Why Moral Enhancement is Unavoidably Normative

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 105-106
Author(s):  
Paul Rezkalla
Keyword(s):  
Moral Enhancement

Neurointerventions, Morality, and Children

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Clayton ◽  
Andres Moles
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Moral Enhancement ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Conduct ◽  
Moral Behaviour ◽  
Moral Constraint ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Moral Limits

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.

scholarly journals Why a Virtual Assistant for Moral Enhancement When We Could have a Socrates?

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Lara
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Virtual Reality ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Moral Enhancement ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
Educational Methodology ◽  
Better Than

AbstractCan Artificial Intelligence (AI) be more effective than human instruction for the moral enhancement of people? The author argues that it only would be if the use of this technology were aimed at increasing the individual's capacity to reflectively decide for themselves, rather than at directly influencing behaviour. To support this, it is shown how a disregard for personal autonomy, in particular, invalidates the main proposals for applying new technologies, both biomedical and AI-based, to moral enhancement. As an alternative to these proposals, this article proposes a virtual assistant that, through dialogue, neutrality and virtual reality technologies, can teach users to make better moral decisions on their own. The author concludes that, as long as certain precautions are taken in its design, such an assistant could do this better than a human instructor adopting the same educational methodology.

scholarly journals The Experimental Psychology of Moral Enhancement: We Should If We Could, But We Can't

2018 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 313-328
Author(s):  
Sylvia Terbeck ◽  
Kathryn B. Francis
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Psychological Assessment ◽  
Experimental Psychology ◽  
Human Enhancement ◽  
Moral Enhancement ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Problems And Solutions ◽  
Moral Behaviour ◽  
Experimental Findings

AbstractIn this chapter we will review experimental evidence related to pharmacological moral enhancement. Firstly, we will present our recent study in which we found that a drug called propranolol could change moral judgements. Further research, which also investigated this, found similar results. Secondly, we will discuss the limitations of such approaches, when it comes to the idea of general “human enhancement”. Whilst promising effects on certain moral concepts might be beneficial to the development of theoretical moral psychology, enhancement of human moral behaviour in general – to our current understanding – has more side-effects than intended effects, making it potentially harmful. We give an overview of misconceptions when taking experimental findings beyond the laboratory and discuss the problems and solutions associated with the psychological assessment of moral behaviour. Indeed, how is morality “measured” in psychology, and are those measures reliable?

Is Moral Enhancement a Right, or a Threat to Rights?

2018 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 209-231
Author(s):  
John R. Shook
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Moral Enhancement ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Technological Capacity ◽  
Just Society

AbstractEnhancements for morality could become technologically practical at the expense of becoming unethical and uncivil. A mode of moral enhancement intensifying a person's imposition of conformity upon others, labeled here as “moral righteousness”, is particularly problematic. Moral energies contrary to expansions of civil rights and liberties can drown out reasoned justifications for equality and freedom, delaying social progress. The technological capacity of moral righteousness in the hands of a majority could impose puritanical conformities and override some rights and liberties. Fortunately, there cannot be a human right or a civil right to access righteous moral enhancement, and governments would be prudent to forbid such technology for moral righteousness. From an enlarged perspective, less righteousness could lead to a more just society. Going further, if a neurological intervention for moral righteousness could be invented, so too could moral de-enhancement, here labeled as “moral toleration”. Perhaps moral toleration deserves as much commendation as so-called moral enhancement. Justice with less delay can be justice enhanced.

scholarly journals The current debate: (C+M) E and ultimate harm

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 87-96
Author(s):  
Vojin Rakic
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Enhancement ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Moral Enhancement ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Ultimate Harm

Persson and Savulescu (2011b) is a largely successful defense of the position promoted in Persson and Savulescu (2008) against Fenton?s critique of this position in Fenton (2009). However, one of Fenton?s essential censures has remained without response: if moral enhancement (ME) is to occur at the genetic or biological level, as Persson and Savulescu suppose it can and ought to, it will not be possible without significant scientific progress, including cognitive enhancement (CE) by bio-medical means. I will offer a response here to this critique Fenton raised-a response Persson and Savulecu did not give. It will be based on the concept of ?integrated neuroenhancement?, abbreviated (C+M) E.

scholarly journals Γιατί οι ηθικές βελτιώσεις χαρακτήρα είναι καταδικασμένες να αποτύχουν; Η κριτική των φιλοσοφιών της αρετής

Bioethica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Ελένη Καλοκαιρινού (Eleni Kalokairinou)
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Basic Element ◽  
Moral Enhancement ◽  
Human Autonomy ◽  
The Way

All kinds of enhancements, cognitive, physical, psychological, moral etc. are at the center of moral debates nowadays. In particular the moral enhancements of character by virtue of pharmacological and biotechnological means are widely discussed, as they raise a number of questions regarding human autonomy and freedom. In the present article, we argue that if we study carefully the way in which the moral enhancements are applied according to the bioethicists Julian Savulescu and Ingmar Persson, we will realize that they are logically impossible. That is, if we analyze the logical procedure of enhancing characters morally, as this is presented in Aristotle’s and Kant’s moral account, then we will understand that the kind of moral enhancement of character by virtue of biotechnological means which the two philosophers put forward is doomed to fail. Furthermore, we will also understand that the two philosophers offer an impoverished conception of morality, since reason, the basic element of the moral process, plays no role in the account of moral reasoning they propound.

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