Moral Enhancement: Critical Perspectives(Series Number 83 Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements)

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.

Table of Contents:
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 Michał 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.