[SydPhil] MQ Philosophy Seminar on Tuesday the 29th of August: Dr Nicole A. Vincent (MQ/UNSW)

[Adam Hochman]

Moral Enhancement and Moral Progress




Dr Nicole A. Vincent (MQ/UNSW)



Date: Tuesday, 29th of August
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Venue: W3A 501 (Blackshield room), Macquarie University

All welcome



Abstract: It’s difficult to deny the intuitive appeal of bio-medical moral enhancement (BME). What right-minded individual could possibly scoff at using better tools to make themselves into better versions of themselves, morally speaking, especially when what constitutes “better” is something that reflects their own considered judgments?



Although I acknowledge this intuitive appeal of BME, in this talk I will highlight two under-appreciated concerns. The first concern relates to the potentially detrimental long term cumulative effects of BME. Namely, that over time the repeated use of BME may, somewhat paradoxically, lead to the eventual loss of our normative compass, and, potentially, even to an arrest of moral progress. The second concern is more conceptual in nature. Namely, that a common core intuition behind BME – that moral failures are results of fixable faults in our agential architecture – is fundamentally incompatible with what I take to be the dimensions (as opposed to the contents) of our conventional moral landscape.



In the last part of my talk I will propose a strategy for navigating around these two concerns. On my account, before we start altering ourselves through BME, we should first create social institutions that help us to keep track of the changes we make to ourselves over time, and that feed this information back into our subsequent reasoning about how we have reason to alter ourselves.



Contact: Adam Hochman (adam.hochman at mq.edu.au<mailto:adam.hochman at mq.edu.au>) or Mike Olson (michael.olson at mq.edu.au<mailto:michael.olson at mq.edu.au>)



A google calendar with details of other events in this series is available for viewing and subscription by following this link: goo.gl/3Iu7hk<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/z4nRBmUJzpnhD?domain=goo.gl>

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Adam Hochman
Lecturer in Philosophy & Macquarie University Research Fellow

Department of Philosophy | W6A, Room 733
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia

Staff Profile | http://www.mq.edu.au/about_us/faculties_and_departments/faculty_of_arts/department_of_philosophy/staff/adam_hochman/

Academia.edu Page | https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/rNKaBYfOXEqUa?domain=mq.academia.edu

Philpapers Page | https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/ZXg4BxUGxMdTn?domain=philpapers.org

Personal Website | adamhochman.com
[Macquarie University]<http://mq.edu.au/>

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