NSCI 301 - Moral enhancement

principles of biomedical ethics

• autonomy

• beneficence at the individual not societal level

• nonmaleficence

• justice — only one that considers the collective

• flawed: ppl r starting to think it’s a very western framework and autonomy is not the most important thing

moral enhancement definition

moral agent = increase in moral value of actions and character

moral bioenhancement

increasing moral value thru medical, pharmacological or biotechnological means

moral enhancement example

increase in:

• empathic concern

• personal responsibility

• social norm compliance

• respect for societal and global fairness

• empathy and compassion for distant individuals

contrastive vignette method

• 2 versions of the same scenario: minimally contrastive

• vignettes randomly assigned to participants

• participants unaware that other contrastive version exists

• answer identical questions

• outcome measure: diff in group means between conditions