Wednesday, May 16, 2012

2012 Bioethics Conference: The Moral Brain - Part II: "Can Moral Behavior be Improved or Enhanced?"

 
These are some of the final videos from the 2012 Bioethics Conference: The Moral Brain. Not all of the videos have been posted, so I have included the final four sessions from Sunday, the final day of the conference, which was focused on whether or not we can improve or enhance moral behavior.
 
Part II: "Can Moral Behavior be Improved or Enhanced?"
Saturday, March 31, 2012 – Sunday, April 1, 2012
Organized by the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics and the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies with generous support from the Society of Philosophers in America and the Potomac Institute.

Should the research on moral psychology be interpreted as suggesting new approaches for improving, or perhaps enhancing, moral intuitions, attitudes, judgments, and behavior or for reforming social institutions? Can we create more effective educational tools for improving moral development? For the last century psychiatry has attempted to medicalize moral failings - lack of self-control, addiction, anger, impatience, fear.  But what of engineering ourselves to higher states of virtue? If the enhancement of morality is possible, which virtues or cognitive capabilities will it be safe to enhance and how? What might be the unanticipated side effects of attempts to enhance moral behavior? 

SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 2012

9:00-10:30 AM Session I: General
Session Chair: S. Matthew Liao, Director of Graduate Studies, Center for Bioethics; Clinical Associate Professor of Bioethics; Affiliated Professor of Philosophy, New York University

“The Benefits and Risks of Virtue Engineering”
Speaker: James Hughes, Executive Director, Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies; Director, Institutional Research & Planning, Trinity College
“Perhaps It Would Help to Distinguish Between "Engineering" and "Cultivating" Virtue”
Speaker: Erik Parens, Senior Research Scholar, The Hasting Center
“Seeing a Person as a Body”
Speaker: Joshua Knobe, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science  & Philosophy, Yale University
“What Is Moral Enhancement? The Shades of 'Moral'”
Speaker: Anna Pacholczyk, Graduate Student, University of Manchester




10:45-12:15 PM Session II: General

Session Chair: Maxwell Mehlman, Professor of Bioethics & Law, Case Western Reserve University

“Is Ethical Theory Relevant to Neuroethical Evaluations of Enhancing Moral Brains?”
Speaker: John R. Shook, Faculty, Science and the Public MA program at University at Buffalo and Associate Fellow at Center for Neurotechnology Studies at Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Virginia
“Enhancing for Virtue? Towards Holistic Moral Enhancement”
Speaker: William Kabasenche, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Washington State University

“Moral Enhancement? Evidence and Challenges”
Speaker: Molly Crockett, Sir
Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow, Laboratory of Social & Neural
Systems Research, Department of Economics, University of Zurich
“The Illusion of a Technological Moral Fix”
Speaker: Wendell Wallach, Scholar & Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale University


Presentations:



Q&A:



2:00-3:15 PM Session III: Medicine
Session Chair: Wendell Wallach, Scholar & Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale University

“Moral Disease:  An Initial Framework for Definition, Classification, Treatment,  and Improvement”
Speaker: Patrick Hopkins, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Millsaps College

“The Pediatric Physician's Role in Modifying Childhood Behavior. Vendor or Gatekeeper? Facilitator or Judge?”
Speaker: Geoffrey Miller, Professor of Pediatrics (Neurology) and of Neurology; Clinical Director Yale Pediatric Neurology, Co-Director Yale/MDA Pediatric Neuromuscular Clinic

“Parental Love Pills: Some Ethical Considerations”
Speaker: S. Matthew Liao, Director of Graduate Studies, Center for Bioethics; Clinical Associate Professor of Bioethics; Affiliated Professor of Philosophy, New York University




3:30-5:00 PM Session IV:  Ramifications for Law, National Security & Other Institutions

Session Chair: John R. Shook, Faculty, Science and the Public MA program at University at Buffalo and Associate Fellow at Center for Neurotechnology Studies at Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Virginia

“The Neurobiology of Virtue: Leveraging Neuroscience to Improve Character Development Institutions”
Speaker: William Casebeer, Program Manager, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

“Enhancing Criminal Brains?”
Speaker: Fabrice Jotterand, Assistant Professor, Clinical Sciences & Psychiatry, Southwestern Medical Center, University of Texas

“Moral Enhancement and the Law”
Speaker: Maxwell Mehlman, Professor of Bioethics & Law, Case Western Reserve University

“Neuromorality: Implications for Human Ecology, Global Relations, and National Security Policy”
Speaker: James Giordano, PhD, Director, Center for Neurotechnology Studies, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, VA, USA; Research Associate, Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, University of Oxford, UK




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