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Unfit for the Future? Human Nature, Scientific Progress, and the Need for Moral Enhancement

In Julian Savulescu, Ruud ter Meulen & Guy Kahane (eds.), Enhancing Human Capacities. Blackwell. pp. 486–500 (2011)

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  1. Enhancement umano: un dibattito in corso.Boris Rähme, Lucia Galvagni & Alberto Bondolfi (eds.) - 2014 - L'Arco di Giano - Rivista di Medical Humanities.
    Non è un caso che l’enhancement umano, cioè il potenziamento di capacità fisiche, cognitive ed emotive degli esseri umani con l’ausilio di tecnologie, sia diventato un tema centrale nei dibattiti etico-applicativi e nei tentativi contemporanei di arrivare a una comprensione più adeguata della natura umana. In esso si incontrano quesiti decisamente ricchi e complessi, sia dal punto di vista tecnoscientifico e medico sia da quello filosofico – e lo fanno in un modo che ci permette di vedere questi quesiti sotto (...)
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  • Egalitarianism and Moral Bioenhancement.Robert Sparrow - 2014 - American Journal of Bioethics 14 (4):20-28.
    A number of philosophers working in applied ethics and bioethics are now earnestly debating the ethics of what they term “moral bioenhancement.” I argue that the society-wide program of biological manipulations required to achieve the purported goals of moral bioenhancement would necessarily implicate the state in a controversial moral perfectionism. Moreover, the prospect of being able to reliably identify some people as, by biological constitution, significantly and consistently more moral than others would seem to pose a profound challenge to egalitarian (...)
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  • From cognitive to moral enhancement: A possible reconciliation of religious outlooks and the biotechnological creation of a better human.Vojin Rakic - 2012 - Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 11 (31):113-128.
    Religious outlooks on the use of new bio-technologies for the purpose of cognitive enhancement of humans are generally not favorably disposed to interventions in what is regarded as ordained by God or shaped by nature. I will present a number of perspectives that are derived from these outlooks and contrast them to the liberal standpoint. Subsequently, I will discuss two views that are compatible with religious outlooks, but that do not exclude cognitive enhancement altogether. They only pose significant moral limitations (...)
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  • Empathy training through virtual reality: moral enhancement with the freedom to fall?Anda Zahiu, Emilian Mihailov, Brian D. Earp, Kathryn B. Francis & Julian Savulescu - 2023 - Ethics and Information Technology 25 (4):1-14.
    We propose to expand the conversation around moral enhancement from direct brain-altering methods to include technological means of modifying the environments and media through which agents can achieve moral improvement. Virtual Reality (VR) based enhancement would not bypass a person’s agency, much less their capacity for reasoned reflection. It would allow agents to critically engage with moral insights occasioned by a technologically mediated intervention. Users would gain access to a vivid ‘experience machine’ that allows for embodied presence and immersion in (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Drugs and Hugs: Stimulating Moral Dispositions as a Method of Moral Enhancement.Michał Klincewicz, Lily Eva Frank & Marta Sokólska - 2018 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 83:329-350.
    Advocates of moral enhancement through pharmacological, genetic, or other direct interventions sometimes explicitly argue, or assume without argument, that traditional moral education and development is insufficient to bring about moral enhancement. Traditional moral education grounded in a Kohlbergian theory of moral development is indeed unsuitable for that task; however, the psychology of moral development and education has come a long way since then. Recent studies support the view that moral cognition is a higher-order process, unified at a functional level, and (...)
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  • Climate Change, Moral Bioenhancement and the Ultimate Mostropic.Jon Rueda - 2020 - Ramon Llull Journal of Applied Ethics 11:277-303.
    Tackling climate change is one of the most demanding challenges of humanity in the 21st century. Still, the efforts to mitigate the current environmental crisis do not seem enough to deal with the increased existential risks for the human and other species. Persson and Savulescu have proposed that our evolutionarily forged moral psychology is one of the impediments to facing as enormous a problem as global warming. They suggested that if we want to address properly some of the most pressing (...)
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  • De Günther Anders al transhumanismo: la obsolescencia del ser humano y la mejora moral.Virginia Ballesteros - 2020 - Isegoría 63:289-310.
    This paper critically compares the philosophy of Günther Anders and the contemporary transhumanists, like Julian Savulescu, Ingmar Persson, or Thomas Douglas. The Andersian concepts of moral blindness, promethean gap, and promethean shame will be discussed in order to understand human beings’ outdatedness; parallel to this, we will also expose the transhumanist analysis on the unfitness of human beings in evolutive and cognitive terms. We will show that much of the transhumanist analysis is a reformulation of the Andersian thesis, now under (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Drugs and Hugs: Stimulating Moral Dispositions as a Method of Moral Enhancement.Michał Klincewicz, Lily Eva Frank & Marta Sokólska - 2018 - In Michael Hauskeller & Lewis Coyne (eds.), Moral Enhancement: Critical Perspectives. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
    Advocates of moral enhancement through pharmacological, genetic, or other direct interventions sometimes explicitly argue, or assume without argument, that traditional moral education and development is insufficient to bring about moral enhancement. Traditional moral education grounded in a Kohlbergian theory of moral development is indeed unsuitable for that task; however, the psychology of moral development and education has come a long way since then. Recent studies support the view that moral cognition is a higher-order process, unified at a functional level, and (...)
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  • Possibilities of Moral Progress in the Face of Evolution.Julia Hermann - 2017 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20 (1):39-54.
    Evolutionary accounts of the origin of human morality may be speculative to some extent, but they contain some very plausible claims, such as the claim that ethics evolved as a response to the demands of group living. Regarding the phenomenon of moral progress, it has been argued both that it is ruled out by an evolutionary approach, and that it can be explained by it. It has even been claimed that an evolutionary account has the potential to advance progress in (...)
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  • The story of humanity and the challenge of posthumanity.Zoltán Boldizsár Simon - 2019 - History of the Human Sciences 32 (2).
    Today’s technological-scientific prospect of posthumanity simultaneously evokes and defies historical understanding. On the one hand, it implies a historical claim of an epochal transformation concerning posthumanity as a new era. On the other, by postulating the birth of a novel, better-than-human subject for this new era, it eliminates the human subject of modern Western historical understanding. In this article, I attempt to understand posthumanity as measured against the story of humanity as the story of history itself. I examine the fate (...)
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  • Autonomy and the Ethics of Biological Behaviour Modification.Julian Savulescu, Thomas Douglas & Ingmar Persson - 2014 - In Akira Akabayashi (ed.), The Future of Bioethics: International Dialogues. New York: Oxford University Press.
    Much disease and disability is the result of lifestyle behaviours. For example, the contribution of imprudence in the form of smoking, poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, and drug and alcohol abuse to ill-health is now well established. More importantly, some of the greatest challenges facing humanity as a whole – climate change, terrorism, global poverty, depletion of resources, abuse of children, overpopulation – are the result of human behaviour. In this chapter, we will explore the possibility of using advances in the (...)
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  • Artificial Intelligence as a Means to Moral Enhancement.Michał Klincewicz - 2016 - Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 48 (1):171-187.
    This paper critically assesses the possibility of moral enhancement with ambient intelligence technologies and artificial intelligence presented in Savulescu and Maslen (2015). The main problem with their proposal is that it is not robust enough to play a normative role in users’ behavior. A more promising approach, and the one presented in the paper, relies on an artifi-cial moral reasoning engine, which is designed to present its users with moral arguments grounded in first-order normative theories, such as Kantianism or utilitarianism, (...)
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  • Cognitive Self‐Enhancement as a Duty to Oneself: A Kantian Perspective.Katharina Bauer - 2018 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 56 (1):36-58.
    Recently some bioethicists and neuroscientists have argued for an imperative of chemical cognitive enhancement. This imperative is usually based on consequentialist grounds. In this paper, the topic of cognitive self-enhancement is discussed from a Kantian point of view in order to shed new light on the controversial debate. With Kant, it is an imperfect duty to oneself to strive for perfecting one’s own natural and moral capacities beyond one’s natural condition, but there is no duty to enhance others. A Kantian (...)
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  • Moral Bioenhancement, Social Biases, and the Regulation of Empathy.Keisha Ray & Lori Gallegos de Castillo - 2019 - Topoi 38 (1):125-133.
    Some proponents of moral bioenhancement propose that people should utilize biomedical practices to enhance the faculties and traits that are associated with moral agency, such as empathy and a sense of justice. The hope is that doing so will improve our ability to meet the moral challenges that have emerged in our contemporary, globalized world. In this paper, we caution against this view by arguing that biomedically inducing more empathy may, in fact, diminish moral agency. We argue that this type (...)
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  • Moral Bioenhancement Probably Won’t Improve Things for Animals.Bob Fischer - 2019 - Topoi 38 (1):141-151.
    Persson and Savulescu are advocates for moral bioenhancement—i.e., using drug treatments and genetic engineering to enhance our core moral dispositions. Among other things, they suggest that moral bioenhancement would improve how we treat animals. My goal here is to argue that we have little reason to think that moral bioenhancement will help in this regard. What’s more, it may make things worse. This is because there are cognitive mechanisms that lead us to discount animal interests relative to human interests—mechanisms not (...)
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  • (1 other version)"Voluntary moral enhancement and the survival-at-any-cost bias".Vojin Rakić - 2014 - Journal of Medical Ethics 40 (4):246-250.
    I discuss the argument of Persson and Savulescu that moral enhancement ought to accompany cognitive enhancement, as well as briefly addressing critiques of this argument, notably by John Harris. I argue that Harris, who believes that cognitive enhancement is largely sufficient for making us behave more morally, might be disposing too easily of the great quandary of our moral existence: the gap between what we do and what we believe is morally right to do. In that regard, Persson and Savulescu's (...)
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  • The Use of Animal Models in Behavioural Neuroscience Research.B. Bovenkerk & F. Kaldewaij - unknown
    Animal models are used in experiments in the behavioural neurosciences that aim to contribute to the prevention and treatment of cognitive and affective disorders in human beings, such as anxiety and depression. Ironically, those animals that are likely to be the best models for psychopathology are also likely to be considered the ones that are most morally problematic to use, if it seems probable that (and if indeed they are initially selected as models because) they have experiences that are similar (...)
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  • ‘The Thorny and Arduous Path of Moral Progress’: Moral Psychology and Moral Enhancement.Chris Zarpentine - 2013 - Neuroethics 6 (1):141-153.
    The moral enhancement of humans by biological or genetic means has recently been urged as a response to the pressing concerns facing human civilization. In this paper, I argue that proponents of biological moral enhancement have misrepresented the facts of human moral psychology. As a result, the likely effectiveness of traditional methods of moral enhancement has been underestimated, relative to biological or genetic means. I review arguments in favor of biological moral enhancement and argue that the complexity of moral psychology (...)
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  • Saradnja, osećaj za pravdu i neuropoboljšanje.Ivan Mladenovic - 2015 - Theoria: Beograd 1 (58):69-82.
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  • Criminal Responsibility and Neuroscience: No Revolution Yet.Ariane Bigenwald & Valerian Chambon - 2019 - Frontiers in Psychology 10.
    Since the 90’s, neurolaw is on the rise. At the heart of heated debates lies the recurrent theme of a neuro-revolution of criminal responsibility. However, caution should be observed: the alleged foundations of criminal responsibility (amongst which free will) are often inaccurate and the relative imperviousness of its real foundations to scientific facts often underestimated. Neuroscientific findings may impact on social institutions, but only insofar as they also engage in a political justification of the changes being called for, convince populations, (...)
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  • Moral Enhancement and Political Realism.Marcelo de Araujo - 2014 - Journal of Evolution and Technology 24 (2):29-43.
    The possibility of morally enhancing the behavior of individuals by means of drugs and genetic engineering has been the object of intense philosophical discussion over the last few years. However; although moral enhancement may turn out to be useful to promote cooperation in some areas of human interaction; it will not promote cooperation in the domain of international relations in those areas that are critical to state security. Unlike some moral enhancement theorists; I argue that; because of the structure of (...)
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  • A Thomistic appraisal of human enhancement technologies.Jason T. Eberl - 2014 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 35 (4):289-310.
    Debate concerning human enhancement often revolves around the question of whether there is a common “nature” that all human beings share and which is unwarrantedly violated by enhancing one’s capabilities beyond the “species-typical” norm. I explicate Thomas Aquinas’s influential theory of human nature, noting certain key traits commonly shared among human beings that define each as a “person” who possesses inviolable moral status. Understanding the specific qualities that define the nature of human persons, which includes self-conscious awareness, capacity for intellective (...)
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  • The turn for ultimate harm: a reply to Fenton.Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu - 2011 - Journal of Medical Ethics 37 (7):441-444.
    Elizabeth Fenton has criticised an earlier article by the authors in which the claim was made that, by providing humankind with means of causing its destruction, the advance of science and technology has put it in a perilous condition that might take the development of genetic or biomedical techniques of moral enhancement to get out of. The development of these techniques would, however, require further scientific advances, thus forcing humanity deeper into the danger zone created by modern science. Fenton argues (...)
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  • Neuroethics and the Possible Types of Moral Enhancement.John R. Shook - 2012 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 3 (4):3-14.
    Techniques for achieving moral enhancement will modify brain processes to produce what is alleged to be more moral conduct. Neurophilosophy and neuroethics must ponder what “moral enhancement” could possibly be, if possible at all. Objections to the very possibility of moral enhancement, raised from various philosophical and neuroscientific standpoints, fail to justify skepticism, but they do place serious constraints on the kinds of efficacious moral enhancers. While there won't be a “morality pill,” and hopes for global moral enlightenment will remain (...)
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  • (1 other version)Voluntary moral enhancement and the survival-at-any-cost bias.Vojin Rakić - 2014 - Journal of Medical Ethics 40 (4):246-250.
    I discuss the argument of Persson and Savulescu that moral enhancement ought to accompany cognitive enhancement, as well as briefly addressing critiques of this argument, notably by John Harris. I argue that Harris, who believes that cognitive enhancement is largely sufficient for making us behave more morally, might be disposing too easily of the great quandary of our moral existence: the gap between what we do and what we believe is morally right to do. In that regard, Persson and Savulescu's (...)
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  • Enhancing the Species: Genetic Engineering Technologies and Human Persistence.Chris Gyngell - 2012 - Philosophy and Technology 25 (4):495-512.
    Many of the existing ethical analyses of genetic engineering technologies (GET) focus on how they can be used to enhance individuals—to improve individual well-being, health and cognition. There is a gap in the current literature about the specific ways enhancement technologies could be used to improve our populations and species, viewed as a whole. In this paper, I explore how GET may be used to enhance the species through improvements in the gene pool. I argue one aspect of the species (...)
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  • AI and the falling sky: interrogating X-Risk.Nancy S. Jecker, Caesar Alimsinya Atuire, Jean-Christophe Bélisle-Pipon, Vardit Ravitsky & Anita Ho - forthcoming - Journal of Medical Ethics.
    The Buddhist Jātaka tells the tale of a hare lounging under a palm tree who becomes convinced the Earth is coming to an end when a ripe bael fruit falls on its head. Soon all the hares are running; other animals join them, forming a stampede of deer, boar, elk, buffalo, wild oxen, rhinoceros, tigers and elephants, loudly proclaiming the earth is ending.1 In the American retelling, the hare is ‘chicken little,’ and the exaggerated fear is that the sky is (...)
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  • Building the future in the 21st century: In conversation with Yuval Noah Harari.Anton A. van Niekerk - 2020 - HTS Theological Studies 76 (1).
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  • Cognitive-Enhancing Drugs, Behavioral Training and the Mechanism of Cognitive Enhancement.Emma Peng Chien - 2013 - In Elisabeth Hildt & Andreas G. Franke (eds.), Cognitive Enhancement: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Springer. pp. 139-144.
    In this chapter, I propose the mechanism of cognitive enhancement based on studies of cognitive-enhancing drugs and behavioral training. I argue that there are mechanistic differences between cognitive-enhancing drugs and behavioral training due to their different enhancing effects. I also suggest possible mechanisms for cognitive-enhancing drugs and behavioral training and for the synergistic effects of their simultaneous application.
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  • The Ethics of Human Embryo Editing via CRISPR-Cas9 Technology: A Systematic Review of Ethical Arguments, Reasons, and Concerns.Lindsay Wiley, Mattison Cheek, Emily LaFar, Xiaolu Ma, Justin Sekowski, Nikki Tanguturi & Ana Iltis - forthcoming - HEC Forum:1-37.
    The possibility of editing the genomes of human embryos has generated significant discussion and interest as a matter of science and ethics. While it holds significant promise to prevent or treat disease, research on and potential clinical applications of human embryo editing also raise ethical, regulatory, and safety concerns. This systematic review included 223 publications to identify the ethical arguments, reasons, and concerns that have been offered for and against the editing of human embryos using CRISPR-Cas9 technology. We identified six (...)
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  • A future political framework for moral enhancement.Vojin Rakić & Milan Ćirković - 2021 - Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies 30 (1):1-10.
    Various kinds of human bioenhancement represent a major topic of contention in both bioethics and futures studies. Moral enhancement is one of them. It will be argued that voluntary moral bio-enhancement should be based on an opt out moral enhancement scheme. Such a scheme would avoid the challenges of a voluntary moral enhancement opt in scheme. The former has a proper place in a minimal state. It will be explained why such a state can be called Utopia. The concept of (...)
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