Cognitive Enhancement and the Threat of Inequality

2018

Neuroethics, 2016

Advocates of cognitive enhancement maintain that technological advances would augment autonomy indirectly by expanding the range of options available to individuals, while, in a recent article in this journal, Schaefer, Kahane, and Savulescu propose that cognitive enhancement would improve it more directly. Here, autonomy, construed in broad procedural terms, is at the fore. In contrast, when lauding the goodness of enhancement expressly, supporters' line of argument is utilitarian, of an ideal variety. An inherent conflict results, for, within their utilitarian frame, the content of rational, hence autonomous, choices is quite restricted. Further, advocates do not clearly indicate their relative emphasis between the often conflicting goals of maximizing benefit and avoiding harm. In practice, their construction of harms is highly expansive, for disabilities include any constraints that Brationalp eople would decline if it were technically possible to do so. For advocates, this means that where enhancement measures are available, those constraints become avoidable limitations, and not to remove them is to harm. The centrality of harmavoidance and their ideal utilitarian frame entail sociopolitical requirements that enhancement defenders disallow when trumpeting autonomy in the vein of individual choice. Advocates have thus not done enough to support the claim that their views are wholly separate from earlier eugenics.

Erkenntnis, 2013

Human enhancement-the attempt to overcome all human cognitive, emotional, and physical limitations using current technological developments-has been said to pose the most fundamental social and political question facing the world in the twenty-first century. Yet, the public remains ill prepared to deal with it. Indeed, controversy continues to swirl around human enhancement even among the very best-informed experts in the most relevant fields, with no end in sight. Why the ongoing stalemate in the discussion? I attempt to explain the central features of the human enhancement debate and the empirical and normative shortcomings that help to keep it going. I argue that philosophers of science are especially well equipped to rectify these shortcomings, and I suggest that we may be deeply remiss if we don't do so. Section 1: "The Most Important Controversy in Science and Society" of the Twenty-First Century Human enhancement-the attempt to improve human cognitive, emotional, and physical capacities, especially through technological means-has been part of the human condition right from the beginning.

Cerebrum : the Dana forum on brain science, 2004

Your kid’s schoolwork not up to par? Looking for Mr. or Ms. Right? Any other problems caused by a mind’s eye seemingly not quite on the ball? Answers might lie in a brain-enhancing pill. Some argue this is merely better living through chemistry and in line with humanity’s self-improving actions throughout history, but others suggest that quick-fix medications could well distort the very things that make us human. Here a leading bioethicist squares off with a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics on the controversy about pursuing better brains with a little help from biotechnology. Comments © 2004. Permission from Dana Press. Reprinted from Cerebrum, Volume 6, Issue 4, Fall 2004, pages 13-29. Publisher URL: http://www.dana.org/books/press/cerebrum/ This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/neuroethics_pubs/29

Theory and Research in Education, 2011

Cognitive enhancement — augmenting normal cognitive capacities — is not new. Literacy, numeracy, computers, and the practices of science are all cognitive enhancements. Science is now making new cognitive enhancements possible. Biomedical cognitive enhancements (BCEs) include the administration of drugs, implants of genetically engineered or stem-cell grown neural tissue, transcranial magnetic stimulation, computer/brain interface technologies, and (perhaps someday) modification of human embryos by genetic engineering and/or synthetic biology techniques. The same liberal—democratic values that support education as a public institutional endeavor also supply reasons for institutionalizing and publicly supporting BCE. Pursuing the goals of education may require changing what we have hitherto regarded as the individual’s ‘natural’ potential, even in the case of normal individuals, and this may require recourse to BCE. The prospect of BCE raises no novel issues of distributive justice. ...

Vedder and Klaming argue that the neurotechnological improvement of eyewitness memory would be an enhancement "for the common good" and that many of the objections commonly raised against cognitive enhancement in general would cease to apply if we looked at it from the perspective of the common good rather than from that of the individual. However, Vedder and Klaming say very little about what, in their view, constitutes the common good, except that an enhancement for the common good would be one that is "neither primarily self-regarding nor self-serving and potentially benefits society as a whole" (6). It is not immediately clear, though, what kind of enhancement should count as beneficial for society, and for what reason exactly. Nor is it clear whether and under which circumstances common good should

2015

nologies raise. While pharmaceuticals, medical devices and procedures that are strictly meant to treat or prevent disease and disability are generally welcomed, enhancements raise the public eyebrow. As with all complex social phenomena, this reaction is caused by a multitude of factors: safety concerns, hubristic charges, worry over the loss of personal identity, the deepening of socioeconomic inequalities, the distortion of social values and, most importantly, the threat held against human nature itself. Within the spectrum of enhancing technologies, the neuro-cognitive area enjoys a special status, in the sense that it can fuel on its own all the range of concerns that have been already enumerated. Discussions revolving around mind uploading, brain-computer interfaces, mind-controlled avatars and, ultimately, cognitive immortality augment both the feelings of trust and distrust

Diacritica, 27

The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology, 2019

With Neuroethics, Justice and Autonomy, Veljko Dubljevi c seeks to reconceptualise one of the most salient controversies in contemporary neuroethics, that of the regulation of cognitive enhancers, through a political lens. Dubljevi c calls upon his expertise in both neuroethics and political theory to argue for the use of a Rawlsian framework regarding regulation policies of enhancers. Doing so allows for a middle-ground position concerning regulation. He nuances between the two most widely represented perspectives which have shaped the neuroethical debate, total prohibition or laissez-faire. Navigating through political theory, moral theory, and neuroscience, Dubljevi c crafts a concrete policy proposal which will be of interest to academics and policymakers alike. The main point of the book is twofold as it attempts to tackle two of the principal subjects of neuroethical inquiry: first, how technologies arising from new developments in neuroscience are to be regulated in accordance with moral reasoning and second, how empirical findings in neuroscience are to be understood regarding the concepts at play in moral theory (in the present case, the concept of autonomy). Concerning regulations, he draws insights from Rawlsian public reason and proposes a consensual justificatory ground for a regulatory policy acceptable to both pro-and anti-enhancement citizens. Regarding autonomy, he argues for a political notion of the concept as inspired by Rawls' famous conception of justice as political, not metaphysical, claiming that the neuroethical debate has conflated autonomy with the metaphysical concept of free-will. Since regulation policies are inevitably bound to run into concerns for autonomy, the two discussions are indeed fully intertwined. In his attempt to depart from the parochial dichotomy between prohibition and laissez-faire, Dubljevi c argues for a regulation model based on taxation which he dubs the Economic Disincentives Model (EDM). His main concern is to sketch out a policy proposal that is acceptable to both pro-and anti-enhancement citizens, while simultaneously addressing the various potential dangers associated with a laissez-faire type of regulation. Chiefly, in Rawlsian fashion, he is worried that the use of cognitive enhancers for reasons of positional advantage will inevitably lead anti-enhancement citizens to be coerced into enhancing in order to remain competitive in a market-driven environment, thus infringing upon their basic liberties. His EDM calls for various discouraging measures, such as the creation of a licensing process for both producers and users of enhancers, a mandatory course and exam for users, and a requirement to subscribe to an additional medical insurance, all of which are under the supervision of a dedicated governmental agency (p. 10). According to Dubljevi c, adopting this model

In 1998, the eminent molecular biologist and Nobel laureate James Watson challenged critics of non-therapeutic human germ line interventions by posing the rhetorical question: "If we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we do it?" 1 Indeed, why shouldn't we? Put like this, it seems decidedly irrational to object. Almost by definition, there cannot be anything wrong with making better human beings. How can it possibly be wrong to create something that is better? Thus to suggest that an enhancement could be bad, seems like a contradiction in terms. If it were bad it wouldn't be an enhancement. Perhaps we don't know how to make better humans yet, but that is a purely practical problem, which doesn't affect the desirability of the general project. Perhaps it will turn out that "adding genes" does not have the desired effect, but again that doesn't mean that we shouldn't at least try. The question is, if we knew how to improve our nature and knew that it was safe to do so (that it had no detrimental side effects), then why should we not do it? The answer seems to be obvious: there is no such reason. In the absence of any negative side effects, human enhancement is necessarily good and hence desirable.