O objetivo desta pesquisa é explorar a motivação e as potenciais complicações do uso da tecnologia para melhorar fundamentalmente a condição humana. Inicialmente a pesquisa se debruçará sobre alguns pressupostos filosóficos básicos para a discussão deste melhoramento. Para tal será abordado a heurística evolutiva proposta por Anders Sandberg e Nick Bostrom, em seguida será apresentado brevemente alguns traços básicos da condição humana a saber: cognição, moralidade e ligação afetiva de acordo com a perspectiva da psicologia evolucionista, um passo importante na heurística evolutiva supramencionada. A seguir o trabalho versará especificamente sobre melhoramentos que tenham como alvo a própria moralidade humana, inicialmente sobre as fortes motivações de realizar tal melhoramento, e ao final sobre os riscos e problemas tanto filosóficos como técnicos de tentar realizar tal modificação na moralidade humana. Tentativamente, a análise será original ao (1) aceitar pressupostos dos defensores do melhoramento moral, e sua conclusão de que o mesmo é um imperativo caso conduzido de maneira correta, (2) abandonar alguns dos possíveis contra-argumentos, no entanto, também (3) concluir a existência de severos problemas em potencial no que tange ao melhoramento moral / The intent of this research is to investigate the motivations and potential risks of using technology to alter the human condition. Firstly, it will explore some of the basic philosophical assumptions behind such discussions. Hence, it will evaluate the evolutionary heuristics proposed by Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom and its potential for solving many issues arising when considering human enhancement, therefore introducting one basic philosophical ground when arguing for or against these modifications. Thence, it will be given an introduction to some basic traits of the human condition, e.g.: cognition, morality and pair-bonding, from the perspective of Evolutionary Psychology. Such traits will be then considered as targets for human enhancement. These are important steps in, and thus a application of, the aforementioned evolutionary heuristics. Secondly, this dissertation will specifically investigate the risks of using technology to alter human morality. It will focus on the possibility that attempting to improve human moral dispositions moral enhancement could in fact yield a future without moral value. This analysis will be tentatively novel in that it will focus on risks that could arise even if the claims of moral enhancement advocates are true and some arguments against it unsound

In his recent book, Moral Minds, Marc Hauser claims that humans are genetically endowed with a moral faculty operating in much the same way as our linguistic faculty, and that this faculty delimits normative moral systems. Further, he states that this work represents the beginning of what will become a science of morality. These claims contrast sharply with the conception of human nature presupposed by many of the dominant Western moral theories. For the most part, these conceptions of human nature are not flattering: they suggest that our natural instincts, in large part, or in whole, are not conducive to living a moral life. Given these presuppositions, such theories typically call for setting aside our natural instincts when determining the basis upon which normative moral theory should be established. This thesis seeks to show that there is a middle ground between these two views. On my account, recent scientific learning about innate traits impacting our behaviour towards others can be employed to construct a conception of human nature that is at odds with that used by a number of the dominant Western moral theories. As the impact of such innate traits is constrained by our analytic intellect, however, I argue that views such as Hauser’s overstate the implications for normative moral theory.

In his recent book, Moral Minds, Marc Hauser claims that humans are genetically endowed with a moral faculty operating in much the same way as our linguistic faculty, and that this faculty delimits normative moral systems. Further, he states that this work represents the beginning of what will become a science of morality. These claims contrast sharply with the conception of human nature presupposed by many of the dominant Western moral theories. For the most part, these conceptions of human nature are not flattering: they suggest that our natural instincts, in large part, or in whole, are not conducive to living a moral life. Given these presuppositions, such theories typically call for setting aside our natural instincts when determining the basis upon which normative moral theory should be established. This thesis seeks to show that there is a middle ground between these two views. On my account, recent scientific learning about innate traits impacting our behaviour towards others can be employed to construct a conception of human nature that is at odds with that used by a number of the dominant Western moral theories. As the impact of such innate traits is constrained by our analytic intellect, however, I argue that views such as Hauser’s overstate the implications for normative moral theory.

Thesis (M.A.)--Cleveland State University, 2010. / Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Feb. 16, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-76). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center and also available in print.

This dissertation consists of four manuscripts on the emotion of disgust, all of which are published or in press. These papers report studies linking the emotion of disgust with areas of psychology to which it has seldom been connected. Paper 1 reports findings linking disgust with stress and satiation, providing support for an a priori hypothesis generated on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis of how these inputs should affect disease avoidance behavior. Paper 2 reports the first findings linking disgust with mating strategy, two important areas of psychology that have theoretical relevance for one another but whose connection has yet to be explored. Paper 3 presents the first solid empirical evidence that disgust sensitivity predicts food neophobia. This work also found a theoretically interesting, but unpredicted, connection between food neophobia and mating strategy. Paper 4 pans back, presenting a broader evolutionary framework on the emotions and providing a variety of novel empirical hypotheses for both disgust and sexual arousal. The dissertation then concludes by presenting important questions for future research and describing experiments currently underway to answer questions emerging from this line of research. As a whole, this dissertation and research program aim to a) build bridges between disgust and other domains of psychology such as stress and human mating, b) make methodological contributions to research on disgust, and c) present an evolutionary framework that carries conceptual and empirical implications for disgust and for a broad array of other emotions. / text

Why are projects and project management so cool when managing projects is so problematic? This question is at the heart of this thesis which sets out to find answer using an evolutionary approach to the discipline. A conceptual evolutionary framework for investigation is developed, the heredity of the ideas and concepts that underpin project management are traced and their impact analysed, and a conceptual model of the project management environment is developed to demonstrate how individuals and corporations gain survival benefits from aspects of project management. To further investigate the evolutionary mechanisms that take place in the project management environment, the result of a phenomenological study are presented which show that various project management artefacts emotionally affect individuals, and that those individuals also use the emotional affects to emotionally manipulate others. The conclusions drawn from this investigation are that modern project management delivers cultural survival benefits to individuals and corporations, and its various behaviours and concepts are encoded genetically and memetically across our genes and Western culture. The memetic framework for project management contributes to the field by providing a means to debunk the ‘sacred cows’ of project management; it brings new understandings of how the various ideals, tools and concepts of project management deliver benefits, and to whom; and it provides a agenda for evidence based practice and the democratisation of work where project management is inculcated into the various work domains such as Health, Art, Agriculture, Commerce, etc, rather than a standalone discipline.

What happens when feminist body theory and reductionist theories of biological sex difference are brought together? In this work I take as my starting point the increasing ubiquity of appeals to biology as an explanation for ‘human’ and ‘woman’s’ nature on the one hand, and the reactive and reflexive distancing of biology within feminist body theory on the other, to begin to question the middle ground. I aim to constructively dissent from taking up either of these positions in order to confront the question: what if the reductionists prove to be, even partially, right? In acknowledging that possibility, I am interested in whether/where there is potential for feminist theory to be more relaxed about biologically sex differentiated attributes. I position myself as a women’s studies scholar taking a walk across the campus to see what evidence is being produced by ‘the opposition’. To place my walk in context, I first briefly explore various feminist approaches to the problem of biological sex differences, and the continuing difficulties surrounding binaries and binary thinking. Next, in the main part of the thesis, I review the historical and contemporary reasoning and claims made within three areas of reductionist science that are aligning at this time, and which have been reproached for promoting a return to a more biologically determinist social environment. I then take a brief excursion off campus to demonstrate the dangerous aspects of these scientific enterprises when their interpretation into popular culture is not carefully monitored. Finally, I return again to my own side of the campus to look at some of the ways feminists have already begun the work of overturning outworn and contested conventional theories about biology and human nature in conversation with reductionist theory. Having done this, was it worth the walk? My assessment is that while, in some cases, feminism’s defensive antiessentialism is warranted, there is work being undertaken within these reductionist sciences that is less rigid and reactionary than some critical interpretation would suggest. I conclude that there is a certain futility in feminist body theory’s oppositional stance to biology, and that its utility is put at risk by a continued investment in one side of a binary. Further, my walk across the campus leads me to believe that, while perhaps not imminent, there is every reason to expect that the scientific pursuit of an unequivocal genetic basis for specific sex differentiated behaviours will succeed. That being so, there are spaces where the insights of both sides might be productively brought together so as to avoid the worst excesses of biological determinism and, at the same time, loosen the grip of binary thinking on approaches to biology and the body.

Thesis (M.A.)--Victoria University of Wellington, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2007. / Document formatted into pages; contains xiv, 346 p. Includes bibliographical references.

abstract: Men may engage in financially risky behaviors when seeking mates for several reasons: Risky behaviors can signal to potential mates one's genetic fitness, may facilitate success in status competition with other men, and may be a necessary strategy for gaining sufficient resources to offer potential mates. Once in a relationship, however, the same financial riskiness may be problematic for males, potentially suggesting to partners an interest in (extra-curricular) mate-seeking and placing in jeopardy existing resources available to the partner and the relationship. In the current research, we employed guided visualization scenarios to activate either a mating motivation or no motivation in single and in attached men and women. Participants indicated their preference for either guaranteed sums of money or chances of getting significantly more money accompanied by chances of getting nothing. As predicted, mating motivation led single men to become more risky and attached men to become less risky. These findings replicated across different samples and measures. Interestingly, in all three studies, women exhibited the opposite pattern: Mating motivation led single women to become less financially risky and attached women to become more risky. Thus, two additional experiments were conducted to explore the potential causes of this effect. The results of these latter experiments support the "mate-switching" hypothesis of risk-taking in attached women. That is, women who are able (i.e. have high mate value) were more risky in order to exit an undesirable relationship and move into a better one. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Psychology 2012