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Journal article

The duty to be morally enhanced

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.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

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Publisher copy:
10.1007/s11245-017-9475-7

Authors


More by this author
Institution:
University of Oxford
Oxford college:
St Cross College
Role:
Author


Publisher:
Springer Verlag
Journal:
Topoi More from this journal
Volume:
38
Issue:
1
Pages:
7–14
Publication date:
2017-04-12
Acceptance date:
2017-03-22
DOI:
EISSN:
1572-8749
ISSN:
0167-7411


Keywords:
Pubs id:
pubs:686697
UUID:
uuid:2b55281e-f0b7-43f5-89a2-519f41f957e1
Local pid:
pubs:686697
Deposit date:
2017-03-23

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