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  1. Moral enhancement and freedom.John Harris - 2010 - Bioethics 25 (2):102-111.
    This paper identifies human enhancement as one of the most significant areas of bioethical interest in the last twenty years. It discusses in more detail one area, namely moral enhancement, which is generating significant contemporary interest. The author argues that so far from being susceptible to new forms of high tech manipulation, either genetic, chemical, surgical or neurological, the only reliable methods of moral enhancement, either now or for the foreseeable future, are either those that have been in human and (...)
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  • Amoral Enhancement.Saskia E. Verkiel - 2017 - Journal of Medical Ethics 43 (1):52-55.
    Moral enhancement can be an attractive proposal, but contrary to cognitive enhancement, it is hard to define what kind of intervention would constitute moral enhancement. In an ongoing debate about the subject, Douglas argued that biomedically decreasing countermoral emotions would do so and would be morally permissible in particular cases. Harris disagreed, and one of his arguments is that failing to address the intellectual aspects of moral decisions—and simply targeting countermoral emotions—would effectively undermine our freedom by reducing our options to (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Moral enhancement.Thomas Douglas - 2008 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (3):228-245.
    Opponents of biomedical enhancement often claim that, even if such enhancement would benefit the enhanced, it would harm others. But this objection looks unpersuasive when the enhancement in question is a moral enhancement — an enhancement that will expectably leave the enhanced person with morally better motives than she had previously. In this article I (1) describe one type of psychological alteration that would plausibly qualify as a moral enhancement, (2) argue that we will, in the medium-term future, probably be (...)
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  • The perils of cognitive enhancement and the urgent imperative to enhance the moral character of humanity.Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu - 2008 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (3):162-177.
    abstract As history shows, some human beings are capable of acting very immorally. 1 Technological advance and consequent exponential growth in cognitive power means that even rare evil individuals can act with catastrophic effect. The advance of science makes biological, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction easier and easier to fabricate and, thus, increases the probability that they will come into the hands of small terrorist groups and deranged individuals. Cognitive enhancement by means of drugs, implants and biological (including (...)
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  • Moral Neuroenhancement.Brian D. Earp, Thomas Douglas & Julian Savulescu - 2017 - In L. Syd M. Johnson & Karen S. Rommelfanger (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Neuroethics. Routledge.
    In this chapter, we introduce the notion of “moral neuroenhancement,” offering a novel definition as well as spelling out three conditions under which we expect that such neuroenhancement would be most likely to be permissible (or even desirable). Furthermore, we draw a distinction between first-order moral capacities, which we suggest are less promising targets for neurointervention, and second-order moral capacities, which we suggest are more promising. We conclude by discussing concerns that moral neuroenhancement might restrict freedom or otherwise “misfire,” and (...)
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  • Moral Bio-enhancement, Freedom, Value and the Parity Principle.Jonathan Pugh - 2019 - Topoi 38 (1):73-86.
    A prominent objection to non-cognitive moral bio-enhancements is that they would compromise the recipient’s ‘freedom to fall’. I begin by discussing some ambiguities in this objection, before outlining an Aristotelian reading of it. I suggest that this reading may help to forestall Persson and Savulescu’s ‘God-Machine’ criticism; however, I suggest that the objection still faces the problem of explaining why the value of moral conformity is insufficient to outweigh the value of the freedom to fall itself. I also question whether (...)
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  • Better Living Through Chemistry? A Reply to Savulescu and Persson on ‘Moral Enhancement’.Robert Sparrow - 2013 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 31 (1):23-32.
    In ‘Moral Enhancement, Freedom, and the God Machine’, Savulescu and Persson argue that recent scientific findings suggest that there is a realistic prospect of achieving ‘moral enhancement’ and respond to Harris's criticism that this would threaten individual freedom and autonomy. I argue that although some pharmaceutical and neuro‐scientific interventions may influence behaviour and emotions in ways that we may be inclined to evaluate positively, describing this as ‘moral enhancement’ presupposes a particular, contested account, of what it is to act morally (...)
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  • Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement.Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu - 2012 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK. Edited by Julian Savulescu.
    Unfit for the Future argues that the future of our species depends on radical enhancement of the moral aspects of our nature. Population growth and technological advances are threatening to undermine the conditions of worthwhile life on earth forever. We need to modify the biological bases of human motivation to deal with this challenge.
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  • Beyond humanity?: the ethics of biomedical enhancement.Allen E. Buchanan - 2011 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    In Beyond Humanity a leading philosopher offers a powerful and controversial exploration of urgent ethical issues concerning human enhancement.
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  • How to Be Good: The Possibility of Moral Enhancement.John Harris - 2016 - Oxford: Oxford University Press UK.
    Knowing how to be good, or knowing how to go about trying to be good, is of immense theoretical and practical importance. And what goes for trying to be good oneself, goes also for trying to provide others with ways of being good, and for trying to make them good whether they like it or not. This is what is meant by 'moral enhancement'. John Harris explores the many proposed methodologies or technologies for moral enhancement: traditional ones like good parenting (...)
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  • The Art of Misunderstanding Moral Bioenhancement.Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu - 2015 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 24 (1):48-57.
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  • Moral enhancement, freedom, and what we (should) value in moral behaviour.David DeGrazia - 2014 - Journal of Medical Ethics 40 (6):361-368.
    The enhancement of human traits has received academic attention for decades, but only recently has moral enhancement using biomedical means – moral bioenhancement (MB) – entered the discussion. After explaining why we ought to take the possibility of MB seriously, the paper considers the shape and content of moral improvement, addressing at some length a challenge presented by reasonable moral pluralism. The discussion then proceeds to this question: Assuming MB were safe, effective, and universally available, would it be morally desirable? (...)
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  • Getting moral enhancement right: The desirability of moral bioenhancement.Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu - 2011 - Bioethics 27 (3):124-131.
    We respond to a number of objections raised by John Harris in this journal to our argument that we should pursue genetic and other biological means of morally enhancing human beings (moral bioenhancement). We claim that human beings now have at their disposal means of wiping out life on Earth and that traditional methods of moral education are probably insufficient to achieve the moral enhancement required to ensure that this will not happen. Hence, we argue, moral bioenhancement should be sought (...)
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  • Enhancements 2.0: Self-Creation Might not be as Lovely as Some Think.Mirko D. Garasic - 2019 - Topoi 38 (1):135-140.
    Recent developments in the study of our brain and neurochemical maps have sparked much enthusiasm in some scholars, making room for speculations over the possibility to shape our morality from within ourselves rather than through [failed] socio-political projects. This paper aims at criticising the prospected scenario put forward by some scholars supporting a specific version of Moral Enhancement as an overly optimistically described manipulative tools. To do so, I will focus on a specific version of Moral Enhancers, namely Emotional Enhancers. (...)
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  • A Clay Person. The Promises of Moral Bioenhancement.Adriano Pessina - 2019 - Topoi 38 (1):87-93.
    The debate on moral bioenhancement—expressed in the acronym MB-is in fact influenced by the requirements of both the market and scientific research and philosophy must avoid an ideological use of its arguments. The moral phenomenon is highly complex and it does not seem likely that MB will be able to produce the desired effects without undermining human freedom, which, however, is a constitutive element of personal morality. There is the risk that MB perceives the human being as “something” to be (...)
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  • Moral Bioenhancement Through Memory-editing: A Risk for Identity and Authenticity?Andrea Lavazza - 2019 - Topoi 38 (1):15-27.
    Moral bioenhancement is the attempt to improve human behavioral dispositions, especially in relation to the great ethical challenges of our age. To this end, scientists have hypothesised new molecules or even permanent changes in the genetic makeup to achieve such moral bioenhancement. The philosophical debate has focused on the permissibility and desirability of that enhancement and the possibility of making it mandatory, given the positive result that would follow. However, there might be another way to enhance the overall moral behavior (...)
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  • The Role of Emotion Modulation in Moral Bioenhancement Debate.Karolina Kudlek - 2019 - Topoi 38 (1):113-123.
    This paper aims to analyze technical and internal aspects of one particular type of human moral enhancement, i.e. enhancement of moral motivation via direct emotion modulation. More precisely, it challenges the assumption that modifying certain emotions will have the results desired by the advocates of this theory. It is argued that neuropsychological understanding of the role and function of emotions, as well as of underlying cognitive mechanisms, might be relevant for the discussion about biomedical enhancement of moral capacities. Moreover, typical (...)
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  • An Obligation to Enhance?Anton Vedder - 2019 - Topoi 38 (1):49-52.
    This article discusses some rather formal characteristics of possible obligations to enhance. Obligations to enhance can exist in the absence of good moral reasons. If obligation and duty however are considered as synonyms, the enhancement involved must be morally desirable in some respect. Since enhancers and enhanced can, but need not coincide, advertency is appropriate regarding the question who exactly is addressed by an obligation or a duty to enhance: the person on whom the enhancing treatment is performed, or the (...)
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  • The myth of the moral brain: the limits of moral enhancement.Harris Wiseman - 2016 - Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
    An argument that moral functioning is immeasurably complex, mediated by biology but not determined by it. Throughout history, humanity has been seen as being in need of improvement, most pressingly in need of moral improvement. Today, in what has been called the beginnings of “the golden age of neuroscience,” laboratory findings claim to offer insights into how the brain “does” morality, even suggesting that it is possible to make people more moral by manipulating their biology. Can “moral bioenhancement”—using technological or (...)
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