Moral Enhancement
Critical Perspectives

Contains notable essays on moral enhancement based on the 2016 Royal Institute of Philosophy annual conference.

Michael Hauskeller (Edited by), Lewis Coyne (Edited by)

9781108717342, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 22 November 2018

454 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.65 kg

The papers collected in this volume examine moral enhancement: the idea that we should morally improve people through the manipulation of their biological constitution. Whether moral enhancement is possible or even desirable is highly controversial. Proponents argue that it is necessary if we are to address various social ills and avert catastrophic climate change. Detractors have raised a variety of concerns, some of a practical nature and others of principle. Perhaps most fundamentally, however, the proposal forces us to ask anew what being moral actually means, in order for the idea of moral enhancement to make sense at all. The present collection both addresses these issues and moves the debate beyond its current parameters, bringing together authors with a wide range of perspectives and areas of expertise. Chapters variously draw on experimental psychology, social philosophy, pragmatism, Kantian and Aristotelian moral philosophy, and the ethics of care, sex, and psychedelics.

Introduction Michael Hauskeller and Lewis Coyne
1. What is moral enhancement? Mark Rowlands
2. The trouble with moral enhancement Inmaculada de Melo-Martín
3. The sins of moral enhancement discourse Harris Wiseman
4. Moral enhancement as a collective action problem Walter Glannon
5. Would Aristotle have seen the wrongness of slavery if he had undergone a course of moral enhancement? Nigel Pleasants
6. Moral enhancement and the human condition Edward Skidelsky
7. Kantian challenges for the bioenhancement of moral autonomy Anna Frammartino Wilks
8. Enhancing care Teodora Manea
9. Moral epistemic enhancement Norbert Paulo
10. Biomedical moral enhancement in the face of moral particularism Peter Shiu-Hwa Tsu and Pei-Hua Huang
11. Is moral enhancement a right, or a threat to rights? John Shook
12. Moral enhancement and moral freedom: a critique of the Little Alex problem John Danaher
13. Retributivism and the moral enhancement of criminals Elizabeth Shaw
14. Lone wolf terrorists and the impotence of moral enhancement Valerie Gray Hardcastle
15. Moral enhancement, instrumentalism, and integrative ethical education Giuseppe Turchi
16. The experimental psychology of moral enhancement Sylvia Terbeck and Kathryn Francis
17. Drugs and hugs: stimulating moral dispositions as a method of moral enhancement Micha? Klincewicz, Lily Frank and Marta Sokólska
18. An unfit future: moral enhancement and technological harm Lewis Coyne
19. Climate change and moral enhancement Aleksandra Kulawska and Michael Hauskeller
20. Should we biochemically enhance sexual fidelity? Robbie Arrell
21. Psychedelic moral enhancement Brian D. Earp.

Subject Areas: Bio-ethics [PSAD], Ethical issues & debates [JFM], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Philosophy [HP]