Gordon, Emma C. and Cheung, Katherine and Earp, Brian D. and Savulescu, Julian (2025) Moral enhancement and cheapened achievement: psychedelics, virtual reality and AI. Bioethics, 39 (3). pp. 276-287. ISSN 0269-9702

Abstract

A prominent critique of cognitive or athletic enhancement claims that certain performance-improving drugs or technologies may ‘cheapen’ resulting achievements. Considerably less attention has been paid to the impact of enhancement on the value of moral achievements. Would the use of moral enhancement (bio)technologies, rather than (solely) ‘traditional’ means of moral development like schooling and socialization, cheapen the ‘achievement’ of morally improving oneself? We argue that, to the extent that the ‘cheapened achievement’ objection succeeds in the domains of cognitive or athletic enhancement, it could plausibly also succeed in the domain of moral enhancement—but only regarding certain forms. Specifically, although the value of moral self-improvement may be diminished by some of the more speculative and impractical forms of moral enhancement proposed in the literature, this worry has less force when applied to more plausibly viable forms of moral enhancement: forms in which drugs or technologies play an adjunctive or facilitative, rather than a determinative, role in moral improvement. We illustrate this idea with three examples from recent literature: the possible use of psychedelic drugs in certain moral-learning contexts, ‘Socratic Al’ (a proposed Al-driven moral enhancer) and empathy enhancement through virtual reality (VR). We argue that if one assumes that these technologies work roughly as advertised, the ‘cheapened achievement’ objection loses much of its bite. The takeaway lesson is that moral enhancement in its most promising and practical forms ultimately evades a leading critique of cognitive and athletic enhancement. We end by reflecting on the potential upshot of our analysis for enhancement debates more widely.

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Gordon, Emma C.
Author

Gordon, Emma C. and Cheung, Katherine and Earp, Brian D. and Savulescu, Julian (2025) Moral enhancement and cheapened achievement: psychedelics, virtual reality and AI. Bioethics, 39 (3). pp. 276-287. ISSN 0269-9702

Gordon, Emma C. (2024) Cognitive enhancement, hyperagency, and responsibility explosion. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 49 (5). pp. 488-498. ISSN 0360-5310

Gordon, Emma C. (2024) Human enhancement and augmented reality. Philosophy and Technology, 37: 17. ISSN 2210-5433

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Cheung, Katherine
Author

Gordon, Emma C. and Cheung, Katherine and Earp, Brian D. and Savulescu, Julian (2025) Moral enhancement and cheapened achievement: psychedelics, virtual reality and AI. Bioethics, 39 (3). pp. 276-287. ISSN 0269-9702

See full publications list
Earp, Brian D.
Author

Gordon, Emma C. and Cheung, Katherine and Earp, Brian D. and Savulescu, Julian (2025) Moral enhancement and cheapened achievement: psychedelics, virtual reality and AI. Bioethics, 39 (3). pp. 276-287. ISSN 0269-9702

See full publications list
Savulescu, Julian
Author

Gordon, Emma C. and Cheung, Katherine and Earp, Brian D. and Savulescu, Julian (2025) Moral enhancement and cheapened achievement: psychedelics, virtual reality and AI. Bioethics, 39 (3). pp. 276-287. ISSN 0269-9702

See full publications list
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