Moral bioenhancement: a discussion of the conceptual and practical considerations
| dc.contributor.author | Schroeder, Nicholas | |
| dc.contributor.examiningcommittee | McArthur, Neil (Philosophy) | en_US |
| dc.contributor.examiningcommittee | Faubert, Michelle (English) | en_US |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | Schafer, Arthur (Philosophy) | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2019-04-12T19:57:51Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2019-04-12T19:57:51Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2019-03-29 | en_US |
| dc.date.submitted | 2019-03-29T17:28:10Z | en |
| dc.degree.discipline | Philosophy | en_US |
| dc.degree.level | Master of Arts (M.A.) | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | In recent literature, there has been much debate about the conceptual and practical considerations for moral bioenhancement. Many authors offer competing views on what moral bioenhancement might be. Furthermore, authors argue that if moral bioenhancement were safe and effective, then how a project to biomedically enhance the moral character of humanity could look. In this thesis, I explore many of the dominant understandings and definitions of moral bioenhancement. Specifically, I examine the distinction between treatment and enhancement, a welfarist definition of enhancement and three conceptions of moral bioenhancement offered by Douglas (2008), DeGrazia (2014), and Ahlskog (2017). I then present the definition of moral bioenhancement I believe to be most defensible and plausible. I go on to defend this definition from criticisms which argue that any conception of moral bioenhancement requires a consensus on what comprises a morally desirable action. The next two sections of this thesis explore the potential goals and implementation methods of a moral bioenhancement project. I first examine the universal and compulsory version of a moral bioenhancement project favoured by Persson and Savulescu (2008) which aims to mitigate the threat of catastrophic harms to humanity. I argue that such a project would be implausible to implement and would unacceptably limit individual freedom. However, I defend a position offered by Persson and Savulescu’s that argues there are no important differences between moral bioenhancement and traditional moral enhancement in respect to free will. Lastly, I present a more plausible and defensible version of a moral bioenhancement project which relies on voluntary and partial moral bioenhancement. I outline the goal of this moral bioenhancement project as reducing all societal harms rather than merely avoiding existential threats to humanity and argue that this goal is more defensible than Persson and Savulescu’s project. I then defend a voluntary and partial moral bioenhancement project from the criticism that argues any such project which relies on individuals voluntarily undergoing moral bioenhancement would fail as it would require people to be sufficiently morally motivated to begin with. I argue that there is, at least, a plausibility that voluntary moral bioenhancement could be prudentially good and that self-interested individuals could be sufficiently motivated to undergo such a project. I conclude by saying that much more research into moral bioenhancement is necessary to make such a project even a distant future possibility. Furthermore, any plausible moral bioenhancement project must be accompanied by an education program. | en_US |
| dc.description.note | May 2019 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1993/33857 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | en_US |
| dc.rights | open access | en_US |
| dc.subject | Ethics | en_US |
| dc.subject | Moral enhancement | en_US |
| dc.subject | Philosophy | en_US |
| dc.title | Moral bioenhancement: a discussion of the conceptual and practical considerations | en_US |
| dc.type | master thesis | en_US |