virtue engineering

Adriano Mannino Giordano Bruno Stiftung www.evolutionary-humanism.org Virtue Engineering

Virtue engineering Motivation and new technological possibilities

1

Outline1) Motivation for interest in virtue engineering

2) Virtue engineering so far

3) New technological possibilities

4) Why virtue engineering could be a game-changer

2 Giordano Bruno Stiftung Virtue Engineering

Psychopathy• Anti-social personality disorder:

Lack of empathy and a pattern of disregard for, or violation of, the interests / rights of others

• Non-altruism


Psychopathy• 1% of the human population are psychopaths

• Responsible for 50% of violent crimes

• Definition of “psychopathy”: relative to the human average

• Imagine a society of psychopaths…

• Their definition of “psychopathy”: only the worst imaginable forms of psychopathy


Psychopathy• Psychopathy comes in degrees

• Human average could be a bit more psychopathic, or a bit less

• Imagine a society of optimal non-psychopaths / moral saints…

• What would they think of typical human psychology?


Human psychopathy• Warfare

• Genocide

• Extremely cruel punishments to no effect

• Slavery

• Racism, sexism, homophobia

• Billions living in starvation, increasing global inequality

• Risking the well-being of all the future generations to come

• Confining and slaughtering trillions of animals (speciesism): “Harming” animals?

• Inaction in the face of all these problems. Cause: Stone-age brains


Human psychopathy• Is typical human psychology psychopathic?

From the perspective of the moral saints: Yes.

• If their perspective isn’t the one defining the goal, why is a 10% increase of the average degree of human psychopathy bad?

• It follows that a 10% non-decrease is bad, too.

• Unless the evolutionary status quo is optimal – but no grounds for believing this to be the case.


Bostrom, N., Ord, T. (2006). The reversal test: eliminating status quo bias in applied ethics. Ethics 116, 656–679.

Virtue engineering so far• “Virtue” engineering: = interventions predictably reducing anti-social / psychopathic behaviour = interventions predictably increasing concern for others / for the world at large / altruism


Virtue engineering so far• Main (social) technology so far:

education, humanist values

• Important, but there are limits to what social engineering can achieve:1) time constraints 2) problem of insufficient motivation3) intrinsic catastrophe of humans being born and walking around with brains even capable of atrocities like warfare, genocide or factory farmingBiology might ultimately be more mutable than society


Virtue engineering so far• Explore biological engineering possibilities:

pharmacological and genetic

• The line between “social” and “biological” engineering is blurred: social = e.g. sending sound waves into human brains inducing the right neuronal and behavioural changes


Harris, J., Chan, S. (2011). Moral Enhancement and Prosocial Behaviour. Journal of Medical Ethics, 37(3.

Virtue engineering so far• Simple “bio-enhancement” of judges: Deliver glucose in more

regulated ways. «We test the common caricature … that justice is “what the judge ate for breakfast” in sequential parole decisions made by experienced judges. We record the judges’ two daily food breaks, which result in segmenting the deliberations of the day into three distinct “decision sessions.” We find that the percentage of favorable rulings drops gradually from ≈65% to nearly zero within each decision session and returns abruptly to ≈65% after a break. Our findings suggest that judicial rulings can be swayed by extraneous variables that should have no bearing on legal decisions.»

11 Giordano Bruno Stiftung Virtue Engineering Danziger, S. et al. (2011). Extraneous factors in judicial decisions. PNAS.

Virtue engineering so far• In many countries, sex offenders are offered

chemical castration (and sometimes required to take it): «Chemical castration reduces recidivism effectively when offered to sexual offenders within the context of simultaneous comprehensive psychotherapeutic treatment.»


Yong, J., Kang, S. (2013). Chemical Castration for Sexual Offenders: Physicians' Views. Journal of Korean Medical Science.

New technologies: pharmacological• Towards the virtue pill?


!!!!Crocket, M., et. al. (2013). Serotonin modulates striatal responses to fairness and retaliation in humans. Journal of Neuroscience. De Dreu, CK., (2012). Oxytocin modulates cooperation within and competition between groups. Hormones and Behaviour.

New technologies: pharmacological• Higher serotonin levels (e.g. through Prozac, or

following dietary depletion of the serotonin precursor tryptophan) reduce aggression and increase cooperation

• Testosterone increases aggression

• Oxytocin increases in-group cooperation, may increase out-group aggression

• Propranolol reduces racial bias


!!!!Crocket, M., et. al. (2013). Serotonin modulates striatal responses to fairness and retaliation in humans. Journal of Neuroscience. De Dreu, CK., (2012). Oxytocin modulates cooperation within and competition between groups. Hormones and Behaviour.

New technologies: pharmacological• Psilocybin – hallucinogenic “magic mushroom” –

increases the openness personality trait

• Openness decreases intolerance, ethnocentrism, right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance, prejudice

• Psilocybin is safe under controlled conditions

• Magic mushrooms grow near Zurich!


!!MacLean, K. (2011). Mystical experiences occasioned by the hallucinogen psilocybin lead to increases in the personality domain of openness. Journal of Psychopharmacology.Studerus, E., et al. (2011). Acute, subacute and long-term subjective effects of psilocybin in healthy humans. Journal of Psychopharmacology.

New technologies: pharmacological•



Towards the virtue pill?• Some (rather weak) virtue pills already exist – proof

of concept

• We can try them in some contexts if we decide to take moral bio-enhancement seriously

• Extensions of existing technologies will probably lead to much more powerful virtue pills

• We can selectively speed up or slow down the development of the virtue pills we prefer


Towards the virtuous child?• From pharmacology to genetics

• Post-natally, we have tried to engineer virtuous children since the dawn of our species

• Pre-natal engineering so far: Maternal health during pregnancy and selective abortions – weak

• Historical first: Strong pre-natal engineering is feasible

• If strong post-natal engineering is ethically important, denying the importance of strong pre-natal engineering seems inconsistent

• Unless embryos have a right to life and abortion is impermissible


New technologies: genetic• Pre-implant genetic diagnosis (PGD): - create embryos in vitro- analyse their genomes- select the ones with the ethically desirable traits

• PGD could edit hundreds of diseases out of our genome

• Very restrictive legalisations in D and CH


!!!Für eine Zulassung der Präimplantationsdiagnostik in erweiterten Grenzen: Stellungnahme der Ethikkommission der Giordano-Bruno-Stiftung.http://www.giordano-bruno-stiftung.de/sites/default/files/download/pid.pdf

New technologies: genetic• The question is: Are there virtue-genes?


New technologies: genetic• Yes: «Findings from twin studies yield heritability estimates of 0.50 for prosocial behaviours like empathy, cooperativeness and altruism.» «Cooperativeness and the Val allele of COMT additively explained 14.6% of the variance in donation behaviour. Results indicate that the Val allele representing strong catabolism of dopamine is related to altruism.»


!!!!Reuter, M., et al. (2010). Investigating the genetic basis of altruism: the role of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism. Social Cognition and Affective Neuroscience. !

New technologies: genetic• Intelligence? 50% of current IQ variance explained genetically

• Is intelligence an indirect virtue? - virtue & IQ => benefit; psychopathy & IQ => harm- IQ related to openness - reason plays an important role in ethics


Global game-changer?• 50% of the current variance can be eliminated

genetically: very significant (+ 1SD) – but just a proof of concept

• No particular reason to assume that the human average couldn’t be increased a lot further

• China: systematic search for the IQ genes

• Iterated embryo selection could compress and speed up the process


!!!!!!Bostrom, N., Shulman, C. (2014). Embryo selection for cognitive enhancement: Curiosity or game-changer? Global Policy, Vol. 5, No. 1. !!

Global game-changer?• Iterated embryo selection could compress and

speed up the process:«We find that embryo selection, on its own, may have significant (but likely not drastic) effects over the next 50 years, though large effects could accumulate over multiple generations. However, there is a complementary technology – stem-cell derived gametes – making very rapid progress and … enabling large changes if successfully applied to humans.»


!!!!!!Bostrom, N., Shulman, C. (2014). Embryo selection for cognitive enhancement: Curiosity or game-changer? Global Policy, Vol. 5, No. 1. !!

Global game-changer?• Serious risks

• But: Avoid typical cognitive biases when evaluating virtue enhancement technologies- loss aversion- status quo bias- omission bias- appeal to nature

• Ask: What are the risks of non-intervention?


!!!!!!!!Caviola L., Mannino, A., Savulescu, J., Faulmüller, N. (2014). Cognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancement. Manuscript under review at Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience !!

Human psychopathy• Warfare

• Genocide

• Extremely cruel punishments to no effect

• Slavery

• Racism, sexism, homophobia

• Billions living in starvation, increasing global inequality

• Risking the well-being of all the future generations to come

• Confining and slaughtering trillions of animals (speciesism): “Harming” animals?

• Inaction in the face of all these problems. Cause: Stone-age brains


Global game-changer?• Vague intuitions don’t really help: «Don’t play God!»

• If we don’t play God, who will?


Adriano Mannino Giordano Bruno Stiftung www.evolutionary-humanism.org Virtue Engineering

Virtue engineering Motivation and new technological possibilities

29

virtue engineering

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