The ethical permissibility of moral bioenhancement technologies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14422/pen.v75.i283.y2019.022Keywords:
moral enhancement, freedom, ethical permissibilityAbstract
The recent advances in neuroscience, and the life sciences in general, have made possible not only to treat and restore damaged functions but someday may allow us to improve and enhance functions in healthy people. The wide range of applications of biotechnology and pharmacology target the proximate mechanisms that are thought to be impaired in the clinical population. Recently, it has been shown that some of these medications could affect complex human behavior, such as morality in healthy people (Crockett et al. 2015), which open the window to a deeper understanding of human nature. To what extent is ethically permissible to alter brain neurochemistry or modulate some brain region to intervene in moral behavior? Is moral bioenhancement intrinsically wrong? How can we know the undesirable side-effects and how to weighing them in a cost/benefit analysis of a given intervention? Does moral bioenhancement pose a threat to human freedom? Considering two polar opposites, DeGrazia (2014) and Harris (2011), on the ethical challenges of moral bioenhancement is suggested that if traditional bioethical principles of safety, effectiveness and universality are met there´s nothing wrong with moral bioenhancement per se and therefore is ethically permissible.Downloads
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