| 1. |
- Allentoft, Morten E., et al.
(författare)
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Population genomics of post-glacial western Eurasia
- 2024
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Ingår i: Nature. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 625:7994, s. 301-311
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Western Eurasia witnessed several large-scale human migrations during the Holocene1–5. Here, to investigate the cross-continental effects of these migrations, we shotgun-sequenced 317 genomes—mainly from the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods—from across northern and western Eurasia. These were imputed alongside published data to obtain diploid genotypes from more than 1,600 ancient humans. Our analyses revealed a ‘great divide’ genomic boundary extending from the Black Sea to the Baltic. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were highly genetically differentiated east and west of this zone, and the effect of the neolithization was equally disparate. Large-scale ancestry shifts occurred in the west as farming was introduced, including near-total replacement of hunter-gatherers in many areas, whereas no substantial ancestry shifts happened east of the zone during the same period. Similarly, relatedness decreased in the west from the Neolithic transition onwards, whereas, east of the Urals, relatedness remained high until around 4,000 bp, consistent with the persistence of localized groups of hunter-gatherers. The boundary dissolved when Yamnaya-related ancestry spread across western Eurasia around 5,000 bp, resulting in a second major turnover that reached most parts of Europe within a 1,000-year span. The genetic origin and fate of the Yamnaya have remained elusive, but we show that hunter-gatherers from the Middle Don region contributed ancestry to them. Yamnaya groups later admixed with individuals associated with the Globular Amphora culture before expanding into Europe. Similar turnovers occurred in western Siberia, where we report new genomic data from a ‘Neolithic steppe’ cline spanning the Siberian forest steppe to Lake Baikal. These prehistoric migrations had profound and lasting effects on the genetic diversity of Eurasian populations.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Persson, Ingmar, 1951, et al.
(författare)
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Moral Bioenhancement, Freedom and Reason
- 2016
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Ingår i: Neuroethics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1874-5490 .- 1874-5504. ; 9:3, s. 263-268
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we reply to the most important objections to our advocacy of moral enhancement by biomedical means - moral bioenhancement - that John Harris advances in his new book How to be Good. These objections are to effect that such moral enhancement undercuts both moral reasoning and freedom. The latter objection is directed more specifically at what we have called the God Machine, a super-duper computer which predicts our decisions and prevents decisions to perpertrate morally atrocious acts. In reply, we argue first that effective moral bioenhancement presupposes moral reasoning rather than undermines it. Secondly, that the God Machine would leave us with extensive freedom and that the restrictions it imposes on it are morally justified by the prevention of harm to victims.
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| 4. |
- Persson, Ingmar, 1951, et al.
(författare)
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Moral Hard-Wiring and Moral Enhancement
- 2017
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Ingår i: Bioethics. - : Wiley. - 0269-9702. ; 31:4, s. 286-295
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We have argued for an urgent need for moral bioenhancement; that human moral psychology is limited in its ability to address current existential threats due to the evolutionary function of morality to maximize cooperation in small groups. We address here Powell and Buchanan's novel objection that there is an inclusivist anomaly': humans have the capacity to care beyond in-groups. They propose that exclusivist' (group-based) morality is sensitive to environmental cues that historically indicated out-group threat. When this is not present, we are inclusivist. They conclude that moral bioenhancement is unnecessary or less effective than socio-cultural interventions. We argue that Powell and Buchanan underestimate the hard-wiring features of moral psychology; their appeal to adaptively plastic, conditionally expressed responses accounts for only a fragment of our moral psychology. In addition to restrictions on our altruistic concern that their account addresses - such as racism and sexism - there are ones it is ill-suited to address: that our concern is stronger for kin and friends and for concrete individuals rather than for statistical lives; also our bias towards the near future. Hard-wired features of our moral psychology that are not clearly restrictions in altruistic concern also include reciprocity, tit-for-tat, and others. Biomedical means are not the only, and maybe not the most important, means of moral enhancement. Socio-cultural means are of great importance and there are currently no biomedical interventions for many hard-wired features. Nevertheless research is desirable because the influence of these features is greater than our critics think.
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| 5. |
- Persson, Ingmar, 1951, et al.
(författare)
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The Art of Misunderstanding Moral Bioenhancement
- 2015
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Ingår i: Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. - : Cambridge University Press (CUP). - 0963-1801 .- 1469-2147. ; 24:1, s. 48-57
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In our book Unfit for the Future and a number of papers, we have argued that there is a dangerous mismatch between, on the one hand, the tremendous power of scientific technology, which has created societies with millions of citizens, and, on the other hand, our moral capacities, which have been shaped by evolution for life in small, close-knit societies with primitive technology. To overcome this mismatch before it results in the downfall of human civilization, human beings stand in acute need of moral enhancement, not only by traditional means but also by biomedical means, should this turn out to be possible. After summarizing this argument, we respond to two critics, Michael Hauskeller and Robert Sparrow.
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| 6. |
- Persson, Ingmar, 1951, et al.
(författare)
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The evolution of moral progress and biomedical moral enhancement
- 2019
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Ingår i: Bioethics. - : Wiley. - 0269-9702 .- 1467-8519. ; 33:7, s. 814-819
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In The Evolution of Moral Progress Allen Buchanan and Russell Powell advance an evolutionary explanation of moral progress by morality becoming more 'inclusivist'. We are prepared to accept this explanation as far as it goes, but argue that it fails to explain how morality can become inclusivist in the fuller sense they intend. In fact, it even rules out inclusivism in their intended sense of moral progress, since they believe that human altruism and prosocial attitudes are essentially parochial. We also respond to their charge that the possibility of moral enhancement by biomedical means that we have defended in numerous publications assumes that moral attitudes are biologically hard-wired to an extent that implies that they are resilient to the influence of cognitive or cultural factors. Quite the contrary, we think they are more open to such influence than they seem to do.
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| 7. |
- Persson, Ingmar, 1951, et al.
(författare)
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The Moral Importance of Reflective Empathy
- 2018
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Ingår i: Neuroethics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1874-5490 .- 1874-5504. ; 11:2, s. 183-193
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This is a reply to Jesse Prinz and Paul Bloom's skepticism about the moral importance of empathy. It concedes that empathy is spontaneously biased to individuals who are spatio-temporally close, as well as discriminatory in other ways, and incapable of accommodating large numbers of individuals. But it is argued that we could partly correct these shortcomings of empathy by a guidance of reason because empathy for others consists in imagining what they feel, and, importantly, such acts of imagination can be voluntary - and, thus, under the influence of reflection - as well as automatic. Since empathizing with others motivates concern for their welfare, a reflectively justified empathy will lead to a likewise justified altruistic concern. In addition, we argue that such concern supports another central moral attitude, namely a sense of justice or fairness.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Gardelli, Viktor, et al.
(författare)
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Why philosophical ethics in school : implications for education in technology and in general
- 2014
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Ingår i: Ethics and Education. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1744-9642 .- 1744-9650. ; 9:1, s. 16-28
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article, we distinguish between three approaches to ethics in school, each giving an interpretation of the expression 'ethics in school': the descriptive facts about ethics approach, roughly consisting of teaching empirical facts about moral matters to students; the moral fostering approach, consisting of mediating a set of given values to students; and the philosophical ethics (PE) approach, consisting of critically discussing and evaluating moral issues with students. Thereafter, three influential arguments for why there ought to be ethics in school are discussed, and each argument is interpreted given each approach to ethics in school, respectively. Thereby, we evaluate which interpretation of 'ethics in school' produces the strongest arguments, and thus, which approach is best supported by these arguments. The conclusion is that there ought to be PE in school
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