Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Should morality be enforced?
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Should morality be enforced?
Here are the instructions for your office Christmas party, issued by the Public and Commercial Services Union: “Sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour are just as unacceptable at social events as they are in the workplace. This includes unwelcome comments, gestures or physical actions. Alcohol is not a defence for such conduct and employers are obligated to address these issues seriously.”
This could be considered an example of Moral Managerialism - a philosophy of enforcing, by rules and regulations, behaviour that once was left to the individual’s sense of decency. Since human beings are fallible, is this a welcome institutional safety net or an attack on an individual’s agency to do the right thing?
Philosophically, can – and should – we try to make people better behaved? There’s one approach we haven’t tried, but it’s exciting some scientists. It’s called ‘moral bio-enhancement’ – basically a drug that can make you good, a do-as-you-would-be-done-by pill, a statin for the soul. If all you have to do, to be a good person, is obey the rules or take a tablet… can human virtue exist?
Chair: Michael Buerk
Panel: Anne McElvoy, Mona Siddiqui, Giles Fraser and Inaya Folarin-Iman.
Witnesses: Ros Taylor, Zoe Strimpel, Julian Savulescu and Andrew Peterson.
Producer: Dan Tierney
Assistant Producer: Peter Everett
Editor: Tim Pemberton
View all episodes
By BBC Radio 4
4.6
5151 ratings
Here are the instructions for your office Christmas party, issued by the Public and Commercial Services Union: “Sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour are just as unacceptable at social events as they are in the workplace. This includes unwelcome comments, gestures or physical actions. Alcohol is not a defence for such conduct and employers are obligated to address these issues seriously.”
This could be considered an example of Moral Managerialism - a philosophy of enforcing, by rules and regulations, behaviour that once was left to the individual’s sense of decency. Since human beings are fallible, is this a welcome institutional safety net or an attack on an individual’s agency to do the right thing?
Philosophically, can – and should – we try to make people better behaved? There’s one approach we haven’t tried, but it’s exciting some scientists. It’s called ‘moral bio-enhancement’ – basically a drug that can make you good, a do-as-you-would-be-done-by pill, a statin for the soul. If all you have to do, to be a good person, is obey the rules or take a tablet… can human virtue exist?
Chair: Michael Buerk
Panel: Anne McElvoy, Mona Siddiqui, Giles Fraser and Inaya Folarin-Iman.
Witnesses: Ros Taylor, Zoe Strimpel, Julian Savulescu and Andrew Peterson.
Producer: Dan Tierney
Assistant Producer: Peter Everett
Editor: Tim Pemberton
More shows like Moral Maze
View all
Global News Podcast
7,608 Listeners
From Our Own Correspondent
375 Listeners
More or Less
889 Listeners
Newshour
1,047 Listeners
In Our Time
5,480 Listeners
The Documentary Podcast
1,796 Listeners
6 Minute English
1,754 Listeners
Learning English Conversations
1,043 Listeners
Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
2,102 Listeners
The Infinite Monkey Cage
2,097 Listeners
The Bottom Line
36 Listeners
Thinking Allowed
297 Listeners
Start the Week
159 Listeners
Any Questions? and Any Answers?
43 Listeners
The Briefing Room
77 Listeners
Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
115 Listeners
Newscast
626 Listeners
You're Dead to Me
3,156 Listeners
Americast
722 Listeners
Cyber Hack
1,638 Listeners
The Rest Is Politics
3,043 Listeners
The News Agents
983 Listeners
The Rest Is Politics: Leading
801 Listeners
Radical with Amol Rajan
55 Listeners
Rory Stewart: The Long History of...
78 Listeners