Egalitarianism and moral bioenhancement

Rob Sparrow (Monash University)

Abstract: A number of philosophers working in applied ethics and bioethics are now earnestly debating the  ethics of what they term “moral bioenhancement”, by which they mean the deliberate modification of individuals’ behaviour and dispositions in order to make them “more moral”. I will suggest that  anyone who is committed to an egalitarian politics should be extremely suspicious of this project.  The prospect of being able to reliably identify some people as, by biological constitution, significantly and consistently more moral than others would seem to pose a profound challenge to egalitarian social and political ideals. The morally enhanced are, ex hypothesi, better people; while they might not thereby gain improved moral status, they would appear to have a prima facie claim to be over-represented in political decision making. Even if moral bioenhancement should prove to be impossible, the debate about its ethics risks reinvigorating dangerous ideas about the extent of natural inequality in the possession of the moral faculties.