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Drugs and Hugs: Stimulating Moral Dispositions as a Method of Moral Enhancement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2018

Michał Klincewicz ,
Lily Eva Frank  and
Marta Sokólska
Michał Klincewicz*
Affiliation:
Institute of Philosophy, Cognitive Science, Jagiellonian University
Lily Eva Frank*
Affiliation:
Ethics and Philosophy, Technical University, Eindhoven
Marta Sokólska*
Affiliation:
Institute of Philosophy, Cognitive Science, Jagiellonian University
*
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
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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.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 83: Moral Enhancement: Critical Perspectives , October 2018 , pp. 329 - 350
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2018 

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Footnotes

1

Work on this essay was financed by the Polish National Science Centre (NCN) SONATA 9 Grant, PSP: K/PBD/000139, under decision UMO-2015/17/D/HS1/01705.

2

All three authors worked equally on this chapter. Parts of it are based on on Marta Sokólska's Master's thesis in cognitive science defended in 2016 at Jagiellonian University: ‘Udoskonalenie moralne w świetle nauk kognitywnych’ (‘Moral Enhancement in the Light of Cognitive Science’).

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