PHARMACEUTICAL COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT: Entanglement with emotion, morality, and context
Journal
The Routledge Handbook of the Ethics of Human Enhancement
Pages
340 - 355
ISBN
9781000901825
Date Issued
2023-01-01
Author(s)
Abstract
Cognitive enhancement has aroused heated debates in academia regarding its conceptual, philosophical, ethical, and policy issues in the past two decades (Jotterand & Dubljevic, 2016). The most foundational core question should be whether there are promising cognitive enhancement technologies that promote memory, attention, response speed, decision-making correctness, etc. for healthy people in real life. Some pharmaceuticals have been reported to have cognitive enhancement effects. Among them are commonly used over-the-counter pharmaceuticals such as caffeine and nicotine, and drugs known for treating disorders such as attention deficit, memory impairment, and even depression (i.e. with collateral effects on cognition). Almost everyone wants to be smart, but how we become smart matters. Abundant literature has addressed ethical issues of pure cognitive enhancement, such as autonomy, liberty, human nature, authenticity, playing gods, hyperagency, fairness/justice, and risk/safety. The chapter aims to elucidate the empirical data about the cognitive enhancement effects of the above pharmaceuticals. Empirical studies have shown that pharmaceutical cognitive enhancers might also have effects on the emotions that may modify human cognition (including moral cognition) (Zohny, 2015). It is important to address the often neglected, but important parts of emotional and moral cognition, and the context for making good pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement policies. The second section of the chapter briefs the readers on the cognitive and emotional, and even moral, effects of the above-mentioned candidate pharmaceutical cognitive enhancers. It indicates that the context of pharmaceutical use also influences the effectiveness and that the category names of pharmaceuticals are oversimplified and sometimes misleading. The third section first elucidates how we could recognize the enhancement effects of pharmaceuticals in multilevel contexts. Using psychedelics as an example, it proposes a potential context-sensitive way of PCE policy-making that considers the entanglement of emotion, morality, and context. In conclusion, the chapter advises the proper arrangement of contexts to construct and facilitate cognitive, emotional, and moral enhancement at the same time.
SDGs
Publisher
Taylor and Francis
Type
book part