Human Dignity and Bioethics

190 | Nick Bostrom
Dignity as a Quality. It seems to me that such a state of being could
easily be decidedly more dignified than the ho-hum affective outlook
of a typical day in the average person’s life.
Perhaps it would be slightly preferable, from the point of view
of Dignity as a Quality, if the better mood resulted from a naturally
smiling temperament or if it had been attained by means of some
kind of psychological self-overcoming. But if some help had to be
sought from a safe and efficacious pill, I do not see that it would
make a vast difference in terms of how much Dignity as a Quality
could be invested in the resulting state of mind.
One important factor in the Dignity as a Quality of our emotions
is the extent to which they are appropriate responses to aspects
of the world. Many emotions have an evaluative element, and one
might think that for such an emotion to have Dignity as a Quality
it must be a response to a situation or a phenomenon that we
recognize as deserving the evaluation contained in the emotion. For
example, anger might be dignified only on occasions where there
is something to be angry about and where the anger is directed at
that object in recognition of its offensiveness. This criterion could
in principle be satisfied not only by emotions arising spontaneously
from our native temperament but also by emotions encouraged by
some affective enhancement. Some affective enhancements could
expand our evaluative range and create background conditions that
would enable us to respond to values with regard to which we might
otherwise be blind or apathetic. Moreover, even if some situations
objectively call for certain emotional responses, there might be some
indeterminacy such that any response within a range could count as
objectively appropriate. This is especially plausible when we consider
baseline mood or subjective well-being. Some people are naturally
downbeat and glum; others are brimming with cheer and good humor.
Is it really the case that one of these sentiments is objectively
appropriate to the world? If so, which one? Those who are sad may
say the former; those who are happy, the latter. I doubt that there is
a fact of the matter.
It appears to me that the main threat to Dignity as a Quality from
emotional enhancement would come not from the use of moodbrighteners
to improve positive affect in everyday life, but from two
other directions. One of these is the socio-cultural dimension, which