Moral enhancement proposals often fail to be both plausible and ethically defensible while remaining distinct from cognitive enhancement or moral education. Psychedelics used as adjuncts to moral development offer a promising middle ground. Drawing on psychotherapy, education, and AI-assisted enhancement, trusting relationships between facilitator and agent plausibly maximize the success of such moral enhancement. Informed consent and therapeutic relationship literature provide concrete suggestions for facilitating trust dimensions most likely to benefit adjunctive psychedelic moral enhancement, resulting in a detailed practical proposal.
As interest in psychedelics like psilocybin, ketamine, and MDMA revives and their legal status changes in many places, ethical guidelines are urgently needed for both medical and non-medical use. This paper argues that focusing only on medical applications neglects potentially valuable uses in other contexts and raises ethical issues including hype, exceptionalism, informed consent, therapeutic touch, data collection, and balancing access with safety. The authors call for renewed attention to the treatment-versus-enhancement distinction from bioethics and stress that guidelines should be flexible and context-sensitive. They recommend incorporating diverse stakeholder perspectives and cross-sector collaboration in future research and policy for psychedelic bioethics.