The NYU Center for Bioethics, the Duke Kenan Institute for Ethics, the Yale Interdisciplinary Center

for Bioethics, and the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies Present:

2012 BIOETHICS CONFERENCE:

THE MORAL BRAIN

FRIDAY, MARCH 3030SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 2012
Location: New York University, NYU Center for Bioethics Washington Sq., Room TBA
Part I: The Significance of Neuroscience for Morality: Lessons from a Decade of Research
Organized by the NYU Center for Bioethics in collaboration with the Duke Kenan Institute for Ethics It has been a decade since the first brain imaging studies of moral judgments by Joshua Greene, Jorge Moll and their colleagues were reported. During this time, there have been rich philosophical and scientific discussions regarding a) whether brain imaging data can tell us anything about moral judgments, and b) what they do tell us if they can tell us something about moral judgments. In this workshop, we aim to bring leading philosophers, neuroscientists, and psychologists in this area together to examine these issues and to explore the future directions of this research. OPENING REMARKS Thomas Carew, Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science, New York University SPEAKERS James Blair Joshua Greene Walter SinnottArmstrong Paul Bloom Jonathan Haidt James Woodward Molly Crockett Guy Kahane Liane Young Tamar Gendler S. Matthew Liao

Part II: "Can Moral Behavior be Improved or Enhanced?"

Organized by the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics and the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies. Should the research on moral psychology be interpreted as suggesting new approaches for improving, or perhaps enhancing, moral intuitions, attitudes, judgments, and behavior or for reforming social institutions? Can we create more effective educational tools for improving moral development? For the last century psychiatry has attempted to medicalize moral failings - lack of self-control, addiction, anger, impatience, fear. But what of engineering ourselves to higher states of virtue? If the enhancement of morality is possible, which virtues or cognitive capabilities will it be safe to enhance and how? What might be the unanticipated side effects of attempts to enhance moral behavior? Paul Bloom Joshua Greene Joshua Knobe Geoffrey Miller Martine Rothblatt William Casebeer James Hughes Andrea Kuszewski Anna Pacholczyk Jonathan Shook Molly Crockett Fabrice Jotterand S. Matthew Liao Ingmar Persson Walter Sinnott-Armstrong James Giordano William Kabasenche Maxwell Mehlman Erik Parens Wendell Wallach

FOR MORE INFORMATION RSVP Required: http://goo.gl/PXHmO Contact the NYU Center for Bioethics at bioethicsconference@nyu.edu VISIT : http://bioethics.as.nyu.edu/object/bioethics.events.20120330.conference