Author: rhettdawson

An Explanation of Mackie’s Moral Relativity

Posted on by rhettdawson

 

In section eight of J.L. Mackie’s Inventing Right and Wrong, Mackie dismisses moral objectivism by citing the existence of varying moral codes in different societies.  This essay will summarize Mackie’s relativity argument and his response to a common objection to this argument. I hope to strengthen the common objection he presents.

It’s well known that different societies have very different moral codes. Ancient Sparta famously executed weak babies by way of cliff-tossing. Mackie says that these disparities show it is implausible that an objective morality exists. He explains that while disagreements in scientific conclusions result from inadequate evidence, disagreements in morality cannot result from this. This fact makes it more likely that there are different moralities than any other explanation. These different moralities result from the normal way of life of these societies. The society’s way of life determines the moral code rather than their perceptions of morality determining their way of life. This must be true otherwise there would not be such a large percentage of societies with extremely inadequate moral values.  The two facts that there are different societies with very different moral codes and that these moral codes arise from circumstances strongly suggest that there is no objective morality.

The objection that Mackie includes states that there are objective moral principles that all societies adhere to. These principles applied in different circumstances will provide different moral codes. For example, In sparta it was thought that killing the weak babies would drastically improve overall well being. In the circumstances of a military centric society in ancient greece, an agreeable principle like “Don’t kill unless it results in the most good” could result in babies being rightfully killed.

Mackie’s rebuttal is that if these objective principles exist, moral judgements are still contingent on circumstances. Further, moral judgements are contingent on the application of these principles to the given circumstances. Mackie introduces Hare’s ‘ideals’ here to show that the objective principles do not affect our moral judgements. The argument is that moral judgements depend on intuition instead of a reasonable interpretation of principles. It is implied that Intuition is dependent on circumstances. If this is true, moral rules of different societies have no connection to objectivity which makes the morality of any action completely relative to the context of that action.

To strengthen the ‘principles’ objection I will attempt to show that during the formation of a society, objective principles are considered and moral judgements can be linked to these principles. Sticking with sparta, consider the first weak baby to be thrown off a cliff. It is implausible that the spartans simply thought it seemed right to kill that baby. There was likely deliberation about how the baby would not be able to contribute to society, the resources needed to provide a decent life for the baby, and how everyone would be better off if the baby was dead. This is a moral judgement from a reasonable application of an objective principle in those circumstances. After this first decision, maybe it was intuition that caused people to believe it right to kill weak babies. Mackie is right that most moral judgements are from intuition but he fails to see that intuition is often dependent on an objective principle that was originally applied.

Mackie does well arguing that morality is relative to different circumstances. Objectivists would mostly agree with this but would say that objective moral principles exist and are influential in the moral decisions of all societies. I think that the principles objection is a devastating one because objective principles do shape what any society thinks is right or wrong.

A Response To Kant’s Moral Groundwork

Posted on by rhettdawson

 

Kant explains why actions for the sake of duty and only duty are the only actions with moral worth in this section.  He starts by asserting that the only quality with inherent goodness is a good will. This is true because all other qualities can be used for evil without a good will. Because this is true, we should only decide what action has moral worth based on whether or not a good will was used. The way to observe this is to observe whether or not an action was from duty and not from inclination. This is true because satisfying inclinations does not require a good will. Following from these assertions, an action has moral worth only if it is from duty (italicized to imply a specific meaning). It is unclear exactly what is meant by “moral worth” but anything with moral worth is a right action. Kant also says that something is a duty to someone if and only if they think that it should be a universal duty.

The problem I see with this theory is that it is impossible to follow for someone who is trying to follow it. If I adopted this philosophy upon reading Kant and understanding it, I would be inclined to follow my duties because I want to do things with moral worth. Further, I want my actions to have moral worth because I want to be a good person. Although I would be consistently conforming with duty I would be acting from self interest and therefore giving my actions no moral content. Kant says that actions with this motivation “however it may conform to duty and however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth but is on the same footing with other inclinations” – Kant (11).  He says this when discussing a soul with an inner satisfaction in spreading joy. This means that compliance with duty and good intentions are not sufficient to attain moral worth, which I disagree with. Kant gives a few examples of people acting from duty but does not fully explain how people can consistently do it. A common theme among actions with moral worth is some resistance to inclination, although I do not think this is necessary.

I would change The necessity of acting from duty to only acting with duty. This means that to have moral worth an action must comply with duty and be motivated in some way by duty. This means that any action complying with duty does have moral worth as long as the agent, or person completing the action, has any motivation stemming from this duty. A mere acknowledgement of an action as a duty would suffice as motivation. A person who is inclined to spread joy could act on that inclination with moral worth if they also understand that it is a duty. If the agent acts solely on their inclination the act is not with duty at all and thus has no moral worth.

This philosophy does well levelling the playing field between naturally malicious and beneficent people. All that matters to Kant is a person’s volition. Someone lucky enough to be born with beneficent inclinations is not necessarily better than the unfortunate soul born malicious who must exercise their volition frequently. Each person is held accountable to find and use their good will.

 

 

Procreative Benignity

Posted on by rhettdawson

 

In his paper, Procreative Beneficence, Julian Savulescu argues for the principle that we should select the best possible child when having children. In this paper I will explain his argument for this principle. I will also evaluate three different interpretations of the argument and explain my objections to both. Then I will explain my interpretation of the argument and offer an improved conclusion and revised principle. Savulescu does make a convincing argument but for something weaker than procreative beneficence that I will call procreative benignity.

The first premise is that it is important that we provide people with the means useful to any plan of life (420). The reasoning behind this is that people deserve the ability to live whatever conception of the good life they decide. Savulescu calls these “general purpose means”. Allen Buchanen is referenced for this point and further clarification is given in the footnotes: “Buchanon and colleagues argue in a parallel way for the permissibility of genetic manipulation to allow children to live the best life possible”. Instead of genetic manipulation, Savulescu is arguing for selection based on genetics.

The next step is to acknowledge that genetics can prevent someone from living a good life. Savulescu sites several different genes that can have this effect. After this is accepted with the first premise, the eponymous principle can be accepted. The full argument is as follows:

P1: It is important to supply people with the means to live any plan of life

P2: Genetics can prevent or allow someone to live a good life

C: We should select the children with the best possible genetics

In the next few paragraphs I will argue against the validity of the argument. The main point being that there is a significant difference between the means to live any plan of life and the means to live the best possible life.

There are two ways of interpreting “any plan of life” which lead to different objections to the argument. The less realistic interpretation is that Savulescu really means “any plan of life” including professional athletics, academia, or even sainthood. In this case the premise P1 would be false because it is not important that everybody have the potential to become a doctor or NBA player. It would be ridiculous to claim a lack of ability to live a good life because your genetics don’t resemble those of Lebron James. If this were the correct interpretation, the principle would also need to be altered slightly. Choosing the best child would instead be choosing the one with the most good plans of life available. In other words an average child should be selected over a child gifted in one aspect but limited in others.

The second interpretation is argued by Buchanon and mentioned in the footnotes. That we should select the child with best possible life. This would call for selecting a child with Lebron James athleticism at the cost of intelligence and memory. This limits the options of the child and would be disastrous if they were not keen on athletics. A selection like this could also encroach on the child’s freedom to pursue their conception of the good life. For these reasons it would be wrong that we are obligated to make this selection. This is likely the belief Savulescu holds because it does lead to a conclusion like procreative beneficence.

The third and reasonable interpretation is that “any plan of life” means any life that could be available to everyone. Some examples would be lives of hedonism, charity, or studying. In this case the premise is true because it is important that people have the means to live whatever life they choose within reason. The problem now is that the conclusion does not follow from the premises. The natural conclusion would instead be that we should select children that have the means to live a good life, or procreative benignity. The obligations of this principle only include selecting out traits that could prevent someone from living a good life. The idea that it is important to give people the means to live a variety of good lives so they can choose which to pursue is redundant. If someone is living what seems like a good life but not a life they want, then it is not really a good life. This is why my suggested conclusion does not explicitly mention the ability to live a variety of lives.

Savulescu uses frequent examples to solidify his argument so I will address one of his examples arguing for the selection of non-disease traits. He states that a poor memory could prevent someone from living a good life by causing them to forget important things. He argues because of this there is an obligation to test and select the embryo with the best memory (420).  This is unnecessary because people do not need the best available memory to live a good life, they only need a memory that is good enough. The bad memory described in this example could be considered a disease trait. Savulescu never makes an argument for the obligation to select extreme traits like photographic memory or genius intelligence despite his principle calling for the selection of such traits when available.

The controversial extension Savulescu makes to non-disease traits would be much more limited with procreative benignity because people do not need exceptional traits to live a good life. Selecting traits that bring people above average would never be obligatory. This more accurately reflects the opinions of the public and dodges objections, such as the “arms race objection”, that only apply to enhancements. Savulescu makes a convincing argument for a wider range of enhancements but takes it too far in the culminating principle.

 

Word Count: 954

Reference:

Julian Savulescu, “Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children” 2001

A Response to Gregor Betz’s “Arm the Future”

Posted on by rhettdawson

In his paper Gregor Betz makes an argument for “arming the future” with geoengineering technology by investing resources into research and development of these technologies now. This argument is centered around a maximin principle showing that we can avoid potential catastrophe by doing this R&D. First I will explain his argument and responses to a few of the better objections. Then I will propose a stance that prioritizes mitigation and uses our current pace of innovation to show how we can and should wait to develop geoengineering technology.

Betz uses game theory to prove that doing R&D now into geoengineering is the best possible choice. In terms of need for the technology there are only two possible scenarios, either we need it or we don’t. There are also only two scenarios in terms of having done R&D, either we have or we haven’t. This is a great way of simplifying the problem so we can apply formal logic to it. Betz states that if we don’t need the technology, outcomes are the same; but if we do need the technology, outcomes are significantly different. In the scenario that we do need the technology it would be far better to have done R&D.

At this point Betz has shown that the worst case scenario without having done R&D is worse than the worst case with having done R&D. The next goal is to show that we should act in such a way that guarantees we will not need geoengineering and not have done the R&D. In other words he must show that the maximin principle can be applied to this situation. The maximin principle is that the right decision is one that maximizes the worst outcome (oxfordreference.com). Betz cites three conditions from the works of Gardiner and Rawls that are sufficient to justify applying the maximin principle in this case. Two of the conditions are that “The worst cases are significantly more damaging than the best cases are profitable” and “rejected alternatives involve grave risks” (Betz 482). Climate disaster is certainly a grave risk and more damaging than the best case (not doing R&D and not needing it) is profitable. The profit in the best scenario is a mere saving of time and money while the damages of climate disaster seem limitless. The other condition is that the risks can’t be accurately estimated, forcing decision makers to operate under significant uncertainty. Betz concedes that this statement would be controversial and chooses not to defend it in the paper (Betz 482). After some research this appears to be the weakest point of the argument. While there is a lot of uncertainty among climate scientists, there is consensus that the risk of total disaster is low at least in the near (next 100 years) future.  One article talking about important climate related deadlines says that “Blowing through it won’t immediately plunge society into a “Mad Max”-style dystopia” (livescience.com) which is the worst case scenario used to fill the other two conditions. Betz states that while the three conditions are sufficient to justify using maximin they are not necessary to apply it. He goes on to say that the maximin principle is used to deliberate on mitigation policy and because of that it should be used in geoengineering discussions as well (Betz 483).

My response and suggestion to Betz’s argument uses this weak point and the opinion that successful mitigation is far superior to successful geoengineering to prove that we should not be investing in said R&D yet. I will also use the theory of technological singularity to argue that we probably don’t need to invest in R&D today to experience the benefits of that technology if we need it.

We can all agree, even Betz, that mitigation of climate issues is better than having to use some form of geoengineering to reverse harmful effects. What Betz fails to concede is the adverse effects that geoengineering can have on mitigation efforts. He mentions this argument and chalks it up as a mere disagreement between the two sides because the effects “can hardly be quantified” (Betz 480). One way to quantify these effects is the fact that any resources going toward geoengineering R&D could instead go toward mitigation because budgets and finances are zero-sum. Another way to estimate the effects is to look at comparable phenomena, one of the most egregious being obesity in America. Drugs and surgeries have been created that allow people to cope with the side effects of being morbidly obesity instead of fixing the health problem. To paraphrase commercials for such drugs: “don’t feel guilty about eating unhealthy food, take our drug and you won’t get heartburn (or acid reflux)”. Heartburn is a symptom of being obese similar to climate change being a symptom of a lack of climate mitigation, and obesity has become rampant in America. Some people get heartburn while perfectly healthy but I am only using the people who use the drugs to continue living an unhealthy lifestyle for this comparison. Without these symptoms the incentive to fix our problems is decreased whether we can clearly quantify it or not.

            Betz could respond to this by saying that the climate equivalent to heartburn is different because it could affect everyone in the world and it is impossible to hold any one person responsible while heartburn affects one person and is clearly their responsibility. He might ask if you started getting heartburn because someone else was morbidly obese how would you feel about the drugs? While I would be inclined to take the drugs regardless of who’s responsibility the heartburn was, the best course of action would be to help the obese person improve their health. The side effects of geoengineering are also much more unknown and severe than anti heartburn medication.

The second prong of my argument is that we should wait to invest in geoengineering R&D because there is a good chance we will have the technology to geoengineer without having ever focused on it directly. The support for this is in the amount of technologies that have been “accidentally” invented, and the current rapid pace at which technology is advancing. By “accidentally” invented I mean when technology developed for one purpose is found to be extremely useful for a very different purpose. For example, the microwave oven was invented while doing R&D for radar technology. It is plausible that technology for geoengineering will be developed for a different purpose, allowing us to harness it for climate saving if needed. This claim can be supported by a widespread belief that technological singularity is approaching. “Technological singularity” is described as the point at which we have artificial intelligence that surpasses human mental capabilities. At this point R&D for everything, including geoengineering, could occur at a much faster pace. This would increase the likelihood that the technology would be accidentally developed and also allow us to wait longer until it was necessary to begin R&D. Estimates for when we will reach singularity are as early as 2045 (futurism.com). It may take much longer but I am merely using this to show how technology assists in the discovery of other technology. This is one reason we should wait to expend resources in geoengineering R&D.

As long as we have the ability to geoengineer when we need to we can avoid the drastic negative effects that Betz uses to support his argument. To argue that we need to begin R&D now Betz would need to claim that effects will be bad enough to warrant the use of geoengineering soon enough that if we don’t start R&D now it would be too late. That claim is difficult to prove which is why he needs a very high level of uncertainty in the timeline of climate change and the criteria for what is “too late”. This uncertainty could justify the use of the maximin principle on this problem but it is not there. I’m sure some people believe that geoengineering is currently warranted but the overwhelming opinion seems to be that we should still be attempting to mitigate our climate change. From some general research on climate change geoengineering it is my charitable opinion that 2050 is when negative climate effects could start warranting geoengineering. I would suggest devoting available resources toward mitigation currently but re-evaluating every few years with an open mind to geoengineering.

Keeping an open mind to geoengineering is important but devoting resources to that technology now is unnecessary and could negatively impact mitigation efforts. That being said it may only be another twenty years before it makes sense to pursue that technology. Although that is not very much time relative to the earth, that is a very large amount of time relative to technology. We may be able to successfully mitigate climate change without ever resorting to geoengineering which is the best case scenario. If we begin geoengineering research now, as Betz proposes, we could be sacrificing that possibility.

 

Word count: 1512

Sources: 

Letzter, Rafi. “Are We Really Running Out of Time to Stop Climate Change?” LiveScience, Purch, 26 Sept. 2019, www.livescience.com/12-years-to-stop-climate-change.html.

Betz, Gregor. “The case for climate engineering research: an analysis of the ‘arm the future’ argument” Climate Change, 18 Aug. 2011.

“Maximin Principle.” Oxford Reference, www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100141723.

Galeon, Dom. “Separating Science Fact from Science Hype: How Far off Is the Singularity?” Futurism, Futurism, 30 Jan. 2018, futurism.com/separating-science-fact-science-hype-how-far-off-singularity.

Radical Enhancement and Personal Identity

Posted on by rhettdawson

            In this paper I will address the issue of radical human enhancement and whether or not personal identity can be preserved after a radical enhancement. The first part of my paper describes the debate concerning general human enhancements and narrows the focus to radical enhancements.  The two sides of the argument I’m examining come from articles by Nick Bostrom and Nicholas Agar. After summarizing their arguments I will make the claim that all radical enhancements are immoral because they put personal identity at risk.

The debate of radical human enhancement includes the positive effects of enhancement and the losses if the enhancement is taken too far. In his paper Radical Human Enhancement, and What’s Wrong with It, Agar defines radical enhancement:

 “Radical enhancement improves significant attributes and abilities to levels that greatly exceed what is currently possible for human beings

Moderate Enhancement Improves significant attributes and abilities to levels within or close to what is currently possible for human beings” (Agar 5.10).

  The positive effects are described in detail by Nick Bostrom in his article Why I Want to be a Posthuman When I Grow Up. Bostrom’s definition for ‘Posthuman’ is almost identical to Agar’s definition for radical enhancement (Bostrom 1). The two main positive effects cited are:

“healthspan – the capacity to remain fully healthy, active, and productive, both mentally and physically”

“cognition – general intellectual capacities, such as memory, deductive and analogical reasoning, and attention, as well as special faculties such as the capacity to understand and appreciate music, humor, eroticism, narration, spirituality, mathematics, etc.”(Bostrom 1). 

Bostrom argues that it is not only good to be posthuman, it is also good for us. Nicholas Agar argues that enhancement can be taken too far. Agar’s article focuses on enhancements effects on internal goods and personal Identity. He makes the claim that radical enhancements are problematic because they provide a worse realization of the intrinsic internal goods (Agar figure 5.2).  Agar believes that some level of enhancement can have good instrumental effects in access to external goods but can prevent us from realizing internal goods. An instrumental effect would be when the enhancement helps to accomplish something else. For a doctor, a cognitive enhancement would be instrumental in completing a better surgery. An internal good would be something like kindness which has positive effects upon realization, meaning it has high intrinsic value. By ‘realize’ I mean simply noticing and understanding it is there. Enhancements could decrease the amount of internal goods someone has and is able to realize. The lost internal goods must be balanced against the external goods gained from enhancements. The loss of internal goods is enough for Agar to reject some amount of enhancement, he says “These internal goods do suffice to justify rejecting too much, or the wrong kind of enhancement”(Agar 5.38). If someone was kind because of an enhancement they would never experience kindness by their own initiative. Agar’s other main concern with radical enhancement is the possibility of losing our own identity. He describes the Identity problem in the following quote

“In this final section I sketch a problem for radical enhancement that is, in effect, the obverse of the problem described in the previous section. Previously I argued that a recognition that you will come to value a new alien set of experiences and achievements does not compel you to value them now. Radical enhancement has significant implications for human identities. You should view the transformative change of radical enhancement as one that imperils your identity” (Agar 5.53)

Enhancements that endanger our identity should be avoided. There are other concerns regarding the fairness of enhancements in social justice and competition. I will not explore these concerns because they are contingent on how the enhancements are used. This paper will focus on the intrinsic effects of radical enhancement whether or not it is necessarily a threat to our identity. Bostrom defends radical enhancement from the personal identity problem in the following way:

 “Walter Glannon has argued that a lifespan of 200 years or more would be undesirable because personal identity could not be persevered over such a long life….I can easily conceive of exciting intellectual and practical projects that may take me many hundreds of years to complete…. Furthermore, if Glennon was right, it would follow that it is “undesirable” for a small child to grow up, since adults do not remember what it was like to be a small child and since small children do not have projects or intentions that extend over time spans as long as decades.” (Bostrom 15)

While this is true with health based enhancements it is less clear with enhancements of other kinds. This is also less clear if it were a thousand or even a million years instead of two hundred. Bostrom gives a set of conditions that should preserve personal Identity.

(a) the changes are in the form of addition of new capacities or enhancement of old ones, without

sacrifice of  pre existing capacities; and

(b) the changes are implemented gradually over an extended period of time;

(c) each step of the transformation process is freely and competently chosen by the subject; and

(d) the new capacities do not prevent the pre existing capacities from being periodically exercised;

(e) the subject retains her old memories and many of her basic desires and dis positions;

(f) the subject retains many of her old personal relationships and social connections; and

(g) the transformation fits into the life narrative and self-conception of the subject. Posthuman

cognitive and emotional capacities could in principle be acquired in such a way that these

conditions are satisfied. (Bostrom 16)

 

This raises two questions. First, Are there any enhancements that could meet these conditions and still cause someone to lose their personal identity? If yes, the conditions are faulty. The conditions are broad enough that I think if they are all met it would be impossible to have lost your identity. Second, Are there any enhancements that could meet these conditions and also be considered ‘radical’ by Agar’s definition? I don’t think there are any radical enhancements, by our defenition, that fit within these conditions. Because of that I think radical enhancement is intrinsically risky to personal identity and therefore immoral. This argument is shown below:

P1: If an enhancement meets Bostrom’s Conditions, personal identity will be preserved

P2: There are no radical enhancements that meet Bostrom’s Conditions

P3: (from P2 and P1): Every instance of radical enhancement will risk personal identity

P4: It is immoral to risk personal identity

C: Radical enhancement is intrinsically immoral

            To support P2 I will explain how living 200 years does not meet the conditions listed by Bostrom. This is a slightly radical transformation which is why it would be significant if it does not meet Bostrom’s conditions. I think it fails to meet condition (d) that new capacities do not prevent previous capacities from being exercised. The capacity to live 200 years prevents the capacity to only live 100 years from being exercised. By this I mean that you can’t periodically act like you’re going to live 100 years when you know you will live 200 years. This is impossible because life is linear and cumulative. Someone only living 100 years might get married, have children, and buy a house before they turn 30. The same person living 200 years might wait until age 100 to do any of these things. It’s impossible for them to periodically act like they had children, or like they have already accomplished some goal, or had some experience that they only would’ve had living to age 100.  At age 150 could this person exercise their previous capacity to have been dead for 50 years? Living two hundred years might be desirable as Bostrom argues, but it would cause us to lose our initial identity.

  One problem with my argument is that it relies heavily on the moral obligation to preserve your identity, P4 of my argument. Living 200 years might change your personal identity but not to an extent that would be problematic for most people. After listing his conditions, Bostrom leaves the following caveat:

 “Even if not all conditions (a-g) were fully satisfied in some particular transformation, the normatively relevant elements of a person’s identity could still be sufficiently preserved to avoid raising any fundamental identity-based objection to the prudentiality of undergoing such a transformation. We should not use a stricter standard for technological self-transformation than for other kinds of human transformation, such as migration, career change, or religious conversion” (Bostrom 16).

To respond to this criticism that the identity change from something like migrating is no worse than the identity change from a technological enhancement I will use Agar’s argument concerning internal goods. A stricter standard must be applied to enhancements because no internal goods are needed or realized in this transformation. A personal identity change from migration involves an immense realization of internal goods. These internal goods might include accomplishment, striving, and perseverance. It is difficult to realize these internal goods and that makes migration an admirable and acceptable identity change. The identity change comes more from the realization of these goods than the change in country of residence. If someone took a ‘migration pill’ and woke up as a fully integrated citizen in a new country, the same standard would be applied as is applied to living 200 years. This would not be a radical enhancement by Agar’s definition so I do not need to prove that it’s immoral. I will only claim that the ‘migration pill’ is less admirable than normal migration because of the lack of internal goods. Any identity change from technological enhancement deserves a stricter standard than the same change for normal reasons.

On the subject of age, Larry Temkin addresses the issue of changing character in his article Is Living Longer Living Better? In response to a concern about changing character over the course of an immortal life he says the following:

“What matters, on this view,  is not constancy  of  character  and  commitments  across  time,  but whether  I currently  have,  as  part  of  my  subjective  motivational  set, an unconditional desire that I have a future flourishing self (one, perhaps, that is flourishing by its lights) even if its radically  different  than  my  current  self.” (Temkin 200).

This is a strong objection to my claim that radical enhancement of lifespan is immoral. Temkin concedes that a prolonged life might change your identity but argues that having a different identity is better than having no identity. This has deep roots and might force me to weaken my conclusion about radical enhancements. To clarify, living forever is not a radical moral enhancement if someone were born that way. This paper is only addressing the person who decides to be immortal (or obtain any radical enhancement). To respond to Temkin I will use a position Agar gives in his book Humanity’s End to show how a prolonged life would be undesirable and break one of Bostrom’s conditions. Agar argues that if we were able to avoid death from natural consequences for much longer, death from unnatural consequences would be more terrifying. This is only a response to a prolonged life where death is still possible. True immortality has a seperate set of problems that I will not get into. Death would be more terrifying because we would have more years of life at stake compared to the current maximum of about 80 years. It would be so terrifying Agar says “the fear of death may completely dominate the lives of negligibly senescent people” (Agar 114). Attacks and accidents would become the main cause of death causing people to become extremely paranoid. This would break condition (e) that the subject retains most of their previous desires and dis-positions. If someone became obsessed with avoiding accidents and death, they would have lost their previous dis-position and many of their desires would be forgotten. Losing these could cause them to lose their identity.

            I hope it is clear that radical enhancement intrinsically endangers identity. I am not sure that my P4 (it is immoral to risk personal identity) would withstand much more scrutiny and for that reason my conclusion might be reduced to P3 (Every instance of radical enhancement will risk personal identity) . This paper has strengthened the personal identity problem to a point where radical enhancements should be avoided if possible.

Word count: 1770, not including quotes

Sources:

Bostrom, Nick. “Why I Want to Be a Posthuman When I Grow Up.” Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 2014, pp. 218–234.

Temkin, Larry S. “Is Living Longer Living Better?” Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 25, no. 3, 2008, pp. 193–210.

Agar, Nicholas. “Radical Human Enhancement, and What’s Wrong with It” Draft.

Agar, Nicholas. Humanity’s End: Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement. Bradford Books, 2013.