This book explores how various AI tools, psychedelics such as psilocybin, meditation techniques—particularly attention-focused training and compassion training—and virtue training might support, inform, or undermine virtue development and good decision-making. Such cognitive and moral improvements could plausibly enhance our ability to co-create a more resilient and regenerative future.

The book argues that multimodal, lifestyle-driven neuroenhancement strategies—for example, combinations of meditation and AI tools—currently offer the most promising path forward. Psychedelics, as well as more integrated forms of technology, have considerable potential, but much more research is required before such strategies can be considered safe and ethically acceptable outside carefully regulated clinical and therapeutic contexts.

This book offers readers an accessible introduction to a range of neuroenhancement methods and explores how these practices could help us become better decision-makers and improve our moral virtues. It is of interest for anyone seeking a discussion of neuroenhancement from the perspective of secular ethics.

Barbro Fröding is Associate Professor (Docent) of Philosophy at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Her main research interests include ethics, bioethics, virtue ethics, the ethical aspects of medical technology, and the ethics of cognitive enhancement. She has also written about good decision-making in the development and use of technology, with particular attention to social sustainability. Fröding’s academic background spans the United Kingdom and Sweden. She was a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, and a Hardie Postdoctoral Junior Research Fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from KTH, an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA from King’s College London.

Walter Osika is Associate Professor (Docent) of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, and a physician specializing in internal medicine, cardiology, and psychiatry. He is co-founder and Director of the Center for Social Sustainability at Karolinska Institutet. His research focuses on stress and resilience, contemplative and mental training practices, neuropsychiatry, with particular emphasis on ADHD, cardiometabolic health, environmental determinants of mental health, the risks and potential benefits of psychedelic use, and the responsible implementation of artificial intelligence in healthcare. His academic training spans Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He holds an MD from Karolinska Institutet and a PhD from the University of Gothenburg, and has held a research fellowship at the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing in London and a visiting scholarship at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.