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Moral enhancement and personal autonomy.

In this thesis, I examine the extent to which moral enhancement, the biomedical alteration of an
individual’s disposition to act according to good or bad motives, will in uence his capacity for selfgovernance.
Following a discussion of the salient features of moral enhancement, a plausible list of
conditions against which to measure the compatibility of moral enhancement with personal autonomy
is expounded. e core elements of moral enhancement are weighed against these conditions in order
to establish the ways in which these core elements are compatible with the conditions of personal
autonomy.
I argue that moral enhancement need not lead to a diminishment of personal autonomy, provided it
serves merely as a mechanism to help an agent overcome the deterministic limitations that prevent him
from bringing his lower-order desires into conformity with the higher-order desires that he has arrived
at through independent, thoughtful deliberation.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/13185
Date03 October 2013
CreatorsVenter, Lucas
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Formatapplication/pdf, application/pdf

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