The Duty to be Morally Enhanced

Topoi 38 (1):7-14 (2019)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

We have a duty to try to develop and apply safe and cost-effective means to increase the probability that we shall do what we morally ought to do. It is here argued that this includes biomedical means of moral enhancement, that is, pharmaceutical, neurological or genetic means of strengthening the central moral drives of altruism and a sense of justice. Such a strengthening of moral motivation is likely to be necessary today because common-sense morality having its evolutionary origin in small-scale societies with primitive technology will become much more demanding if it is revised to serve the needs of contemporary globalized societies with an advanced technology capable of affecting conditions of life world-wide for centuries to come.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,388

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2017-04-13

Downloads
94 (#230,870)

6 months
7 (#469,699)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Julian Savulescu
Oxford University
Ingmar Persson
Oxford University

References found in this work

Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement.Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu - 2012 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK. Edited by Julian Savulescu.
Moral enhancement and freedom.John Harris - 2010 - Bioethics 25 (2):102-111.
The Art of Misunderstanding Moral Bioenhancement.Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu - 2015 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 24 (1):48-57.

Add more references