Please find below some info about a workshop that may be of interest:
Shaping Moral Psychology
A workshop funded by the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics
*Karolinska Institute,Stockholm, Sweden, 22-23 June 2011*
*Theme*: The human capacity to behave morally is limited and frail, and human societies have always attempted to shape moral dispositions through education, social norms, and institutions that promote and enforce them. In recent years, moral psychology has become the focus of intense scientific research. This research is beginning to suggest new ways to influence moral psychology—for example, by shaping our environment to ‘nudge’ people towards appropriate behaviour, or through direct biomedical interventions such as those that, at least in laboratory settings, have been shown to improve trust and cooperation. Although some of this research is still in its infancy, it is likely that in the future it will offer powerful means of shaping people’s moral emotions, motivations, judgments, and ultimately their behaviour. This possibility raises profound questions that have so far been largely neglected. Is intervention to improve morality even conceptually coherent? What social or biological interventions, if any, might make us morally better? Which would make us morally worse? What means may we permissibly use to modify our own moral psychology, or the moral psychology of others? Is there an important difference between biomedical and social means to modifying moral psychology? We propose to bring the latest work in moral psychology and ethical theory to bear on these questions in a two-day workshop, the very first devoted to this topic.
*Organisers*: Julian Savulescu, Guy Kahane,Barbro Froding, Tom Douglas
*Speakers*: Molly Crockett, John Harris, Sven Ove Hansson, Niels Lynoe, Reinhard Merkel, Ingmar Persson, Walter Sinnot-Armstrong, Kelly Sorensen, Guy Kahane, Julian Savulescu, Tom Douglas,.
*Timing*: 10am 22 June - 4:30pm 23 June.
*Attendance fee*: £75 for those wishing to attend conference dinner on the 22nd, otherwise £20. We have 15 spaces available.
*How to register*: please email Rachel Gaminiratne
(rachel.gaminiratne(a)philosophy.ox.ac.uk) with the following information:
- Your name and affiliation
- Whether you would like to attend the conference dinner (and if so any
dietary requirements)