Neurointerventions, Morality and Children

Is the political community morally permitted to use neurointerventions to improve the moral conduct of children? Putting aside difficult questions concerning the institutionalization of moral enhancement, the authors address this question, first, by arguing that is not, in itself, always morally impermissible for the community to impose neurointerventions on adults. Although certain ideals, such as the ideal of individual autonomy, limit the permissible employment of neurointerventions, they do not generate a moral constraint that always forbids their use. Thereafter, they argue that because young children lack certain moral capacities that adults possess, the moral limits that pertain to the use of neurointerventions to improve their moral behaviour are, in principle, less restrictive than they are for adults.