Kathinka Evers this collection discusses the possibility of changing people epigenetically. In particular, she discusses the option of increasing sympathy and decreasing xenophobia and violence. The term “epigenetics” is often used to describe processes affecting the activity of genes such as DNA methylation, which might enable the inheritance of acquired properties (Bird 2007). In contrast to this meaning, Evers uses the term more narrowly, with reference to the epigenesis of neural networks by selective stabilisation of synapses as an essential mechanism of brain development (Changeux & Danchin 1976). The idea of affecting people’s development—or ontogenesis—through this mechanism, in order to achieve a desired state (e.g., an increase in sympathy) and/or to avoid an undesired state (e.g., a decrease in xenophobia or violence) can then be called epigenetic proactivism.
After describing human beings as social individualists and egocentric evaluators predisposed for selective sympathy and xenophobia, Evers explains neuronal epigenesis in detail. By influencing synaptic selection, this process may critically affect social and cultural evolution. The central brain area for this is, according to the author, the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in planning, decision-making, thought, and socialisation; in particular, lateral prefrontal areas are associated with behaviour control. With respect to a task developed to test prefrontal cortex functioning, namely the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (Dehaene & Changeux 1991), Evers discusses how neuronal epigenesis could explain rule-learning and top-down control. Finally, she devises two examples—adolescent violence in relation to their social environments and violence in adults associated with interconfessional conflicts—to illustrate what epigenetic proactivism may mean in practice. She eventually invokes a naturalistic responsibility to use the respective scientific and philosophical knowledge for the benefit of ourselves and our societies.
In this commentary, I will start out by relating Evers’s proposal to the human enhancement debate, which has received much attention recently—in particular within neuroethics. After summarising the general assumptions and caveats of this debate, I will elaborate on the definition of people’s wellbeing prevalent in the discourse on human enhancement and present an alternative based on social science research.
Finally, I will discuss epigenetic proactivism, Evers’s original proposal for changing people, in more detail. Arguing that the actual means—whether neurobiological, psychological, or social—do not matter very much, while issues related to adaptation, autonomy, and instrumentalisation are of essential ethical and philosophical relevance, I will emphasise the role of an individual’s informed decision. I will discuss in particular the three theses that (1) their proposed epigenetic intervention carries the risk of psychological side-effects; (2) that people’s autonomy must be respected; and (3) that the world’s situation may not be as bad as suggested by the authors when describing the benefits of their proposal. My conclusion will therefore be that the ethical justifiability of epigenetic proactivism critically depends on whether people can freely choose themselves whether or not to become epigenetically proactive, in a situation sufficiently free from social coercion and in sufficient awareness of the likely outcomes—effects as well as side-effects—of that intervention.