Can we program ourselves to be better people?

Phil and Stephen welcome James Hughes to discuss his concept of a Virtues Control Panel:

"What I imagine is a virtues control panel with sliders that determine the balance of moral impulses, cognition and behavior in different situations, governed by a morality operating system. When we are working on tasks that require focus and care we would turn up concentration, conscientiousness and prefrontal control.

We could also flag specific behaviors, words or even thoughts to be suppressed, and others to be enhanced. When our metabolic monitor indicates we have reached maximum calories for the day or reached peak inebriation, the sub-routines would tell us we can't eat another bite and that we don't want that next drink. "

From: Visions for a World Transformed

 

About our Guest:

James Hughes is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He is a bioethicist and sociologist who serves as the Associate Provost for Institutional Research, Assessment and Planning, for the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he also taught bioethics at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. James is author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future, and is working on a second book tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha. He is also a contributor to our book, Visions for a World Transformed. From 1999-2011 he produced the syndicated weekly radio program, Changesurfer Radio.

 

WT 323-632