Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 10, 2026

Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Self-distancing in Young Children
Published on: March 1, 2019
Moral Blindness - The Gift of the God Machine
1University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Abstract:
The continuing debate between Persson and Savulescu and myself over moral enhancement concerns two dimensions of a very large question. The large question is: what exactly makes something a moral enhancement? This large question needs a book length study and this I provide in my How to be Good, Oxford 2016. (JH 2016). In their latest paper Moral Bioenhancement, Freedom and Reason take my book as their point of departure and the first dimension of the big question they address is one that emphasizes a distinction, not highlighted in their original 2008 paper, between a moral enhancement that will ensure an improvement in morality and one that will simply make people more motivated to be moral. The second issue concerns whether anything that would be a "moral enhancement" properly so called, could involve denying moral agents the very possibility of autonomously choosing to try to be good. In this response, although P&S cover a number of other related issues, I shall concentrate on these two points.
More Related Videos
06:42Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation of the Posterior Medial Frontal Cortex to Experimentally Reduce Ideological Threat Responses
Published on: September 28, 2018
13:20Online Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of Dorsomedial and Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Cognition Decision Making, and Cognitive Dissonance
Published on: December 5, 2025
Related Concept Videos
Cognitive Dissonance
Deindividuation
Self-Discrepancy Theory
Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development
Pre-Conventional Level
At the pre-conventional level, morality is primarily driven by personal...
Motivational Bias
Egoism and Altruism