Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Abstract: In this thesis, I examine the extent to which moral enhancement, the biomedical alteration of an \nindividual’s disposition to act according to good or bad motives, will in uence his capacity for selfgovernance. \nFollowing a discussion of the salient features of moral enhancement, a plausible list of \nconditions against which to measure the compatibility of moral enhancement with personal autonomy \nis expounded. e core elements of moral enhancement are weighed against these conditions in order \nto establish the ways in which these core elements are compatible with the conditions of personal \nautonomy. \nI argue that moral enhancement need not lead to a diminishment of personal autonomy, provided it \nserves merely as a mechanism to help an agent overcome the deterministic limitations that prevent him \nfrom bringing his lower-order desires into conformity with the higher-order desires that he has arrived \nat through independent, thoughtful deliberation.
Author: Lucas M. Venter
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W126074847