Future Morality David Edmonds Editor Full Chapter
Future Morality David Edmonds Editor Full Chapter
Future Morality
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Future Morality
Edited by
DAVID EDMONDS
1
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3
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First Edition published in 2021
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Editor’s Preface
vi Editor’s Preface
One chapter examines whether it might be possible to shape
persuasive technologies—those that are designed to change our atti-
tudes and actions—so that they work for and not against us. Another
asks what can be done about the rise of fake news and conspiracy
theories, now spreading and proliferating in our digital world.
In the future we may have the power to read minds, to create
artificial wombs, to ‘improve’ humans and livestock genetically so
that both humans and livestock are less susceptible to disease. Techno-
logical advance seems to promise progress and improvement to our
lives. Is there a downside?
Then there’s a section on death. Machines can now keep us func-
tioning at some level for longer than before. In fact, new technology is
already forcing us to reconsider what counts as death and what’s
valuable about life. How far should we go to avoid death? A chapter
on cryonics asks whether there’s any point in freezing our bodies in the
hope that one day we might be resuscitated. And we end with a
chapter that questions whether what we should really be concerned
about is not human future, but the future of posthumans.
William Shakespeare has the Roman nobleman Cassius tell Brutus
in Julius Caesar that destiny “is not in the stars, But in ourselves”.
A similar thought is the motivating impulse behind this book. The
history of human existence has been a history of scientific and techno-
logical development. We should assume that discoveries and innov-
ations will continue to be made—almost certainly at a faster pace than
ever before. But we have the power to sculpt the future; and the earlier
and more clear-sighted we are about our options, the more malleable
that future will be.
*
The Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, where I am a Distinguished
Research Fellow, specializes in the philosophy of Future Morality.
Most of the contributors in this book have a connection with the
Centre. I would like to thank each and every one of the contributors,
Hazem, Bridget, Ruth, Anne, Brian, Rebecca, Erica, Seumas, Angel-
iki, Xaroula, John, Jess, Carissa, James, Steve, Stephen, Julian, Gab-
riel, Tom, Dominic, Lydia, Alberto, Tess, Katrien, Jonny, Mackenzie,
Francesca, and Anders. They put up with my chivvying and nagging,
and my unreasonable demand that when it came to deadlines, they
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Contents
Future People
1. Future versus Present Morality 3
Hazem Zohny
What makes a plausible vision of the future? Is there a risk
that this book—about future people and our future lives—will
help divert attention and resources away from more pressing
and present ethical questions?
Future Lives
4. Abolishing Gender 35
Brian D. Earp
Should we get rid of gender? Might it be better if sex was not
linked to socially enforced gender roles that prescribe how
people should be and behave on the basis of their sex?
Is it possible that the future is gender free?
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x Contents
5. The Future of Friendship 50
Rebecca Roache
What is the future of friendship in a world of robots and
social media? Is contemporary friendship fundamentally
different to the friendships of yesteryear?
6. Avatars 61
Erica L. Neely
This chapter investigates augmented reality and video
games. In particular, what are the ethical issues with avatars,
the representation of users in a virtual world?
Future Machines
7. Predictive Policing 73
Seumas Miller
Will algorithms help the police identify criminals in
advance—and if so, what are the implications for our
justice system?
8. AI in Medicine 83
Angeliki Kerasidou and Xaroula (Charalampia) Kerasidou
What will we gain and what, if anything, will we lose as
robots begin to take over from doctors? Do we need
a ‘human element’?
Contents xi
Future Communication
12. The Future of Privacy 121
Carissa Véliz
These days every one of us is creating a data trail—one
which may return to haunt us. How important is privacy and
what can we do to shape its future?
13. Persuasive Technology 130
James Williams
The technologies in our lives know more about us than ever,
and their power to shape our thoughts and actions is more
sophisticated than ever. As these technologies become ever more
‘persuasive’ in nature, how can we ensure they are designed in a
way that promotes our wellbeing and respects our autonomy?
Future Bodies
15. Mind-Reading and Morality 151
Stephen Rainey
What are the prospects, promises, and perils of neurotechnology
that aim to reveal our thoughts by recording our brain activity?
16. Love Drugs 160
Julian Savulescu
Can drugs help improve relationships and keep couples
together? Would this make relationships ‘inauthentic’?
xii Contents
18. Artificial Wombs 181
Dominic Wilkinson and Lydia Di Stefano
There has been recent progress on artificial wombs. What
are the implications for abortion and neonatal care?
19. Genetic Immunisation 191
Tess Johnson and Alberto Giubilini
We can already make genetic modifications to an embryo.
We will soon have the power to make genetic modifications
to improve our immune system. Surely we should
seize this opportunity?
Future Death
22. What Is Death? 223
Mackenzie Graham
Advances in medicine and our understanding of the brain
may force us to redefine what we mean by death.
Contents xiii
24. Posthumans 243
Anders Sandberg
Should we strive to become something beyond humans?
Or would that just be good for posthumans and not humans?
Future People
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1
Future versus Present Morality
Hazem Zohny
4 Hazem Zohny
book—and the way ethicists have been allured by future visions—is a
little bit morally bad. This is because questions of distributive justice—
of justly allocating resources—are relevant to what ethicists focus on.
And ethicists—especially the applied variety who appeal to the impli-
cations of moral theories or principles for specific situations—have
been overly preoccupied by the promises and perils of emerging and
future technologies.
Specifically, while applied ethicists readily delve into the science
behind AI, gene editing, brain–machine interfaces, nanotech, etc.,
they have not bothered learning much about economic theories and
the conflicting values and difficult trade-offs directly raised by eco-
nomic policy. Why this contrast with economics? Economics is about
what is produced, distributed, and consumed. It fundamentally affects
the ethical implications of all goods, including technological ones. It is
ironic, therefore, how little attention applied ethicists afford it.
This claim about how applied ethicists generally focus their ener-
gies is an empirical one, and no study yet exists to vindicate it. But at
the time of writing it is easy to see how applied ethicists author the
most relevant of the 3.8 million results Google Scholar provides for
“human enhancement,” but virtually none of the 3.1 million results
for “moral economics.” Output on human enhancement outstrips
“poverty ethics” (1.7 million), “preventable disease ethics” (100,000),
“discrimination” (2.3 million), and even “abortion” (1.4 million). Even
a subtopic like “moral enhancement” (460,000) dwarfs output on
preventable disease ethics.
This Google Scholar survey is not, of course, meant to stand in for
scholarship. And we should be extra cautious about reading too much
into these figures since there is no clear dividing line between applied
ethicists and other experts. Nonetheless, the numbers are indicative of
a disproportionate focus on the future in what occupies those working
on the ethics of concrete issues.
This book is yet further evidence of this tendency.
There may be many reasons for this trend, some of them obvious:
technologies that might enhance, say, our moral dispositions are
simply more interesting to think about than preventable diseases in
the world. But another reason—especially when it comes to economic
matters—is that applied ethicists largely relegate the ethics of
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6 Hazem Zohny
Present Problems
What about the second claim that the present is fraught with pressing
problems? Are the failures of our political and economic systems
moral problems—that is, ones arising from disagreement over how
to ethically resolve them? Or do these failures merely reflect an
insufficient number of political decision makers supporting the obvi-
ous ethical path forward? In other words, are these ethics problems or
“political will” problems?
It might be tempting to side with Anticipators that the most pressing
problems at present are political rather than ethical. Most ethicists
might agree that, of course, current concentrations of wealth are
ethically unjustifiable; of course it is immoral so many are malnour-
ished while over a billion tonnes of food are wasted each year; and of
course slavery and forced labour are abhorrent and should be
stopped. There are no moral dilemmas here, no conflicting values.
These are problems for politicians and global institutions, not ethi-
cists. And the same holds for other big crises of our times like climate
change, authoritarianism, poverty, and preventable disease: these
reflect failures of political will, not moral disagreement.
This, however, is a cop-out. Merely agreeing that much of the status
quo is not morally justifiable is as vague and inane as noting that, “if
emerging technologies have a really bad impact, that would be mor-
ally bad.” Clearly, there’s a lot more to be said. Applied ethicists
(generally) take the time to understand the science and limitations
behind these emerging technologies before analysing in detail the
values at play, the conflicts between them, and the trade-offs entailed
by the manner of embracing or rejecting them.
For instance, the possibility of genetically enhancing children
has led applied ethicists to draw battle lines between reproductive
freedom and prospective children’s autonomy, with small libraries
being written on what autonomy even means in such contexts, what
the risks of banning these technologies are (e.g. might black markets for
them emerge?), and what the merits of genetic enhancement might be.
In contrast, far fewer applied ethicists take the time to understand
economic theories or policies and their political backdrops in order to
formulate new or more cogent arguments in response to the most
pressing present problems. In fact, mitigating inequality, malnutrition,
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Forecasting Futures
What about the third claim Presentists make: that future technologies
are largely unforecastable, so best focus on the present? Anticipators
face a problem here as well, sometimes called the Collingridge
dilemma: while controlling the impact of technologies is easier at
their early stages, it is precisely at those early stages when we
lack the necessary knowledge to beneficially influence the course
they take.2 We simply cannot tell what final shape the technology
will take, how it will be deployed, or how people will react to it.
One way to resolve this is to enhance our forecasting abilities; to
basically beat the Collingridge dilemma. There is much to be said
for such an endeavour, but first I want to suggest that, even if we are
mostly hopeless at predicting specific technological trends, Anticipators’
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8 Hazem Zohny
interest in the future can be important to the present in at least three
ways.
The first is this: scientific research is itself a scarce resource. To
minimize the chances of squandering it, we need some anticipation of
its ethical implications. If the implications are clearly unethical, we
should prioritize researching something else. Of course, how far into
the future we need to venture to anticipate the effects of current
scientific research is a key question, but it’s worth conceding that at
least some assessment of future impact is required.
The second relates to a side-effect of anticipatory ethics: evaluating
the ethics of a future prospect often brings us back to the present. Take
the idea of powerful cognitive enhancement drugs in the classroom—
should they be allowed? Aside from side-effect concerns, answering
this question requires thinking about the purpose of education, of
medicine, and of what, if anything, is inherently different about a drug
compared to an external device like a calculator or word processor. So
we might ask whether education is unavoidably competitive, helping
ensure the best students get the best jobs. If so, these drugs might lead
to a cognitive arms race. What would that entail? And if education is
competitive, should it be? And should physicians prescribe these drugs,
or would that violate the proper scope of medicine since they would
not be used for treating or preventing disease? What exactly is the
purpose of physicians? By triggering these questions, the mere pros-
pect of these drugs leads us to re-evaluate the purpose of present
institutions and norms in a new light—a valuable exercise even if
these drugs never materialize.
Similarly, consider publicly funding a research project on the ethics
of generation spaceships. These spaceships set out to colonize other
planets, but the vast travel distances involve supporting not only those
who first embark on them, but their descendants too. Is it permissible
to have children in such a constrained domain, where life projects are
limited and one is effectively imprisoned to a ship, and where passen-
gers are coerced to procreate and work in areas deemed necessary for
the success of the journey?3 Generation spaceships are no impending
possibility, so why bother asking let alone funding those asking these
questions instead of tackling presently pressing issues? But carefully
considering these questions has huge implications for the generational
spaceship we all currently inhabit: Earth—a rock also hurtling
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(Im)plausible Visions
This, however, is not the final tally. I suggested scientific research
itself is a scarce resource, and that by not anticipating its ethical
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10 Hazem Zohny
implications, we risk squandering it. But how far into the future do we
need to anticipate the effects of a scientific investigation? Often this
will be deeply uncertain. For instance, there were over forty organisa-
tions in the world researching artificial general intelligence in 2017;6
this is AI that can reason across a wide range of domains, with the
potential to master any intellectual task that a human can. It might
be invented tomorrow, a hundred years from now, or never. It likely
has huge, world-rattling ethical implications, and so getting it right
seems crucial.
The question remains how to ascertain the plausibility of something
like artificial general intelligence (or cryonics or artificial wombs), and
how much of our time its implications should occupy relative to other
issues. If ethicists focus on a technology that is unlikely to be realized
any time soon at the expense of present problems, or if they focus on
an implausible vision of how that technology will likely be used, they
risk squandering their efforts.
So it seems that, while Anticipators are justified in worrying about
the future, something needs to be said about their methods of foresight.
And yet ethicists have so far neglected formulating or adopting any
framework for what constitutes a plausible vision of a future technol-
ogy. Instead, the typical methodology suffers from what’s sometimes
called an “if and then” syndrome:7 if technology x becomes available,
then its consequences will demand immediate attention. This condi-
tional statement can be enough to instigate an entire subfield of ethical
inquiry about a hypothetical future technology.
The problem, as scholars of science and technology studies keep
reminding us, is that taking certain technological developments for
granted fails to credit the interplay between science and society.
Ethicists all too often think about an emerging technology in isolation,
worrying about the implications of, say, radical life extension, while
assuming that if/when it is possible, that future will largely have the
same economy, same population problems, and same values. But
acknowledging this co-evolution of science and society requires taking
into account myriad interacting socio-cultural, economic, political,
and historical factors—an analysis which calls into question the rela-
tive value of much of the work Anticipators do.
Scholars in science and technology studies and the philosophy of
technology have in fact developed numerous approaches to evaluating
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Further Reading
Tetlock, P. and Gardner, D., Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction
(Crown Publishing Group, 2015).
Notes
1. The most glaring of which is Peter Singer, who hugely influenced applied
ethics and massively contributed to changing how many see our duties to
the distant poor and to animals in factory farms.
2. D. Collingridge, The Social Control of Technology (Frances Pinter, 1980).
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12 Hazem Zohny
3. For a brief but insightful discussion of this topic, see Neil Levy, ‘Would it be
immoral to send out a generation starship?’ In Aeon Ideas (2016). Available
from: https://aeon.co/ideas/would-it-be-immoral-to-send-out-a-generation-
starship.
4. That is indeed what many of the chapters in this book end up doing. For
instance, Stephen Rainey (Chapter 15) considers a future of pervasive
mind reading, but in doing so tackles questions about our present relation-
ship to technology and what the purpose of technology ought to be.
5. H. Greaves and W. MacAskill, The case for strong longtermism (Global
Priorities Institute Working Paper No. 7–2019). Available from:
https://globalprioritiesinstitute.org/hilary-greaves-william-macaskill-the-
case-for-strong-longtermism/
6. S. Baum, A survey of artificial general intelligence projects for ethics, risk, and policy
(Global Catastrophic Risk Institute Working Paper, 2017), 17–11.
7. See A. Nordmann, If and then: A critique of speculative nanoethics,
NanoEthics, 1 (2007), 31–46.
8. See for example: E. Palm and S. O. Hansson, The case for ethical
technology assessment (ETA), Technological Forecasting and Social Change,
73/5 (2006), 543–58; P. Brey, Anticipatory ethics for emerging technolo-
gies, NanoEthics, 6/1 (2012), 1–13; A. Rip and H. te Kulve, Constructive
technology assessment and socio-technical scenarios. In E. Fisher, C. Selin,
and J. Wetmore (eds.), Presenting Futures, The Yearbook of Nanotechnology in
Society (Springer Netherlands, 2008), 49–70.
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2
How Should We Value the Health
of Future People?
Bridget Williams
Introduction
Alex is the medical director of a major hospital. She has just received
a report that outlines the carbon emissions of the hospital’s services,
and steps that could be taken to reduce them and move towards
more environmentally sustainable health care services. It’s possible
for the hospital to implement these changes, but only by shifting
focus and financial investment over the coming years away from
other priorities. For example, plans for the expansion of certain
patient services would be shelved and some existing services would
have to be scaled back. Consequently, the quality of care offered by
the hospital for the next few years would be worse than it could have
been.
The main reason to implement the report would be to reduce the
risk of more severe climate change. Although there’s evidence that
climate change is already impacting health,1 the real benefits of
dealing with climate change will come in the future. So Alex’s
dilemma is whether to reduce the care the hospital provides to the
current population it serves, for the sake of the health of the popula-
tion in the future.
How much weight should Alex give to the health of future
people?
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14 Bridget Williams
The Health of Future People vs the Health of People Now
To determine whether and to what extent Alex should care about the
health of future people we must consider a prior question: why does
health matter at all?
The World Health Organisation defines health as ‘a state of com-
plete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity’.2 This definition positions health as
‘well-being’. The nature and value of health, and of well-being, is
controversial. Philosophers have proposed several theories of both
concepts,3 but for this chapter it will suffice to say that health is both
intrinsically valuable (that is, valuable for its own sake), and instru-
mentally valuable (that is, valuable for what it allows us to do, or the
good things it brings us).
It seems difficult to see how the intrinsic value of health would
change across time. A person is a person no matter when they exist.
A thought experiment from the philosopher Derek Parfit4 makes the
point clear by asking us to imagine that a person, rather irresponsibly,
leaves a shard of glass in a remote part of a forest. The shard lies on
the forest floor for a hundred years. And then on a fine summer day in
the year 2121 a child comes along and steps on the shard, cutting her
foot. The pain the child feels is the same as a child in 2021 would have
felt. The intrinsic value of not experiencing this pain would not
change simply due to position in time.
It is similarly hard to see how the value to a person of being able to do
what they want to do, without being limited by health problems, would
become less over time. The satisfaction of completing a project, or the
meaning that comes from developing interpersonal relationships will
surely matter just as much to people in the future. However, it may be
the case that ill-health will pose less of a barrier to achieving a fulfilling
life in the future, because of technological advances and better design.5
For example, the increasing availability of elevators and ramps makes
having an arthritic knee less of a hindrance than it once was.