---
title: "Moral enhancement"
chunk: 1/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_enhancement"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:23:48.024842+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Moral enhancement (abbreviated ME), also called moral bioenhancement (abbreviated MBE), is the use of biomedical technology to morally improve individuals. MBE is a growing topic in neuroethics, a field developing the ethics of neuroscience as well as the neuroscience of ethics. After Thomas Douglas introduced the concept of MBE in 2008, its merits have been widely debated in academic bioethics literature. Since then, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu have been among the most vocal MBE supporters. Much of the debate over MBE has focused on Persson and Savulescu's 2012 book in support of it, Unfit for the Future? The Need for Moral Enhancement.

== Different kinds of moral enhancement ==
Moral enhancement in general is sometimes distinguished from MBE specifically, such that ME includes any means of moral improvement while MBE only involves biomedical interventions. Some also distinguish invasive from non-invasive, intended from resultant, treatment-focused from enhancement-focused, capability-improving from behavior-improving, and passive from active ME interventions. Vojin Rakić has distinguished involuntary (such as for the unborn) from compulsory and voluntary MBE, claiming that compulsory MBE is not justifiable and proposing that "a combination of [voluntary MBE] and [involuntary MBE] might be the best option humans have to become better". Parker Crutchfield has argued in favor of covert and compulsory use of ME upon unsuspecting populations. Other thinkers have argued in favor of a partial or limited form of MBE such as 'indirect enhancement' or 'moral supplementation' while rejecting more comprehensive forms of MBE as undesirable or unachievable.

== Arguments in favour ==
The simplest argument for MBE is definitional: improving moral character is morally good, so all else being equal, any biomedical treatment that actually improves moral character does moral good.
Douglas originally suggested MBE as a counter-example to what he calls the "bioconservative thesis," which claims that human enhancement is immoral even if it is feasible. He argues that enhancements to improve someone’s moral motivations would at least be morally permissible. For example, he cites enhancements to reduce "counter-moral" racist and aggressive emotional reactions as morally permissible because they remove impediments to morality.
In 2009, Mark Alan Walker proposed a "Genetic Virtue Project" (GVP) to genetically enhance moral traits. Given that personality traits are heritable, and some traits are moral while others are immoral, he suggests increasing moral traits while reducing immoral ones through genetic engineering.

=== Companions in innocence ===
Walker argues for the GVP based on what he calls a ‘‘companions in innocence’’ strategy, which says that “any objection raised against the GVP has an analogue in socialization and educational efforts. Since such objections are not understood as decisive against nurturing attempts, they should not be considered decisive against the GVP.” In other words, any objection to MBE which also applies to traditional moral education has reduced itself to absurdity, because few would argue that teaching someone to be moral is inherently objectionable.
Several other MBE proponents have cited moral education as an example of socially accepted non-biomedical moral enhancement. For example, Douglas calls it “intuitively clear” that any given person has a reason to undergo moral self-enhancement by reducing counter-moral emotions through self-reflection. Douglas says that at least some of the intuitive reasons that anyone should become morally better through self-reflection, like increasing concern for others or good consequences, apply to voluntary MBE.

=== Unfit for the Future ===
Based on the fact that human technological progress has advanced faster than human moral psychology can adapt through evolution, Persson and Savulescu point out that humans' capability to cause large-scale destruction has increased exponentially. However, given that humans tend to care only about their immediate acquaintances and circumstances instead of thinking on a larger scale, they are vulnerable to tragedies of the commons like climate change and to technologies like nuclear weapons which may pose an existential threat to humanity.
Given that moral education and liberal democracy are insufficient, MBE is needed at least as a supplementary method to solve these problems. Persson and Savulescu's argument relies on the notion that it is much easier to cause great harm than it is to cause goodness to an equal extent. Because of the human population size there will inevitably be a fraction of humanity which is immoral enough to desire to inflict this great harm. Persson and Savulescu conclude that the intervention of extensive human moral enhancement is a necessary component to address this threat.

== Criticism ==
Central issues debated in literature about MBE include whether there is an urgent need for it, if a sufficient consensus on the definition of morality is achievable, technically feasible and ethically permissible interventions to carry out MBE, the ability to ensure no violation of consent in those interventions, and the ability to ensure no harmful social side-effects that they produce.