On Ethical Issues Induced By Emotional Enhancement Technology

Since ancient times,enhancement is eternal goal and ideal of human,which implies human's noble character of keeping pursuing advancement.With the development of science and technology,the technology of information,nerve biotechnology and genetic spring up,and the human's ideals,which are eager for enhancement become increasingly within reach.The more methods for enhancement technology,the more widely it will range,and even points to one's inner state.Emotional enhancement technologies are new emerging ones which healthy individuals use,in accordance with their wishes to change their emotion.But because the object of the emotional enhancement technology is the emotional state of one's mind,and the intervention of these techniques destroys one's natural state,which triggers a wide-range discussion aim at ethical questions caused by emotional enhancement technology among scholars.This paper explains the concept of "emotion" at first,and then demonstrates the ambiguity of emotional enhancement on the strength of analyzing the concepts of "health","disease","treatment" and "enhancement".The second part of this paper discusses the development of emotional enhancement technology,from initial food and psychotherapy treatment to the current emotion enhancing drugs,DBS technology and gene technology.Emotional enhancement technology indeed meet individuals need for the ability to control their own emotion so as to achieve the ideal emotional state,which result in wide-range promoting and popularity.However,this technique does not give us enough sense of security.The third part focuses on the ethical issues of modern emotional enhancement technology which it raises,including safety of technology,emotional authenticity,personality identity and the falling of human's subjective position.Firstly,the use of technology may induce some side effects and dependence,and the effects of enhancement are also uncertain.Secondly,emotional enhancement technology may not only led people to generate untrue motivation of enhancement,but also makes emotion itself unauthentic,Thirdly,the unauthentic emotion develop to a certain degree will lead to the change of individual's personality identity,and lead to the imbalance of interpersonal and social interaction.Last but not the least,the technology intervenes in people's emotion,and lead to people's emotion become a subsidiary of technology,and to the falling of human's subjective position,and to the derogation of human's value.These four issues on the ethical implications deeper and deeper and they influence each other.For ethical issues triggered by emotional enhancement technology,this paper proposes that the use of this technology should be guided by four ethical principles in the fourth part:do not harm,respecting for autonomy,differentiating principle and maximizing human's development.Finally,this paper proposes that the development of emotional technology should under moral limits,and pursues the unity of truth,goodness and beauty.