Many of my
postings deal with enhancement. Enhancement is important for two reasons.
Firstly some people believe being enhanced will benefit them personally. Some
people such as Michael Sandel believe these benefits might be illusory. They
believe we should simply accept who we are and feel a sense of giftedness for
our natural state. I would suggest that part of our natural state is a desire
to improve our circumstances. One way of improving our circumstances is to
enhance ourselves. It might then be argued that enhancement is natural for
human beings even if some of the methods employed might not be. However this
posting for the most part will not be concerned with enhancement for personal
reasons. Persson and Savulescu suggest that pharmacological moral enhancement
might be necessary if we are to combat existential threats such as global
warming (1). Clearly decisions made by us now will have an affect on global
warming, will have an affect on the interests of future persons. Persson and
Savulescu base their suggestion on the fact we always seem to favour our short
term interests. In this posting I want to consider a different means of dealing
with such existential threats.
Let us
accept that Persson and Savulescu are correct in their assertion that we favour
our short term interests. Accepting this means that we must also accept that we
might fail to adequately consider the interests of future people. Persson and
Savulescu believe that pharmacological moral enhancement would mean that those
who are so enhanced would be more likely to consider the interests of their
successors. In this posting I will suggest that there is an alternative means
of making the present generation more likely to consider the interests of their
successors. I will suggest that we should enfranchise future generations.
Children
don’t have a vote. However our children will have to deal with the results of
our short term attitudes to threats such as global warming or pandemics.
Perhaps then our short term attitudes might be alleviated if children had a
vote. The extension of the franchise to children is usually known as Demeny
voting after Paul Demeny (2). The fact that children have a vote would not mean
that they could exercise this vote, this would be a proxy vote exercised by
their parents. It would be hoped that a parent when casting a proxy vote on
behalf his child would consider that child’s long term interests. It might be
objected that this is a too complicated task for a parent as it is hard to
judge what is in the long term interests of his child. In response I would
point out even if not all of a child’s long term interests are apparent to a
parent some are. It is in the interests of any child to live in a world without
the dangers associated with global warming, the fear of avoidable pandemics and
the threat of nuclear annihilation. It is possible therefore that a parent
could consider some of the long term interests of his child when casting a
proxy vote on her behalf. Unfortunately I am doubtful as to whether this would
occur in practice. Most people understand what is in their long term interests
but do not always act in a way that promotes these interests. For instance most
people understand being obese is not in their long term interests but continue
to eat junk food. It follows if people disregard their own long term interests
that they might also disregard the long term interests of their children.
Demeny voting might not combat our short term attitudes.
Perhaps if
the enfranchisement of our children by Demeny voting fails to adequately
address our short-termism then perhaps a more radical form of enhancement might
work. Writing in the magazine Aeon Thomas Wells argues that because future
people will have interests that will be affected by our current policies that
they should have some affect on our election procedures, see votes
for the future . Clearly future people cannot affect our election
processes directly as they don’t yet exist and we don’t even know how many of
them will exist. Their influence as with Demeny voting must be through a proxy.
Who or what would be a suitable proxy? Wells suggests that civic organisations, such as charitable foundations,
environmentalist advocacy groups or non-partisan think tanks might cast proxy
votes. He further suggests that such a block vote might account for 10% of the
electorate. Such a scheme might face difficulties in implementation but for the
sake of argument I will assume that these difficulties might be overcome. I
will also assume that some of the interests of future people are clearly
discernible, interests such as living in a world without the dangers
associated with global warming, the fear of avoidable pandemics and the threat
of nuclear annihilation. It seems to me that such organisations would not be
deterred by short term interests from pursuing the interests of future people.
Let us
assume we have a duty to consider the interests of future people and that we
would be failing in our duty if we left these people a ravished planet as our
legacy. The question I now wish to address would pharmacological moral enhancement
as suggested by Persson and Savulescu or the radical change to the franchise as
suggested by Wells best fulfil this duty? At this juncture I will point out
that at the moment there is no safe guaranteed means of pharmacological moral enhancement.
Indeed there may never be such a means. It might therefore be assumed that we
should be prepared to accept a radical change to the franchise as suggested by
Wells to help us fulfil our duty. However it seems to me there are two reasons
why moral enhancement might be preferable. Firstly
at the beginning of this posting I suggested that our nature causes us to seek
to enhance ourselves even if some of the means adopted might be regarded as
unnatural by some people. It follows if seeking pharmacological moral
enhancement is going to happen anyway that there is no reason to radically
change the franchise. Secondly radically changing the franchise to allow the
interests of future people are taken into account seems to limit our autonomy.
If we freely choose to enhance our morals by pharmacological means then a
decision to consider the interests of future people would be an autonomous one.
It might be objected that we might only have a natural desire to enhance our
cognition and longevity. Perhaps, but it seems to me that we are naturally
moral creatures, I may of course be mistaken.
- Ingmar Persson & Julian
Savulesu, 2012, Unfit for the Future,
- Paul Demeny, 1986, Pronatalist Policies in
Low-Fertility Countries: Patterns, Performance and Prospects, Population and Development Review, vol. 12
