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
In Our Time
5,422 Listeners
From Our Own Correspondent
369 Listeners
The Documentary Podcast
1,809 Listeners
Start the Week
156 Listeners
Global News Podcast
7,655 Listeners
Thinking Allowed
310 Listeners
6 Minute English
1,745 Listeners
Learning English Conversations
1,073 Listeners
The Bottom Line
36 Listeners
The Week in Westminster
29 Listeners
Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
2,124 Listeners
More or Less: Behind the Stats
894 Listeners
The Infinite Monkey Cage
2,064 Listeners
Newshour
1,042 Listeners
Any Questions? and Any Answers?
39 Listeners
The New Statesman | UK politics and culture
142 Listeners
The Briefing Room
83 Listeners
Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
99 Listeners
13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle
4,167 Listeners
You're Dead to Me
2,983 Listeners
The Great Post Office Trial
35 Listeners
The Rest Is Politics
3,028 Listeners
The News Agents
909 Listeners
The Rest Is Politics: Leading
803 Listeners
Radical with Amol Rajan
27 Listeners