Psychopaths and Moral Enhancement

 

Michael Cook questions whether psychopaths should be morally bio-enhanced. This posting will examine his question. In attempting to answer Cook’s question I will attempt to answer several related questions. A psychopath might be roughly defined as someone who lacks feelings for others and has no remorse about any of his actions, past or present. A psychopath is someone, who even if he understands moral requirements, does not accept these requirements. In this posting it will be assumed that moral bio-enhancement should be focussed on this non acceptance. The first related question I want to address is whether a psychopath’s non acceptance of moral norms is a form of disability? Secondly I will consider whether any moral bio-enhancement of psychopaths should be mandatory, I will argue it shouldn’t. Thirdly I will consider whether we have a moral duty to offer moral bio-enhancement to someone convicted of some crime due to his non acceptance of moral norms, I will argue we do. Lastly I will suggest if it is permissible to offer moral bio-enhancement to psychopaths there is no reason not to permit moral bio-enhancement more generally.

Let us accept that if someone suffers from a disability and we can mitigate the effects of his disability that we have a prima facie duty to do so provided the costs associated with so doing are not too onerous. Let us also accept that some form of safe moral bio-enhancement becomes possible, such safe enhancement is unavailable at the present time. It appears to follow in such circumstances provided that a psychopath’s failure to accept moral norms is a form of disability that we have a prima facie duty to mitigate the effects of this disability. It further appears to follow that if we can only mitigate this disability by bio-enhancement that we have a duty to do so provided such enhancement is safe. Is a psychopaths non acceptance of moral norms a disability? Most psychopaths are able to understand moral requirements and so their failure to act in accordance with these requirements is not caused by an inability to understand moral norms. It appears to follow that a psychopath’s non acceptance of moral norms is not a disability. This appearance is too simplistic. Let us accept that most psychopaths can understand moral norms even if they don’t accept these norms. Perhaps this lack of acceptance might be due to an inability to feel the force of moral norms and that this inability to feel should be classed as a disability. It follows that a psychopath’s failure to accept moral norms might be regarded as a disability.

Does this moral disability matter? I will now argue whether it matters depends on the context. It has been suggested that some CEO of some large companies have psychopathic tendencies. Having psychopathic tendencies might be seen as enhancing by a CEO whilst the same tendencies might be seen as a disability by someone if they lead to him being imprisoned for some crime. I argued above that if someone suffers from a disability and that we can mitigate the effects of his disability then we have a moral duty to do so, provided the costs associated with doing so are not too onerous. It follows if a psychopath lives in circumstances in which his condition might be classed as a disability he should be morally bio-enhanced. This enhancement should only take place subject to the provision that means used are safe and costs involved aren’t too onerous.

The above conclusion needs some clarification. A psychopath who is the CEO of a large company might not want to be morally enhanced even if his condition disables him in some social contexts. I would suggest that we only have a duty to offer moral enhancement to psychopaths. It might be objected that my suggestion is too weak. My objector might point out that some psychopaths damage society and other people. He might proceed to argue that for such people moral enhancement should be mandatory rather than voluntary due to the need to protect society. I accept that we need to protect people and society from psychopaths but I do not accept we must do so by means of mandatory biomedical moral enhancement. We can protect society from those psychopaths who harm it by restricting their freedom. Let us assume there is a safe bio-medical form of enhancement which prevents psychopaths from committing crimes due to their condition. My objector might now argue that mandatory moral bio-enhancement is both a cheaper and a more humane way of treating psychopaths who have committed crimes than detention. Mandatory moral bio-enhancement would be better for both psychopaths and society.

I would reject such an argument which could easily be extended to include paedophiles. Let us accept most psychopaths retain their autonomy. Unfortunately, whilst exercising their autonomy some psychopaths damage society. My objector wants to limit the damage done to society by removing some of a psychopath’s capacity for autonomy. Is it possible to remove some of someone’s capacity for autonomy? We can of course restrict the exercise of someone’s autonomy but this is not the same as removing some of someone’s capacity for autonomous action. I would suggest that we should limit the damage psychopaths do to society by limiting his ability to exercise his autonomy rather than modifying his autonomy for autonomous action. Some might question whether there is a meaningful difference between these two approaches. I now want to argue there is. If someone’s ability to make autonomous decisions is modified, then he is changed as a person. If someone’s ability to exercise his autonomy is removed, then he is not changed as a person even though the exercise of his will is frustrated. Does the difference between changing someone as a person and frustrating his will matter? If we change someone as a person we treating him simply as a thing. We are treating him in much the same way as something we can own and can do with it as we please. Psychopaths may differ from most of us but they are still human beings and should be treated as such, they should not be treated in the same way as something we own, should not be treated in the same way as an animal. If we frustrate a psychopath’s will by detaining him, we are not treating him as something we own but merely protecting ourselves. We are still accepting him as a person, albeit a damaged person. In the light of the above I would suggest that the mandatory moral bio-enhancement of psychopaths would be wrong. I also would suggest that psychopaths should be offered voluntary moral bio-enhancement. It seems probable most psychopaths would accept such enhancement on a voluntary basis if the alternative might be compulsory detention. Accepting the above would mean that we are still respecting the autonomy of those psychopaths who need to be detained.

I have argued that we should offer voluntary moral bio-enhancement to psychopaths but it is feasible that the exactly the same form of enhancement might be offered to people in general. Prima facie such an enhancement would not be regarded as correcting some disability. It might then be argued that because such enhancement is not correcting any disability that it cannot be argued by analogy that a more general moral bio-enhancement is desirable. I would reject such argument because I don’t believe the prima facie assumption stands up to close examination. Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu suggest we are unfit to face the feature as our morality has not developed enough to permit us to cope with technological progress (1). What exactly does unfit mean? I would suggest being unfit means we are unable to counter some of the dangers created by our technology. If we are unable to do something in some circumstances, then we have an inability, in these circumstances we have a disability. It is conceivable that prior to our most recent technological advances our morality was fit for purpose. It might be argued our morality remains fit for purpose but that these advances have made it difficult for us to accept the full implications of our moral norms disabling us in much the same way psychopaths are disabled. It follows that the prima facie assumption that a more general moral enhancement by bio-medical means should not be regarded as correcting some disability is unsound. It might be concluded that if technological changes make our morality unfit for our purposes by morally disabling people that it can be argued by analogy that more general moral enhancement by bio-medical means is desirable. It might be objected that this conclusion is not the only option available in these circumstances, we might try to change our current circumstances. My objector might suggest that instead of a more general moral enhancement we should reject our most recent technological advances and seek to return to circumstances in which we accept the norms of our evolved morality. Such a suggestion seems impractical for two reasons. First, once the genie is out of the bottle it is hard to put it back in. Secondly I am doubtful if our morality was ever fit for purpose once we ceased being hunter gatherers.

We live in a dangerous world, provided safe moral bio-enhancement becomes available should such enhancement be mandatory? In the light of the dangers we face such an option seems to be an attractive one, but I would somewhat reluctantly reject it. Mandatory moral bio-enhancement would damage our autonomy. Our autonomy forms the basis of us being moral agents and damaging our agency would also damage our moral systems. If safe moral bio-enhancement becomes available, then it should encouraged, perhaps subsidised, but it should remain voluntary.

1. Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu, 2012, UNFIT FOR THE FUTURE, Oxford University Press.