Is 'Moral Enhancement Technology' a Solution to Change Behavior?
The question of moral enhancement technologies is something "leaders" and "social scientists" have thought about for ways to "improve" human behavior. They think we might be better off if they induced "moral" obedience. But would the results even produce more morality? And would it really be moral to even do that? Why are they not trying to educate and provide accurate moral understanding through conscious willful effort on our part, instead of our default automatic intuitive attempts to live morally? Maybe they don't understand how to solve the problem properly.
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Recent research answers that moral enhancement technologies are not wise, nor feasible. I say it can't be done even if we wanted to, and it's foolish to want to (and even downright wrong/evil to do so). People who think we can force moral obedience instead of educating moral understanding are the fools. I think many authority figures would love a way to manipulate morality, for our own betterment and benefit of course, right?
The idea behind this is about using bio-medical technology to make people more moral, as if it's some mere physical attribute that can be tweaked. We've seen this play out in the past when behavior doesn't match up to the "expectations" others have with lobotomies making people into zombies. We have refined our brain surgery now they say, where some criminals can get some surgery for moral defects or take drugs to treat their behavior.
Well the research shows that even if you can manipulate or modify morality in people, you can't make sure they improve their behavior towards being more moral.
Researchers reviewed existing research on these technologies, like pharmaceutical interventions and neurostimulation techniques. 1) Oxytocin for social cognition, bonding and behavior. 2) SSRIs used to treat depression can make people less aggressive. 3) Amphetamines to motivate action. 4) Beta-blockers to decrease racist responses. 5) Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) used for depression and affects moral dilemmas. 6) Transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) for utilitarian compliance. 7) Deep brain stimulation to enhance motivation.
Yes, these techniques have effects, "but these techniques are all blunt instruments, rather than finely tuned technologies that could be helpful. So, moral enhancement is really a bad idea," says Veljko Dubljevic, lead author of the paper.
As much as Oxytocin might be good for social bonding and behavior, it's only for the in-group with decreased cooperation coming at the expense of out-groups like racial minorities. The oxytocin promotes ethnocentrism, favoritism and narrowmindedness. The amphetamines boost all types of behavior, not only the moral kind. Beta-blockers will blunt all emotional responses. SSRIs increase the risk of suicide. And the brain stimulation technology didn't work on moral behavior.
I for one am glad that at least there is a study that can help to prevent further advancement in this foolish idea of moral enhancement technology through physical changes in the brain first. Morality is known through the psychological dimension, not created through the physical alone despite any neurochemical effects that can affect moral decision making. Aspects of moral living can be imparted through the bio-natural physiology, conditioned through our social environment, and also willfully and voluntarily developed through conscious active contemplation, reflection and analysis. The latter method is the way to actually become more moral.
References:
- 'Moral enhancement' technologies are neither feasible nor wise
- Veljko Dubljević, Eric Racine. Moral Enhancement Meets Normative and Empirical Reality: Assessing the Practical Feasibility of Moral Enhancement Neurotechnologies. Bioethics, 2017; 31 (5): 338 DOI: 10.1111/bioe.12355
Firefly. The great and long lamented series plot revolved around this exact technology backfiring, causing the entire population of a planet to either suicide or become essentially rabid monsters.
The hubris of people and scientists (who are just people in lab coats) with a little knowledge that conceitedly think they know the 'truth' is daily revealed to be merely unfounded ignorance as science constantly evolves as new information is developed.
Plato famously said, "I know one thing: that I know nothing." It is the acknowledgement of ignorance that creates the very possibility of learning. The assumption that one knows the truth ends the possibility of learning the truth.
Thanks for this post!
Ah yeah, good plot. Let's make everyone docile an peaceful... not pursuing aggressive actions... to the point where they aren't pursuing anything, not even eating. Winning! LOL.
"The truth" can be known about one thing, i.e. a truth. "The truth" itself as a thing we use to reference reality/existence, is indeed not something we will have knowledge of, because we can't know all of 'it'. There is always more unknown to discover and bring into the known. Thanks for the feedback.
Meditation, qigong, love and kindness thinking and acts everyday will slowly change the brain and naturally.
They have been enforcing moral obedience on us for centuries and it started to become very sophisticated and subtle in the early 1900's. So subtle, that most people don't even know that it is being enforced on them.
Indeed. There are many chemicals and pharmaceuticals in water supplies that are affecting us. Thanks for the feedback.
In Ussr there were no need to use any chemicals for that purpose. All was made by using propaganda programming. I always wondering at how soviets could reprogram such a big population within only several decades. And then It took less than 10 years to reprogram most of soviet moral programs in modern Russia. Words and emotions produced by them can affect brain chemistry.
P.s Better to drink melt-water. You need only a frige to make it.
Well... this doesn't bring up too many ethical questions or anything does it??? I used to do a lecture (actually two-parts 6 hrs) called Designing A Perfect Society. The thrust in one sentence is: Who gets to determine what is moral? Technology is only as good as the people who design it. What if Hitler had designed "Moral Enhancement Tech" Most of us wouldn't be here now!
Exactly why that lecture was a moot point, I just had a discussion with @agermandude and he believes himself capable of being such a designer, completely missed the point that nobody has the right to decide such things.
Great post with some really interesting ideas, coming from Glasgow where we have our share of antisocial behaviour I can see why people would be attracted to the idea of quick fix morality improvemenment, whether you were actually moral or not doesn't matter for some people who just want a quiet life, but what happens if we could operate and improve morality, who defines that morality?
Yeah, just like someone believing something doesn't make it true, if you could force someone to think something was true when it wasn't, that would be a bad as well. No more thinking for yourself, somebody else is robbing you of the ability to discern, and making you accept falsity as truth. We can be made to, and already are made to, accept immorality as morality.
And where is the redemption if you don't have the ability to choose for yourself.
I was talking about this with someone the other day - about whether scientists could edit 'selfishness' out of the human genome. Would that be desirable? And how gets to define the word. The politics of human genome morality are about to get intense.
We aren't mature enough to be dabbling in that tech, since we aren't even cognizant or wise enough to know not to alter our own genome. Thanks for the feedback.
Morals are subconscious constructs that shift the prism of perception.. They are integrated in the self or (psyche) of a person. It takes a lot of time and subliminal effort to plant a seed into someone, its even harder if its with a negative polarirt rowards the perception of the person.
But with the heavy bombardment everywhere it's working to some extent.
Our politicians may need the blunt instrument method to further their combined morality.
No technology can force moral obedience in an instant. Because the moral of a child since childhood. @krnel
It's not that they want to force moral obedience, because to force moral obedience is immoral itself, and not to say that they don't want to force it because it's immoral, they simply want obedience period. It goes in hand with the phrase:
When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick".
by Bakunin.
I misunderstand, I think forcing a moral shadow with a sophisticated tool @baah
Yes, they care about social engineering, and "moral manipulation" is a way to do that. Social Engineering is what defines "to change behavior of society", social engineering, with the term which has all to do with imposing your will onto a piece of wood, or metal, or concrete, or freemason, is used deliberately to express such Imposing of one's will, because at the end of the day, the story goes: "people are divided into two classes, Masters and Followers" for the "masters", except the masters are in denial about having "followers" and more than anything those people are made up by manipulated and coerced individuals, people that didn't consent, and anarchists that get exterminated with joy every time a revolution happens. The actual story is more akin to a religion which promises security from hell(boogieman) and a way to heaven(benevolent leaders, MESSIAHS).
Only masters need social engineering, only the trade of building needs the term engineering, and as social engineering implies an engineer and a medium that the engineer's work, of course the masters would love an obedient medium/material and do what they must to attain such obedience, with or without your consent, with or without your awareness. They are the "good shepard", one sheep to the god and the first born male.
I think they want more than anything immoral obedience, like the phrase "I don't make the laws", "Just following orders" and all the way down to "industry standard".
Obedience of law regulations @baah
You believe that they don't want us in jails? Why would they attempt to remove the actual slave labor that is jails and for profit that creates so much capital, everywhere?
can haz an anti-leftist chip? LOL
we'll install it in everyone who thinks behavior mods should be implanted in other people
LOL, yeah. Flip the switch on them!
I always though we should have a do-gooding tax as well...anyone who advocates a tax rate greater than 8% should be taxed themselves at 90%...no deductions ;>