Motivational Enhancement: What Ancient Technologies of the Self and Recent Biotechnologies Have in Common

Abstract

Motivational enhancement of any kind can be conceived of either as a way to reduce the need for effort, or as a change in the subjective perception of effort. However, in both cases, effort is not all that matters. In the evaluation of praiseworthy conduct, the practical goals pursued by the subject, their dedication, and the discernment they exercise are equally important. I further argue that not only in terms of the general purpose, but also in terms of the means employed for human enhancement, we cannot, in fact, establish significant differences between the traditional technology of the self and biomedical technologies for enhancing motivation. There are two key features they all share. The traditional techniques of the self also aim at the gradual reduction of effort through their steady practice, and they are all mental conditioning and self-conditioning techniques based on repetition and training.

KEYWORDS:

• Motivation
• enhancement
• bioconservatism
• effort
• techniques of the self
• mental conditioning

Acknowledgements

The first version of this paper was presented on the occasion of the Bucharest-Oxford Workshop in Practical Ethics held at the University of Oxford in July 2022. I am indebted to the very helpful questions, comments and suggestions for further development of the paper made by the participants. Anda Zahiu and Emilian Mihailov have read previous drafts of this paper and made valuable suggestions for improving it. I am grateful to Alexandru Dragomir for our discussions on the topic of cognitive and motivational enhancement. I also wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on my manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In the asylum institution that was created towards the end of the eighteenth century, the doctor was regarded first and foremost not as a mere physician, but as a ‘wise man’ who exercises moral authority over the insane patients and gains influence over their troubled minds (see Foucault 2006, pp. 503–511).

2 I am not implying that this would count as the only relevant aspect of the debate. For instance, Coenen (2024, p. 18) argues that the ‘invasive character of enhancement also appears to be decisive in conceptual terms and in this respect should even take precedence over the relationship between enhancement and therapy’.

3 There is empirical evidence implying a stronger denial of people’s success when they choose to bioenhance their abilities resorting to nootropics such as Modaflil or methylphenidate (see Mihailov et al. 2021; see also Bard et al. 2018).

4 At least according to resource-based accounts of the notion of effort, ‘the more energy is consumed, the more intense the effort’ (Massin 2017, p. 241).

5 See the Wiktionary entry for ‘effort’: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/effort [Accessed 14 Jul 2023]. Accordingly, Dictionary.com (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/effort) defines ‘effort’ as following: ‘1. exertion of physical or mental power’; ‘2. an earnest or strenuous attempt’; ‘3. something done by exertion or hard work’; ‘4. an achievement, as in literature or art’; ‘5. the amount of exertion expended for a specified purpose’.

6 According to Massin (2017), the comparative analysis of four different conceptions of effort (primitive-feelings accounts, comparator-based accounts, resource-based accounts and force-based accounts) proves that the first two types of accounts face serious objections, while resource-based accounts and force-based accounts are ‘actually extensionally equivalent’. However, force-based accounts remain the most ‘fundamental’ and ‘promising’ of them all, because of the direct connection they establish between effort and resistance. It has to be added that accounts of this kind ‘do not equate efforts with forces’, but with ‘intentional exertions of forces … so as to produce some desired outcome’ (Massin 2017, p. 243).

7 Some might claim that motivation per se is not enhanced in this case: only obstacles to being motivated (such as pain or fatigue) are removed. But considering the effect, this can still be regarded as a kind of motivational enhancement. For empirical evidence of the connection between pain and disengagement, see Silvestrini and Corradi-Dell’Acqua 2023.

8 Of course, ‘the number of injections’ didn’t enhance Nadal’s motivation, but were a direct proof of how motivated Nadal was to continue his series of wins, even at the cost of endangering his health.

9 I thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this point.

10 Massin (2017, p. 249) acknowledges ‘a common idea within Aristotelian virtue ethics, but also within Stoic ethics’, according to which ‘accomplishing deeds effortlessly makes one even more praiseworthy’. The goal for the Stoic sage is to advance ‘to a point where a life of courage and wisdom, justice and temperance comes easily and naturally, without struggle and without repinings’ (Campbell 1985, p. 327).

11 I am not supporting a reductionist view according to which the idea of mental conditioning would exhaust the significance of spiritual practices, but it is hard to deny that this is a key feature of all these techniques.

12 The following objections were inspired by the comments received from two anonymous reviewers.

13 For instance, it is easy to prove that the two features are essential for various Yoga disciplines as well as for Buddhist meditation techniques (see Eliade 1969).

14 But not in others. Palacios-Gonzáles and Lawrence (2015, p. 27) argue that it is not ethically problematic to enhance motivation by the use of stimulants and, thus, increase one’s well-being in alienating ‘real-life Sisyphean circumstances’ that one cannot escape ‘due to the amount of negative externalities that quitting would impose onto them’.

15 For the use of suggestion in medical practice, see the classical book by Coué (1922) on conscious autosuggestion. For understanding the history of hypnosis, from Mesmer to Braid and to Charcot, see Alpheus (1903), Gielen and Raymond (2015). For examples of recent research on the medical uses of suggestion and hypnosis, see Michael et al. (2012), Varga (2013). For documented studies on the placebo effect, see Tuttle et al. (2015). For a philosophical and cultural interpretation of the techniques of mental conditioning employed by Tuke, Pinel, as well as for an interpretation of Freud and the origins of psychoanalysis following this descendance and emphasizing ‘the apotheosis of the medical character’, see Foucault (2006). For a Nietzschean interpretation of ‘human taming’, pedagogical ‘cunning’, and ‘conditioning through practising repetitions’, see Sloterdijk (2013, pp. 198–199).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Romanian Ministery of Education and Research, CNCS – UEFISCDI [grant number PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2020-0521].

Notes on contributors

Cristian Iftode

Cristian Iftode is Director of the Department of Practical Philosophy and History of Philosophy at the University of Bucharest. He writes on authenticity, human enhancement, aesthetics of existence, and philosophical therapy.