Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 83:329-350 (2018)
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Abstract |
Advocates of moral enhancement through pharmacological, genetic, or other direct interventions sometimes explicitly argue, or assume without argument, that traditional moral education and development is insufficient to bring about moral enhancement. Traditional moral education grounded in a Kohlbergian theory of moral development is indeed unsuitable for that task; however, the psychology of moral development and education has come a long way since then. Recent studies support the view that moral cognition is a higher-order process, unified at a functional level, and that a specific moral faculty does not exist. It is more likely that moral cognition involves a number of different mechanisms, each connected to other cognitive and affective processes. Taking this evidence into account, we propose a novel, empirically informed approach to moral development and education, in children and adults, which is based on a cognitive-affective approach to moral dispositions. This is an interpretative approach that derives from the cognitive-affective personality system (Mischel and Shoda, 1995). This conception individuates moral dispositions by reference to the cognitive and affective processes that realise them. Conceived of in this way, moral dispositions influence an agent's behaviour when they interact with situational factors, such as mood or social context. Understanding moral dispositions in this way lays the groundwork for proposing a range of indirect methods of moral enhancement, techniques that promise similar results as direct interventions whilst posing fewer risks.
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Keywords | moral enhancement character moral dispositions |
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DOI | 10.1017/S1358246118000437 |
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References found in this work BETA
Universal Moral Grammar: Theory, Evidence, and the Future.John Mikhail - 1912 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11 (4):143 –152.
Situationism and Virtue Ethics on the Content of Our Character.Rachana Kamtekar - 2004 - Ethics 114 (3):458-491.
A Dissociation Between Moral Judgments and Justifications.Marc Hauser, Fiery Cushman, Liane Young, J. I. N. Kang-Xing & John Mikhail - 2007 - Mind and Language 22 (1):1–21.
Lack of Character? Situationism Critiqued.John Sabini & Maury Silver - 2005 - Ethics 115 (3):535-562.
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Citations of this work BETA
What Do We Have to Lose? Offloading Through Moral Technologies: Moral Struggle and Progress.Lily Eva Frank - 2020 - Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (1):369-385.
Genomic Obsolescence: What Constitutes an Ontological Threat to Human Nature?Michal Klincewicz & Lily Frank - 2019 - American Journal of Bioethics 19 (7):39-40.
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