Unfit for the Future The Need for Moral Enhancement

Unfit for the Future argues that the future of our species depends on our finding ways to bring about radical enhancement of the moral aspects of our own human nature. Advances in technology enable us to exercise an influence that extends all over the world and far into the future. But our moral psychology lags behind, and leaves us ill equipped to deal with the challenges we now face. Persson and Savulescu maintain that it is likely that we shall needto make use of new technologies, in particular pharmacological and genetic, to change the biological or physiological bases of human motivation. They argue that there are in principle no philosophical or moral objections to such moral bioenhancement, and challenge us to rethink our attitudes to our own humannature, before it is too late.

Ingmar Persson is Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Gothenburg, and Research Fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford.

Julian Savulescu is Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, Director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and Director of the Program on Ethics and the New Biosciences in the 21st Century School, University of Oxford