Abstract
We propose to expand the conversation around moral enhancement from direct brain-altering methods to include technological means of modifying the environments and media through which agents can achieve moral improvement. Virtual Reality (VR) based enhancement would not bypass a person’s agency, much less their capacity for reasoned reflection. It would allow agents to critically engage with moral insights occasioned by a technologically mediated intervention. Users would gain access to a vivid ‘experience machine’ that allows for embodied presence and immersion in a virtual world that meaningfully replicates relevant aspects of real life. We explore how VR can train empathy and foster moral growth in complex ways that would be inaccessible even for traditional moral education. Virtual Reality Perspective Taking is a unique medium for making empathy more reflective.
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Notes
Various objections have been raised against Harris’s account (e.g., Kahane & Savulescu, 2015, Persson & Savulescu, 2013). For one thing, social and legal institutions can be extremely coercive, and even parental education can be psychologically controlling, leaving children with little freedom of choice. See Olaru (2019) for an argument according to which the supposed pitfalls of moral bioenhancement—in terms of the “freedom to fall” objection—can also go wrong with conventional moral enhancement, including parental education.
Prosocial behaviour generally refers to instances of behaviour in which individuals benefit others (Beilin, 2013), such as donating, rewarding achievements, cooperating, helping others, etc.
These criteria are also used by Focquaert and Schermer (2015) to define active enhancement interventions.
This proposed hierarchy is not exhaustive: movies and video games, for example, can also be conceived as means of agential enhancement. As such, this is a ranking of the enhancement means discussed in the present article.
This is also specific to interactive narratives that allow for agents to choose from a set of pre-existing choices and control the narrative (to some degree). See the argument made by Dechering & Bekkes (2018) for why interactive narrative games are morally engaging.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Cristina Voinea, Constantin Vică, Alexandra Zorilă, Cristian Iftode, Jon Rueda, Radu Uszkai, and Radu Bumbacea for their thoughtful comments on previous versions of this article. We also thank the reviewers for their insightful comments.
Funding
This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number PN-IIIP4-ID-PCE-2020–0521, within PNCDI III.
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Zahiu, A., Mihailov, E., Earp, B.D. et al. Empathy training through virtual reality: moral enhancement with the freedom to fall?. Ethics Inf Technol 25, 50 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-023-09723-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-023-09723-9