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Enhancing genetic virtue?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Nicholas Agar
Nicholas Agar*
Affiliation:
School of History, Philosophy, Political Science, and International Relations, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington 6140, New Zealand [email protected]
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Extract

Mark Walker's fascinating paper calls for a Genetic Virtue Program (GVP)—an interdisciplinary effort to enhance human ethics. He urges that we achieve this by “promoting genes that influence the acquisition of the virtues.” Although the GVP is a worthy focus of philosophical debate, I have to confess to some doubts about its viability. We patently don't live in the best of all possible worlds, but I'm skeptical about the notion that the way to improve the world is to make deliberate and specific ethical or moral enhancements.

Type
Forum: Genetic virtue, reconsidered
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 73 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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References

1.Walker, Mark, “Enhancing genetic virtue: A project for twenty-first century humanity?” Politics and the Life Sciences 2009, 28(2): 27–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar