell, 2011).

The entire article is here.