ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of some of the evidence suggesting that philosophical values are linked to heritable traits that manifest as social, cognitive, and neurological differences in one's behavior and psychology. It discusses implications of the results, including the substantial costs of paternalistic policies and the potential benefits of a science for informed decision making. The chapter focuses on the fundamental philosophical values are systematically fragmented and often predicted by global, heritable personality traits. In the arena of medical-decision making, they can clearly see conflicts in two fundamental goals: beneficence and protecting autonomy. The medical context is an illustrative example because there are fairly well-defined standards for goals of decisions, and almost every human being faces medical decisions. In order for paternalism to be justified, a sufficient good must be accrued to offset the violations of autonomy, and the person affected must judge the good to be a good.
