道德增强

Moral Enhancement

生物医学增强的反对者们时常声称,即使这种增强对于增强者来说是有益的,也会对他人造成伤害。但是,当所讨论的增强是一种道德上的增强时,该异议则并不具有多少说服力。这种增强有望使得被增强者拥有比以往更好的道德动机。在本文中,我描述了一种可算作道德增强的心理改变。我主张,在不久的将来,我们也许能够通过生物医学干预来诱发这种改变。我还针对未来进行这种道德增强可能面临的质疑为之进行了辩护。我的目的在于将这种道德增强作为生物医学增强总是道德上不允许的这种观点的反例。

Opponents of biomedical enhancement often claim that,even if such enhancement would benefit the enhanced,it would harm others.But this objection looks unpersuasive when the enhancement in question is a moral enhancement—an enhancement that will expectably leave the enhanced person with morally better motives than she had previously.In this article I(1)describe one type of psychological alteration that would plausibly qualify as a moral enhancement,(2)argue that we will,in the mediumterm future,probably be able to induce such alterations via biomedical intervention,and(3)defend future engagement in such moral enhancements against possible objections.My aim is to present this kind of moral enhancement as a counterexample to the view that biomedical enhancement is always morally impermissible.