Trust and Psychedelic Moral Enhancement

AbstractMoral enhancement proposals struggle to be both plausible and ethically defensible while nevertheless interestingly distinct from both cognitive enhancement as well as (mere) moral education. Brian Earp (Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 83:415 –439,12) suggests that a promising middle ground lies in focusing on the (suitably qualified) use of psychedelics asadjuncts to moral development. But what would such an adjunctive use of psychedelics look like in practice? In this paper, I draw on literature from three areas where techniques for moral development have been discussed: psychotherapy (e.g., Overholser 2010; Burns 1980) education (e.g., Uhl and L ütge, 2018), and AI-assisted enhancement (e.g., Lara and Deckers,Neuroethics 13(3):275 –287,17) in order to propose more concrete ways in which to use psychedelics as adjuncts to moral development. It is shown that in each of these areas, we can see thattrusting relationships (e.g., Baier 1986; Hawley 2019) between the facilitator and the agent will very plausibly maximize the success of this type of moral enhancement. Finally, I appeal to literature on informed consent for use of psychedelics (e.g., Smith and Sisti,Journal of Medical Ethics,22; Johnson et al.,The Journal of Psychopharmacology 22(6):603 –20,23) and on the therapeutic relationship in psychotherapy (e.g., Dryden and Reeves 2013; Horvath et al. 2011) to outline concrete suggestions for facilitating dimensions of trust most likely to maximize th...
Source: Neuroethics - Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research