Contemporary Authors

• The Right to Be Loved Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2015
• Moral Brains: The Neuroscience of Morality Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2016

1. Moral brains : the neuroscience of morality https://lccn.loc.gov/2015044868 Moral brains : the neuroscience of morality / edited by S. Matthew Liao. New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2016] x, 365 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm QP360.5 .M6684 2016 ISBN: 9780199357666 (hardcover : alk. paper)9780199357673 (pbk. : alk. paper) 2. The right to be loved https://lccn.loc.gov/2015001733 Liao, S. Matthew. The right to be loved / S. Matthew Liao. Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2015] xiii, 258 pages ; 22 cm HQ789 .L53 2015 ISBN: 9780190234836 (cloth : alk. paper)

• NYU - http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/object/smatthewliao.html

  Areas of Research/Interest:
  ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, moral psychology, bioethics

  S. Matthew Liao holds the Arthur Zitrin Chair in Bioethics and is the Director for The Center for Bioethics at New York University. From 2006 to 2009, he was the Deputy Director and James Martin Senior Research Fellow in the Program on the Ethics of the New Biosciences in the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University. He was the Harold T. Shapiro Research Fellow in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University in 2003–2004, and a Greenwall Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and a Visiting Researcher at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University from 2004–2006. In May 2007, he founded Ethics Etc, a group blog for discussing contemporary philosophical issues in ethics and related areas. He is interested in a wide range of issues including ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, moral psychology, and bioethics.

• The Atlantic - https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/how-engineering-the-human-body-could-combat-climate-change/253981/

  How Engineering the Human Body Could Combat Climate Change

  ROSS ANDERSEN MAR 12, 2012 TECHNOLOGY
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  From drugs to help you avoid eating meat to genetically engineered cat-like eyes to reduce the need for lighting, a wild interview about changes humans could make to themselves to battle climate change.

  shutterstock_66875-615.jpg

  The threat of global climate change has prompted us to redesign many of our technologies to be more energy-efficient. From lightweight hybrid cars to long-lasting LED's, engineers have made well-known products smaller and less wasteful. But tinkering with our tools will only get us so far, because however smart our technologies become, the human body has its own ecological footprint, and there are more of them than ever before. So, some scholars are asking, what if we could engineer human beings to be more energy efficient? A new paper to be published in Ethics, Policy & Environment proposes a series of biomedical modifications that could help humans, themselves, consume less.

  Some of the proposed modifications are simple and noninvasive. For instance, many people wish to give up meat for ecological reasons, but lack the willpower to do so on their own. The paper suggests that such individuals could take a pill that would trigger mild nausea upon the ingestion of meat, which would then lead to a lasting aversion to meat-eating. Other techniques are bound to be more controversial. For instance, the paper suggests that parents could make use of genetic engineering or hormone therapy in order to birth smaller, less resource-intensive children.

  The lead author of the paper, S. Matthew Liao, is a professor of philosophy and bioethics at New York University. Liao is keen to point out that the paper is not meant to advocate for any particular human modifications, or even human engineering generally; rather, it is only meant to introduce human engineering as one possible, partial solution to climate change. He also emphasized the voluntary nature of the proposed modifications. Neither Liao or his co-authors, Anders Sandberg and Rebecca Roache of Oxford, approve of any coercive human engineering; they favor modifications borne of individual choices, not technocratic mandates. What follows is my conversation with Liao about why he thinks human engineering could be the most ethical and effective solution to global climate change.

  Judging from your paper, you seem skeptical about current efforts to mitigate climate change, including market based solutions like carbon pricing or even more radical solutions like geoengineering. Why is that?

  Liao: It's not that I don't think that some of those solutions could succeed under the right conditions; it's more that I think that they might turn out to be inadequate, or in some cases too risky. Take market solutions---so far it seems like it's pretty difficult to orchestrate workable international agreements to affect international emissions trading. The Kyoto Protocol, for instance, has not produced demonstrable reductions in global emissions, and in any event demand for petrol and for electricity seems to be pretty inelastic. And so it's questionable whether carbon taxation alone can deliver the kind of reduction that we need to really take on climate change.

  With respect to geoengineering, the worry is that it's just too risky---many of the technologies involved have never been attempted on such a large scale, and so you have to worry that by implementing these techniques we could endanger ourselves or future generations. For example it's been suggested that we could alter the reflectivity of the atmosphere using sulfate aerosol so as to turn away a portion of the sun's heat, but it could be that doing so would destroy the ozone layer, which would obviously be problematic. Others have argued that we ought to fertilize the ocean with iron, because doing so might encourage a massive bloom of carbon-sucking plankton. But doing so could potentially render the ocean inhospitable to fish, which would obviously also be quite problematic.

  One human engineering strategy you mention is a kind of pharmacologically induced meat intolerance. You suggest that humans could be given meat alongside a medication that triggers extreme nausea, which would then cause a long-lasting aversion to meat eating. Why is it that you expect this could have such a dramatic impact on climate change?

  Liao: There is a widely cited U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization report that estimates that 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and CO2 equivalents come from livestock farming, which is actually a much higher share than from transportation. More recently it's been suggested that livestock farming accounts for as much as 51% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. And then there are estimates that as much as 9% of human emissions occur as a result of deforestation for the expansion of pastures for livestock. And that doesn't even to take into account the emissions that arise from manure, or from the livestock directly. Since a large portion of these cows and other grazing animals are raised for consumption, it seems obvious that reducing the consumption of these meats could have considerable environmental benefits.

  Even a minor 21% to 24% reduction in the consumption of these kinds of meats could result in the same reduction in emissions as the total localization of food production, which would mean reducing "food miles" to zero. And, I think it's important to note that it wouldn't necessarily need to be a pill. We have also toyed around with the idea of a patch that might stimulate the immune system to reject common bovine proteins, which could lead to a similar kind of lasting aversion to meat products.

  Your paper also discusses the use of human engineering to make humans smaller. Why would this be a powerful technique in the fight against climate change?

  Liao: Well one of the things that we noticed is that human ecological footprints are partly correlated with size. Each kilogram of body mass requires a certain amount of food and nutrients and so, other things being equal, the larger person is the more food and energy they are going to soak up over the course of a lifetime. There are also other, less obvious ways in which larger people consume more energy than smaller people---for example a car uses more fuel per mile to carry a heavier person, more fabric is needed to clothe larger people, and heavier people wear out shoes, carpets and furniture at a quicker rate than lighter people, and so on.

  And so size reduction could be one way to reduce a person's ecological footprint. For instance if you reduce the average U.S. height by just 15cm, you could reduce body mass by 21% for men and 25% for women, with a corresponding reduction in metabolic rates by some 15% to 18%, because less tissue means lower energy and nutrient needs.

  matthewliao2.jpg
  S. Matthew Liao is a professor of philosophy and bioethics at N.Y.U.

  What are the various ways humans could be engineered to be smaller?

  Liao: There are a couple of ways, actually. You might try to do it through a technique called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, which is already used in IVF settings in fertility clinics today. In this scenario you'd be looking to select which embryos to implant based on height.

  Another way to affect height is to use a hormone treatment to trigger the closing of the epiphyseal plate earlier than normal---this sometimes happens by accident in vitamin overdose cases. In fact hormone treatments are already used for height reduction in overly tall children. A final way you could do this is by way of gene imprinting, by influencing the competition between maternal and paternal genes, where there is a height disparity between the mother and father. You could have drugs that reduce or increase the expression of paternal or maternal genes in order to affect birth height.

  Isn't it ethically problematic to allow parents to make these kinds of irreversible choices for their children?

  Liao: That's a really good question. First, I think it's useful to distinguish between selection and modification. With selection you don't really have the issue of irreversible choices because the embryo selected can't complain that she could have been otherwise---if the parents had selected a different embryo, she wouldn't have existed at all. In the case of modification, that issue could certainly arise, but even then I think it's important to step back and ask why we are looking at these solutions in the first place. The reason we are even considering these solutions is to prevent climate change, which is a really serious problem, and which might affect the well being of millions of people including the child. And so in that context, if on balance human engineering is going to promote the well being of that particular child, then you might be able to justify the solution to the child.

  In the paper you also discuss the pharmacological enhancement of empathy and altruism, because empathy and altruism tend to be highly correlated with positive attitudes toward the environment. To me this one seems like it might be the most troubling. Isn't it more problematic to do biological tinkering to produce a belief, rather than simply engineering humans so that they are better equipped to implement their beliefs?

  Liao: Yes. It's certainly ethically problematic to insert beliefs into people, and so we want to be clear that's not something we're proposing. What we have in mind has more to do with weakness of will. For example, I might know that I ought to send a check to Oxfam, but because of a weakness of will I might never write that check. But if we increase my empathetic capacities with drugs, then maybe I might overcome my weakness of will and write that check.

  Let me push you a little on that. The Oxfam example is a clean fit for your argument, but might it be the case that drugs of this sort---empathy increasing drugs---would cause people to generate entirely new beliefs, rather than simply mitigating issues having to do with weakness of will.

  Liao: It's conceivable, yes, and to be clear, if that's the case that wouldn't be something that we would advocate. We are interested only in voluntary modifications, and we certainly don't want to implant beliefs into anyone. But even then, those beliefs might still be considered yours if they arise from a kind of ramping up of your existing capacities, and so perhaps that could obviate that problem.

  I suppose there are already drugs that might be belief-inducing. You might think that antidepressants induce new beliefs about self worth, or about the personalities of other people.

  Liao: That's right. That's a great analogy. If you're very pessimistic about the world, and you take a drug that will cause you to develop a more positive outlook, then in some sense those are beliefs that you already desired. In a case like that the ethical issues might fall away on account of the fact that you previously desired those beliefs, and that you're aware of the consequences of taking the drug. We would want as much transparency as possible with these technologies so that people are aware of the consequences of using them, and that includes empathy-increasing drugs, which, if they had the kind of effects you're suggesting, would require warning labels at a minimum.

  In your paper you suggest that some human engineering solutions may actually be liberty enhancing. How so?

  Liao: That's right. It's been suggested that, given the seriousness of climate change, we ought to adopt something like China's one child policy. There was a group of doctors in Britain who recently advocated a two-child maximum. But at the end of the day those are crude prescriptions---what we really care about is some kind of fixed allocation of greenhouse gas emissions per family. If that's the case, given certain fixed allocations of greenhouse gas emissions, human engineering could give families the choice between two medium sized children, or three small sized children. From our perspective that would be more liberty enhancing than a policy that says "you can only have one or two children." A family might want a really good basketball player, and so they could use human engineering to have one really large child.

  catseye.jpg
  "We figured that if everyone had cat eyes, you wouldn't need so much lighting"

  I have to push back a little on that point. It seems like those human engineering techniques would be liberty enhancing only in a context in which there were some severe liberty constraint that doesn't exist now. Is there another way these techniques might be liberty enhancing?

  Liao: Well, again, I would return to the weakness of will consideration. If you crave steak, and that craving prevents you from making a decision you otherwise want to make, in some sense your inability to control yourself is a limit on the will, or a limit on your liberty. A meat patch would allow you to truly decide whether you want to have that steak or not, and that could be quite liberty enhancing.

  Your paper focuses on human engineering techniques that are relatively safe. Did your research lead you to any interesting techniques that were unsafe?

  Liao: Actually, yes, although unfortunately the science is not there yet---we looked into cat eyes, the technique of giving humans cat eyes or of making their eyes more catlike. The reason is, cat eyes see nearly as well as human eyes during the day, but much better at night. We figured that if everyone had cat eyes, you wouldn't need so much lighting, and so you could reduce global energy usage considerably. Maybe even by a shocking percentage.

  But, again, this isn't something we know how to do yet, although it's possible there might be some way to do it with genetics---there are some primates with eyes that are very similar to cat eyes, and so possibly we could study those primates and figure out which genes are responsible for that trait, and then hopefully activate those genes in humans. But that's very speculative and requires a lot of research.

  Some critics are likely to see these techniques as inappropriately interfering with human nature. What do you say to them?

  Liao: Well, first, I would say that the view that you shouldn't interfere with human nature at all is too strong. For instance, giving women epidurals when they're giving birth is in some sense interfering with human nature, but it's generally welcomed. Also, when people worry about interfering with human nature, they generally worry about interfering for the wrong reasons. But because we believe that mitigating climate change can help a great many people, we see human engineering in this context as an ethical endeavor, and so that objection may not apply.

  In your paper you argue that some of the initial opposition to these solutions is rooted in a particular kind of status quo bias. Can you explain what you mean by that?

  Liao: Sure. Take having smaller children for example. People might resist this idea because they might think that there is some sort of optimal---the average height in a given society, say. But, I think it's worth remembering how fluid human traits like height are. A hundred years ago people were much shorter on average, and there was nothing wrong with them medically. And so, if people are resistant to the idea of engineering humans to be smaller because of some notion of an optimal height, they might be operating from a status quo bias.

  Taking a look at this from the perspective of deep ecology---is there something to be said for the idea that because climate change is human caused, that humans ought to be the ones that change to mitigate it---that somehow we ought to bear the cost to fix this?

  Liao: That was actually one of the ideas that motivated us to write this paper, the idea that we caused anthropogenic climate change, and so perhaps we ought to bear some of the costs required to address it. But having said that, we also want to make this attractive to people---we don't want this to be a zero sum game where it's just a cost that we have to bear. Many of the solutions we propose might actually be quite desirable to people, particularly the meat patch. I recently gave a talk about this paper at Yale and there was a man in the audience who worked for a pharmaceuticals company; he seemed to think there might be a huge market for modifications like this.

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• Philosophical Reviews
  http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-right-to-be-loved/
  Word count: 2272

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  S. MATTHEW LIAO

  The Right to Be Loved
  S. Matthew Liao, The Right to Be Loved, Oxford University Press, 2015, 258pp., $45.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780190234836.

  Reviewed by George Rainbolt, Georgia State University
  In this admirable book, S. Matthew Liao argues that children have a human right to be loved. With satisfyingly clear prose, he considers the main obstacles in the path to this conclusion and lays out an interesting and credible case. Although his book did not convince me that children have a right to be loved, it is a worthy contribution to a vital debate. (I also compliment Oxford University Press on their pricing; the hardback is extremely reasonable and the Kindle edition costs only $30.99.)

  The first chapter lays out a new account of why humans have rights. Liao argues that humans have rights because they have the genetic basis for moral agency. Chapter Two develops a new account of human rights. Liao argues that human rights are rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life. In Chapter Three, Liao argues that for children, being loved is a fundamental condition, something that children need in order to become adults who can pursue basic activities. Therefore, Liao concludes, children have a right to be loved. Chapter Four considers the objection that it is not possible for anyone to have a right to be loved because rights correlate with duties and no one can have a duty to love. In Chapter Five, Liao argues that "every able person in appropriate circumstances has a duty to love every child" (189). Chapters Six and Seven discuss two implementation issues: licensing parents and adoption.

  In Chapter One, Liao argues that humans are rightholders "because they all have the genetic basis for moral agency" (17). Liao presents this as a sufficient condition for being a rightholder and explicitly claims that it is not necessary. Thus, he leaves the door open to the possibility that other beings could have rights on some other basis (e.g., sentience). In addition, the term "genetic" is used as a convenient short-hand for having the physical basis for moral agency. In other words, the account does not imply that beings with no genes (perhaps an alien) are not rightholders. The causal role played by genes in humans who develop moral agency could be played by some other physical substances/structures in aliens. As long as that physical substance/structure plays the causal role that genes do in humans, then the aliens are rightholders.

  Liao does not say enough about the sort of causal relationship that must exist between the physical substances/structures and moral agency in order for a being to be a rightholder. As it stands, Liao's view seems to imply that being alive is not a necessary condition for being a rightholder. It seems to imply that a stillborn infant with normal human genes is a rightholder. Given current and future technology, there are probably causal paths from a stillborn infant's genes to a being with moral agency. I suspect that Liao is assuming that "genetic basis" requires some sort of closer causal connection between genes and moral agency, but the nature of the required causal relationship is not spelled out.

  There are some possible counterexamples to Liao's view. Suppose that Infant A and Infant B are both the offspring of human parents. One week after birth, both have no mental states and no reasonable prospect for attaining moral agency. Infant A has perfectly normal human genes. The lack of mental states is due to events that occurred in the middle of pregnancy. Infant B has severe genetic issues that originated prior to conception and made it physically impossible for this infant to have mental states. On Liao's view, Infant A is a rightholder. Infant B may or may not be a rightholder depending on whether there are sufficient conditions for being a rightholder other than having the genetic basis for moral agency. Some will think that if the current mental states of the two infants are the same, then they must have the same capacities for rights and have these capacities for the same reason.

  Liao's view implies that human zygotes are rightholders. Thus, his view implies that abortions violate the rights of zygotes. As Judith Jarvis Thomson 1971 famously argued, this does not show that abortion is wrong. Some violations of rights are justified. However, some will think it implausible to hold that all abortions are violations of human rights. Moreover, Liao's view seems to imply that zygotes have a right to be loved. It seems to imply that individuals and governments have an extensive set of duties towards zygotes.

  Chapter Two defends a four-step account of human rights. (a) Human rights are rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life. (b) A good life is one spent pursing basic activities. (c) Basic activities are "activities that are important to human beings qua human beings' life as a whole" (41). (d) Fundamental conditions are goods, capacities, and options that "human beings qua human beings need . . . in order to purse basic activities" (43).

  To explicate the notion of "qua," Liao asserts that some things are important to people qua individuals while other things are important to people qua human begins. As examples of activities that are not basic (i.e., that are not important to human beings qua human beings), he lists sunbathing, being a professional philosopher, working to better the lives of those in need, driving, and adoptive parenting. As examples of activities that are basic (i.e., are important to human beings qua human beings), he lists deep personal relationships, knowledge, active pleasures (e.g., creative work and play), passive pleasure (e.g., appreciating beauty), and biological parenting.

  Liao suggests that an activity is basic when "if a human life did not involve the pursuit of any of them, then that life could not be a good life" (42). However, on this view, one could show that any activity is a basic activity. Suppose that a proposed list of basic activities is: deep personal relationships, knowledge, active pleasures, passive pleasures, and sunbathing. A human life that did not involve any of these could not be a good life. But Liao explicitly says that sunbathing is not a basic activity.

  Perhaps Liao intends to hold that basic activities are those on the shortest possible list such that, if a life did not involve any of them, it would not be a good life. However, this would imply that having any one of the things on the list would be sufficient for a good life. Consider a life of enormous suffering, no deep personal relationships, no pleasures, but a reasonable amount of knowledge. Few would call such a life a good life. Overall, the notion of "qua" is insufficiently explicated.

  This problem is important because the notion of a basic activity is key to Liao's argument that biological parenting is a basic activity (and thus a human right), but adoptive parenting is not. He argues that biological parenting is a basic activity because it involves (a) creating a new being who (b) is a rightholder that is (c) created with one's own genetic material and (d) provides one with the opportunity to see how a being that is created with one's genes grows and develops. The link between these four features of biological parenting and "activities that are important to human beings qua human beings" is not clear. One could argue that adopting an orphaned child who is facing extreme poverty in Sudan is a basic activity because it involves (a') saving a being who is a rightholder from massive rights violations (including violations of the right to be loved) and who (b') is a member of one's own species and who (c') provides one with the opportunity to see how such a being grows and develops. Absent a clearer explication of "qua," it is not clear why (a)-(d) are sufficient to make an activity basic but (a')-(c') are not.

  On Liao's account, human rights are necessarily tied to the biology of humans. Spock, a Vulcan, cannot have human rights. Some will regard this as speciesist. It also seems to be in tension with the account of rightholders in Chapter One. A virtue of the account of rightholders offered in Chapter One was that it was not tied to the biology of humans. As I was reading Chapter One, I expected that, since having the genetic basis for moral agency made one a rightholder, human rights would be rights to the fundamental conditions needed to be a moral agent. Such an account would be species-neutral. However, Liao rejects agency-based accounts of human rights (e.g., Griffin 2008).

  Chapter Two ends with a convincing refutation of political conceptions of human rights (e.g., Rawls 1999 and Beitz 2009). Chapter Three is a well-argued defense of the importance of love for children's well-being. Liao holds that, for children, being loved is a fundamental condition for pursuing a good life. Therefore, he concludes that children have a right to be loved.

  Chapter Four considers the objection that no one has a right to be loved because rights correlate with duties, one can have duties only if one can perform those duties, and feelings of love are not under our command. Therefore, no one can have a duty to love. Liao argues that our emotions are under our command. He points to three ways we control our emotions. First, he believes that we can give ourselves reasons to have particular emotions. He points to the example of someone who is in a bad mood on the day of a friend's wedding. Reflecting on the fact that being in a bad mood at someone's wedding would put a damper on a joyous occasion gives one a reason to be joyful. Second, he believes that reflection on the causes of emotions can bring about a change in emotions. For example, one might feel contempt for a person because one is jealous. Refection on this fact can cause the contemptuous feeling to fade away. Third, he believes that we can consciously put ourselves in situations in order to bring about emotions. For example, when I am in a bad mood, I know that certain sorts of music can put me in a good mood. I can then play those sorts of music to put myself in a good mood.

  Liao makes a convincing case that some emotions are, to some degree, under our control. However, he did not convince me that the particular emotion of being in love is under our control or that humans have the level of control of our feelings of love needed in order to have a duty to love. I was unable to love my sons until they were four or five months old. I felt horrible guilt about my inability to love (or even like) my infant sons. I tried all three of techniques suggested by Liao. They all failed. I was able to love my sons only when their mental abilities increased. (Their sleeping through the night also helped.) In at least two cases, I attempted to love a woman. In these cases I also tried all three of the techniques suggested by Liao. I felt that I had extremely strong reasons to love these women, but I was unable to do so. Regarding my current wife, I had strong reasons not to love her. I sincerely felt that it would be better if I did not love her. However, I was unable to control my feelings of love. It is definitely possible that I am deficient when it comes to control of my emotions of love. On the other hand, I currently feel deep love for my wife and sons. In addition, music and literature are full of claims that love is beyond our control. Love is a specific emotion and it might not be under our control or not be sufficiently under our control for us to have a duty to love.

  Chapter Five defends "the striking claim" (9) that "every able person in appropriate circumstances has a duty to love every child" (189). However, it then goes on to distinguish primary and associate duties. "Under normal circumstances, biological parents would have the primary duty directly to love their children, while all other able persons would have associate duties to help the primary dutybearers successfully discharge their duties" (135). So it turns out that it is not the case that everyone has a duty to have feelings of love towards every child. This makes Liao's view more plausible and less striking. Chapter Six discusses the regulation of biological parenting and Chapter Seven discusses adoption and the problem of children without adequate parents. As noted above, the discussion of these issues is hampered by the incomplete explication of "qua."

  I have used most of the words of this review to point out what I see as flaws in Liao's arguments. However, I do not intend to imply that this book is unsatisfactory. On the contrary, as I said at the beginning of this review, Liao has made a valuable contribution that merits careful consideration. Whether you agree with him or not, Liao raises important questions, makes important arguments, and considers the views of others skillfully and fairly. Those interested in the issues discussed above will profit from reading this book.

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