Chapter Summary
Opponents of biomedical enhancement often claim that, even if such enhancement would benefit the enhanced, it would harm others. Thomas Douglas argues that this objection looks unpersuasive when the enhancement in question is a moral enhancement — i.e. a modification that will expectably leave the enhanced person with morally better motives than she had previously. In this chapter he: (1) describes one type of psychological alteration that would plausibly qualify as a moral enhancement; (2) argues that we will, in the medium-term future, probably be able to induce such alterations via biomedical intervention; and (3) defends future engagement in such moral enhancements against possible objections. His aim is to present this kind of moral enhancement as a counter-example to the view that biomedical enhancement is always morally impermissible.
This chapter is excerpted from Thomas Douglas (2008) ‘Moral Enhancement,’ Journal of Applied Philosophy (25): 228–245. It appears here by permission of John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
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© 2014 Thomas Douglas
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Douglas, T. (2014). Moral Enhancement. In: Sandler, R.L. (eds) Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137349088_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137349088_16
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