Is Moral Enhancement a Right, or a Threat to Rights?

Abstract

AbstractEnhancements for morality could become technologically practical at the expense of becoming unethical and uncivil. A mode of moral enhancement intensifying a person's imposition of conformity upon others, labeled here as “moral righteousness”, is particularly problematic. Moral energies contrary to expansions of civil rights and liberties can drown out reasoned justifications for equality and freedom, delaying social progress. The technological capacity of moral righteousness in the hands of a majority could impose puritanical conformities and override some rights and liberties. Fortunately, there cannot be a human right or a civil right to access righteous moral enhancement, and governments would be prudent to forbid such technology for moral righteousness. From an enlarged perspective, less righteousness could lead to a more just society. Going further, if a neurological intervention for moral righteousness could be invented, so too could moral de-enhancement, here labeled as “moral toleration”. Perhaps moral toleration deserves as much commendation as so-called moral enhancement. Justice with less delay can be justice enhanced.