The Problem

Abstract

Looking around the world today two things are obvious: (1) humans are severely challenged in the area of rational decision-making, and (2) as a result of e.g. technological developments society around us is getting increasingly complex. Numerous scientific studies in the fields of, for example, neurology and neuropsychology have shown that information overload and stress have a very negative impact on capacities such as memory (both process and long-term), risk assessment and epistemic deference.

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Looking around the world today two things are obvious: (1) humans are severely challenged in the area of rational decision-making, and (2) as a result of e.g. technological developments society around us is getting increasingly complex. Numerous scientific studies in the fields of, for example, neurology and neuropsychology have shown that information overload and stress have a very negative impact on capacities such as memory (both process and long-term), risk assessment and epistemic deference.¹ We can envision various ways of honing our decision-making skills ranging from a commitment to behaving better or perhaps carrying out radical changes to the political structure, to using drugs and nanotech brain implants designed to make people less selfish and short-sighted. Indeed, some such technologies might be less futuristic than one might think. In the last decade alone there have been significant breakthroughs in so called BMI (brain machine interface) technologies.² Very generally speaking, these are techniques which enable researchers to connect machines to the human nervous system.³ The machines are then used to stimulate the brain and already today BMIs are used to treat deafness, Parkinson’s disease and depression.⁴

1.1 The Costs of Poor Decision-Making

Most people are less than optimally placed for good decision-making and the challenges are both moral (bias, lacking objectivity) and intellectual (poor at processing large amounts of information and at identifying experts). The widespread lack of ability poses a very real threat to our quality of life. Not only is a great number of people not leading as good a life as they could but, arguably more seriously, our survival as a species might be under threat if we continue to make ill-informed decisions. Consider, for example, the lack of collaboration on how best to curb global warming, the number of armed conflicts raging around the world and the on-going Financial Crisis.

Yet another example of the far-ranging consequences of bad decision-making is the refusal of some parents to give their children the MMR vaccine on the grounds that there is an increased risk for the child to develop autism. Numerous scientific studies have shown that there is no such connection and that the original scare was based a report which had used false material. Unfortunately the impact has been limited and this misconception has resulted in measles becoming more common in the population. As shown in a recent WHO Report Europe is in fact close to a measles epidemic which is especially depressing since the disease had been successfully combated for many years.⁵ Such decisions reveal both a lack of understanding of the practical facts and a deeply rooted irrationality as it is the well-being and life-quality of these very individuals (as opposed to that of some other group in society, or a future generations or an alien species) that is at stake.

The 2012 Report on Global Risks (World Economic Forum) lists the biggest threats to our future prosperity and security.⁶ While the top three in the category of ‘most likely to occur’ is: severe income disparity, chronic fiscal imbalances and rising green house emissions, the biggest threats from the perspective of ‘negative impact’ are: major systemic financial failure, water supply crisis and food supply crisis. The report also brings up the threat of the ‘x-factor’, i.e. events that cannot be foreseen.

Most of the risks cannot be eradicated, nor is it plausible that negative outcomes can be avoided altogether. Successful management and mitigation of such crisis requires skilful leadership, wisdom, flexibility, creativity, courage, honesty and collaboration to mention but a few capacities. On a brighter note however, we can improve on the current state of affairs and limit the impact both on people’s quality of life and on the planet. But such endeavours requires collaboration, commitment, research and the allocation of financial resources. It would appear that we, both as a collective and as individuals, can ill afford poor decision-making.

1.2 Involving All Groups

Because of the potentially life altering nature of these issues the discussions and the dialogue ought to be as inclusive as possible.⁷ Research breakthroughs in medicine, bioscience and nanotechnology offer opportunities for great benefit to people and significant economic development but they also raise strong public concerns with regards to, for example, ethics, privacy and autonomy. Judging by the pace at which, for example, biotechnology and nanotechnology develop it seems likely that the ethical questions will become increasingly pressing and complex. In light of what we know about the problems that plague the dialogue between laypeople and experts on these issues (e.g. their focus on different aspects as well as framing issues) it is of the highest importance to bring about conditions which allow and enable experts from various academic backgrounds to meet and discuss both with each other and with representatives from lay group communities.⁸

The agenda of the society-wide dialogue on human enhancement should include both which decisions we ought to make right now and how best to improve our capacity for making good decisions both today and in the future. Further, it would be of the essence to explore how this situation could be addressed in a way that is as un-restricting and un-invasive (both in the moral and physical sphere) as possible. In order to promote this type of engagement it is important to choose suitable examples. On that note, I have purposely sought to stay clear of cases that might be perceived by the reader as unrealistic. In fact one needs to look no further than to people’s everyday lives to find examples of performance enhancement: both nicotine and alcohol are (in moderate quantities) known to have a positive impact on concentration and sociability.

Public engagement activities have shown that people in general view substances like coffee, tea and coca-cola as radically different from drugs, even in cases where the effects would be similar.⁹ Interestingly, however, studies have also shown that an increasing number of healthy people regularly use prescription drugs in order to enhance their cognitive performance.¹⁰ For the purposes of this text I take ‘healthy people’ to be individuals who fall within the range of what is considered normal.¹¹ Evidently, the capacity of those who find themselves at the lower-end might differ radically from those at the top-end, but the point is that they all meet the criteria of what society has decided to view as normal variation.

This essay will describe three different ways to improve decision-making skills: promotion of virtue ethics, drugs and technology, lifestyle changes. Chapter 7 contains a discussion on the respective advantages and disadvantages of these methods as well as some possible combinations of the three. Already here, however, I will offer a brief sketch of the three main reasons for why it is a good idea to approach human enhancement from a virtue ethics perspective.

1.3 Virtue Ethics as a Possible Solution

The ancient Greeks held that one way of radically improving decision-making capacity and overall good judgement comes through instilling a set of moral and intellectual virtues. These virtues, understood as stable character traits, would then issue in actions that are (more) in line with what is actually good for us. ‘Old’ virtues such as generosity, courage and temperance, as well as ‘new’ virtues such as creativity, intellectual honesty, improved memory (both working memory and long-term memory) and open-mindedness are likely to be highly useful.¹² Such capacities come into play both on the micro-level and the macro-level as being more virtuous will enable us to make better decisions both in everyday practical situations and on a societal level, e.g. policy decisions. Notably, all these virtues are taken to be valuable in their own right, as opposed to pure instrumental value.

1.3.1 The Virtue Ethics Approach Promotes Engagement

The intellectual and character virtues tend to be (roughly) in line with many people’s well considered, stable moral intuitions and this seems to be the case both for individuals of secular and non-secular convictions.¹³ In general, agents are less likely to reject new ideas if those ideas are compatible, at least to some extent, with the value system they already subscribe to.¹⁴ While this is of course not a right-making feature in and of itself it is, it is a distinct advantage as we are talking about applied ethics rather than the purely theoretical version. As the initial acceptance threshold is fairly low this assists in creating a platform for the type of society-wide, inclusive, dialogue that I argue in favour of.

Such a dialogue is the modern version of what Aristotle referred to as the dialectic method—his main method for intellectual enquiry into morality. For Aristotle this meant that he thought that the whole moral enterprise ought to begin with ‘what is known to us’.¹⁵ To him, such a common starting point was absolutely essential. What then ought to be done is to test the theory against those beliefs and if they do not correspond it is bad news for the theory rather than for the common sense view held by good people. However, this method is controversial as it makes the theory very vulnerable to attacks. Aristotle claimed that his conclusions about ethics are objectively true but as the Skeptics (and others) pointed out it is far from obvious that any universal conclusions can be drawn from these initial common beliefs. Simply put the main problem of (pure) dialectics is that people have different opinions and an ethical theory that rests solely on common sense beliefs is easily attacked. To get out of this situation and refute the critics Aristotle had to show the following three things. Firstly, that people have other reasons (than what their views happen to be) for accepting what he claims in the Nicomachean Ethics. Secondly, that there is a connection between the virtues and self-interest, i.e. why it is in my interest to do the fine and noble. Thirdly, that this proof is based on objective facts about why a rational agent should choose to act in accordance with the virtues. Fortified like this the method morphs into a ‘strong dialectic’.¹⁶ Here the theory is shown to rest on common sense beliefs and objective truths, e.g. facts of human nature, thus becoming more solid.

The open dialogue also links in well with other aspects of Aristotle’s theory. By and large his approach leans towards the pragmatic: this is supposed to be ethics for people such as us and it really comes down to what type of life we want overall. This can then be contrasted with competing theories such as consequentialism and deontology where the main focus is on how agents ought to act in specific situations.

1.3.2 Virtues as Useful Skills in a Changing Society

Instilling the virtues would, plausibly, generate a positive, twofold effect. It would groom us for the future and it would also make us better decision-makers, i.e. increase our well-being, in the present. Becoming more virtuous is likely to help us deal better with novel situations as they present themselves. Presumably this is likely to be advantageous as society around us changes at an ever increasing pace. Consider, for example, how the information-flow through the Internet (blogs, tweets etc.) is multiplying and how traditional authorities are drowned out by the self-acclaimed experts who present themselves at a baffling rate. Evidently some, perhaps even many, have sound knowledge but the problem is that it is very hard to tell who is genuine and what their agenda is. This exploding access to information is in fact often hailed as one of the great advantages of the Internet. It is thought that a less restricted flow levels the playing field and empowers the citizens. While that might be true to an extent, it constitutes a very real problem as people simply do not know whom to listen to when they are flooded with contradictory information. Increasing openness and access is, in principle, positive and even if it could be restricted (which seems highly implausible) it is far from clear that such a move would improve matters. In light of this it would seem a superior strategy to adapt and seek to become better at epistemic deference and rational decision-making for example.

1.3.3 Virtue as Good Overall Judgement

When the virtues have been instilled people become better decision-makers overall. While we cannot predict the future it appears reasonable to assume that the world will continue to change at a rather high rate. Presumably it will also become increasingly complex. This means that humans will face new situations in which we need to make responsible and well-considered decisions. Now, given that we cannot know the exact nature of the issues it would make sense to seek to increase capacities such as equity and overall good judgement. As suggested above that is both a responsible way to tackle the current situation and to prepare to face the yet unknown.

Instilling the virtues creates positive spin-off effects where we will become more apt at deciding both which technological and medical enhancement techniques we might need, and how they should be put to optimal use. For a current example, consider the, at times rather heated, discussion on which type of knowledge students ought to acquire in schools.¹⁷ Very briefly the argument is that the current educational system forces the students to make choices at a very early stage and that such streamlining is negative both for the individual and for society. The critics call for ‘fundamental knowledge’ which in practice is a return to a more classical education involving subjects such as history, literature and philosophy. The argument is that such knowledge enables people both to make sense of the world around them and contribute to making them more creative problem solvers and thus better decision-makers.

1.4 Is Virtue Really an Alternative for the Many?

While this might sound all good and well the following question immediately presents itself: given the scientific evidence that we have a tendency to make poor decisions then how plausible is it really that the majority of people would both be willing, let alone actually able, to lead the virtuous life? I quite agree. Aristotle himself pointed out that the virtuous life is an acquired taste, that it requires a lot of training and that it can seem hard at times. Consequently, I am certainly not ruling out the introduction of technological and/or medical enhancements but only in combination with the life-style changes that comes with virtue (this is explored in Chap. 7).

In the debate it is frequently suggested that human enhancement is incompatible with a virtue ethical perspective. I believe such broad claims to be misplaced. Admittedly there is no guarantee that enough people would want to take on a more virtuous life-style, neither is there an automatic connection between increased intellectual capacity and high moral maturity. In other words: were we to rely solely on enhancement through drugs and technology we would run the risk of creating a society populated with highly intelligent but immoral agents. My claim is instead that while it is likely that we will need both methods, a good reason to start with the virtue part right now is that it will make us better at deciding what kind of technological and medical assistance we might require.

That said, it is not correct to say that virtue ethics is a ‘bootstrap’ theory. In many ways humans can be inspired by and model themselves on the positive example set by others. The fact that there are very few, perhaps no, perfect human beings around does not undermine this idea. There are plenty of ‘situation-based’ role models, e.g. the young doctor can look to a senior colleague for how best to deliver difficult information to a patient. The Junior can recognise that the Senior might not be excellent in all respects, in fact she could be very average when it comes to generosity, but that is not to say that she cannot serve as a good role model on occasions such as these. Another example might be Ghandi, while it might have been the case that he neglected his own family and himself that does not make him an unsuitable role-model for us when we seek to learn what courage and selflessness might be. It could also be objected that not everyone, for all their good intentions, will have the same capacity for self-improvement. Again, even if that is recognised it would seem the case that the vast majority of people can improve on themselves to some extent (this will be expanded on in Chaps. 5, 6 and 7).

The idea that a life lived in accordance with the virtues is the good life for being such as us is central to this essay. This is the life where we flourish, can exercise our rational capacities and grow as human beings. In other words, it gives us the best shot at making the most of our lives. Admittedly the virtuous life will, at times, be hard, demanding and not at all as pleasurable as Aristotle et al. would have people believe. But that fact is not incompatible with the claim defended here, namely that those who chose this life will, in general, fare better than those who do not. It should also be mentioned that the merits of the life of virtue needs to be assessed from an ‘overall quality of life perspective’. Notably, this is not intended as a complete or exegetic account of virtue ethics. Rather, the aim here is to discuss how some key ideas in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, when interpreted in a contemporary context, can be a productive approach.