Talk:Dual process theory (moral psychology)

LSE project

We will be working on improving this page in March 2019 as part of the LSE project, Genes, Brains and Society. J.birch2 (talk) 15:49, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure this page is the best place for material on moral enhancement. I'm just noting this here to allow discussion. J.birch2 (talk) 11:40, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Agreed - I can't see how it's relevant to this article. If anywhere, I'd say it belongs in moral enhancement. Lcscnc (talk) 02:37, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

The project formally wraps up on 29 April. Participants are still welcome to contribute in their own time after this. J.birch2 (talk) 14:39, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Query

I see the following in the article.

Core commitments of the dual process theory

The dual process account asserts that human beings have two separate methods for moral reasoning. The theory makes use of recent scientific findings about the workings of the brain to come up with a criteria for assessing our intuitions and moral judgments. If these inner workings can be revealed; then we may have less confidence in our ethical judgments.

I am commenting here rather than slapping on a demand for a reliable source, because I find such demands unsightly.

My comment is about the last sentence: If these inner workings can be revealed; then we may have less confidence in our ethical judgments.

The semi-colon puzzles me; it is not usual to use a semi-colon so.

The logic of the sentence seems questionable or strange; I think it needs adjustment or a reliable source. Please comment.Chjoaygame (talk) 07:07, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I can't see this any more in the article, so I assume it has been amended or removed. J.birch2 (talk) 14:35, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Moral enhancement

I'm moving the material on "moral enhancement" from the main page to the talk page, below. It is more relevant to moral enhancement. It may be appropriate to briefly mention and link to moral enhancement somewhere on the page. J.birch2 (talk) 14:37, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Thomas Douglas defines moral enhancement as follows: "A person morally enhances herself if she/he alters herself in a way that may reasonably be expected to result in her/his having morally better future motives, taken in sum, than she/he would otherwise have had". Douglas argues that moral enhancement is not always morally impermissible. His claim opposes the Bioconservative Thesis, which states that: "Even if it were technically possible and legally permissible for people to engage in biomedical enhancement, it would not be morally permissible for them to do so". Douglas argues that the Bioconservative thesis is predominantly based on social considerations. The thesis argues that enhancement may only be good for the enhanced individual, but not for the rest of society. For example, an enhanced individual may be more intelligent than an average human being and thereby could acquire various jobs in the market which in turn diminishes the job opportunities for other people. Douglas opposes such a view by arguing that morally enhancing a human would not harm others (i.e. society). In this way, he proves the Bioconservative Thesis to be false in this context.

Getting back to his definition of moral enhancement, Douglas defines motives as "psychological- mental or neural- states or processes that will, given the absence of opposing motives, cause a person to act". In this way Douglas argues that the person who is morally enhanced is not necessarily moral, has a more moral character or will necessarily act more morally than the earlier un-enhanced self. He argues that moral enhancement should alter certain emotions "which interfere with putative good motives (moral emotions, reasoning processes, and combinations thereof) and/or which are themselves uncontroversially bad motives". For example, altering a strong aversion to a certain racial group would be a way of morally enhancing a human. One could agree that such an aversion would be uncontroversially a bad motive and so interfering with it would be for the best. The moral enhancement may be done through biological (i.e. a pill) or nonbiological means (i.e. self education). Douglas is mostly interested in biological means. Douglas argues moral enhancement technologies will be possible within the 'medium term' future (i.e. within centuries).

Douglas sketches a scenario to show how moral enhancement is morally permissible. He demonstrates his scenario by the following assumptions. Say that Smith can undergo some biomedical intervention (i.e. a pill) that will bring him better motives after taking it. Before taking the pill, Smith would have more bad motives then after taking the pill. The pill will only alter some emotion(s) of Smith and will not have any side-effects. Also, Smith takes it voluntarily without any sign of coercion. Douglas argues that under these circumstances it would be morally permissible for Smith to morally enhance himself. He argues this by first stating that a consequentialist claim would argue that it would be morally permissible for Smith to take the pill as it would expectably bring about good consequences. Second, a non-consequentialist claim would argue that moral enhancement has some intrinsic property which would give him reason to perform it (i.e. such as the property of being an act of self-improvement). Douglas then evaluates objections to his claim.

One set of objections that Douglas discusses is what he calls 'objectionable motives'. The objection puts Smith's reason to enhance himself into question. It argues that Smith's best possible motive to enhance himself may not be good enough. A proponent of this objection is Michael Sandel. In line with Sandel the argument would say that the reason for Smith's enhancement is due to the fact he/she does not have sufficient acceptance of 'the given'. Douglas rejects this claim by arguing that in the example above, Smith does not have reason to accept his bad motives and reject interference of his good motives. Rather, the more appropriate attitude for this case is one of non-acceptance and a desire for self-change.

Furthermore, Douglas argues that opponents may argue that the enhancement restricts Smith's freedom. According to this objection, Smith will have less freedom to have and to act upon bad motives. Freedom, according to this view, consists not merely in the absence of external constraints, but also in the absence of internal ones. For it is only Smith's internal characteristics that would be altered by his moral enhancement. Moreover, according to this view, "the self is divided into two parts- the true self, and a brute self that is external to the true self". The proponent of the 'restricted freedom' objection could thus state that the enhancement would alter Smith's brute self in such a way that it would constrain his true self, thus restricting his freedom. Douglas responds to this claim by arguing that if the self is divided into two parts, the enhancement would only alter Smith's brute self. The enhancement would fundamentally be restricting the brain's emotion-generating mechanisms, which presumably belong to the brute self. Thus, the enhancement would work by suppressing one's brute self and thus allowing Smith's true self greater freedom. In this sense, Smith would obtain more freedom to have and act upon good motives.

References