The Ethics of Designer Brains

Link to Slovic article:
http://journal.sjdm.org/jdm7303a.pdf

Second part of series on morality. See below for bible references included in this video.

Death for victimless 'crime'
Yahweh requires death of sabbath workers
(Numbers 15 : 32-36)
Yahweh requires death of gay people:
(Leviticus 20 : 13)
Yahweh requires death of women who can't show virginity on wedding night:
(Deuteronomy 22 : 20-21)

Unaccountable slaughter
Yahweh kills 70,000 for David's census:
(2 Samuel 24 : 1-15)
Yahweh kills almost all land animals for human wickedness:
(Genesis 6 : 5-7)

Entrapment through mind-control
Yahweh hardens Pharaoh's heart:

Robots today serve in many roles, from entertainer to educator to executioner. As robotics technology advances, ethical concerns become more pressing: Should robots be programmed to follow a code of ethics, if this is even possible? Are there risks in forming emotional bonds with robots? How might society--and ethics--change with robotics? This volume is the first book to bring together prominent scholars and experts from both science and the humanities to explore these and other questions in this emerging field.

Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins discuss Who Says Science has Nothing to Say About Morality? Taped at The Sheldonian Theatre University of Oxford April 12th 2011

David Pearce is an independent researcher and vegan animal activist based in Brighton UK. In 1995, he wrote an online manifesto, The Hedonistic Imperative, advocating the use of biotechnology to abolish suffering throughout the living world. He predicts that our descendants will be animated by gradients of cerebral bliss orders of magnitude richer than anything accessible today.

At TEDxPeachtree, bioethicist Paul Root Wolpe describes an astonishing series of recent bio-engineering experiments, from hybrid pets to mice that grow human ears. He asks: isn't it time to set some ground rules?

Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can -- and should -- be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a good life.

The Transhumanist Declaration advocates "the well-being of all sentience, including humans, non-human animals, and any future artificial intellects, modified life forms, or other intelligences to which technological and scientific advance may give rise."

Yet is "the well-being of all sentience" serious science - or just utopian dreaming? What does such a commitment entail? On what kind of realistic timeframe might we command enough computational power to police an entire ecosystem?

In this talk, the speaker wants to review recent progress in understanding the neurobiology of pleasure, pain and our core emotions. Can mastery of our reward circuity ever deliver socially responsible, intelligent bliss rather than crude wireheading? He also wants to examine and respond to criticisms of the abolitionist project that have been levelled over the past decade - and set out the biggest challenges, as he sees them, to the prospect of a totally cruelty-free world.

Link to the transhumanist declaration (2009 version): http://humanityplus.org/learn/transhu...

** About the speaker

David Pearce is an independent researcher and vegan animal activist based in Brighton UK.

In Enhancing Evolution, leading bioethicist John Harris dismantles objections to genetic engineering, stem-cell research, designer babies, and cloning and makes an ethical case for biotechnology that is both forthright and rigorous. Human enhancement, Harris argues, is a good thing--good morally, good for individuals, good as social policy, and good for a genetic heritage that needs serious improvement.