Abstract
This article concerns the issue of the moral enhancement of humans through technology. I propose a thought experiment that allows us to identify a new reason against implementing such enhancement. Achieving virtue through a path that involves one’s own effort in making and implementing morally sound decisions deserves greater respect. It also allows us to acknowledge that we are (co)authors of who we become morally. This kind of self-creation seems to be an important part of a meaningful life, and artificial moral enhancement deprives us of it.
Reference16 articles.
1. Aristotle (2014). Nicomachean Ethics, transl. R. Crisp. Cambridge University Press. Original work published ca. 300 B.C.E.
2. Bengson, J., Cuneo, T., Shafer-Landau, R. (2020). Trusting moral intuitions. Noûs, 54(4), 956–984. https://doi.org/10.1111/nous.12291
3. Buchanan, A. (2009). Moral status and human enhancement. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 37(4), 346–381. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40468461
4. Eberl, J.T. (2018). Can prudence be enhanced? The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy: A Forum for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine, 43(5), 506–526. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhy021
5. Fabiano, J. (2018). Probing the Risks of Moral Enhancement [PhD thesis]. University of Oxford.