Boosting your brainpower:
Ethical aspects of cognitive enhancements
There may be a few readers of this blog who will remember the 2000 MildGreen Millennium Initiative for Cognitive Liberty.
There has been a maturation in the global dialogue about ethnobotanicals, entheogens, off-label pharmaceuticals and emerging new psycho stimulants.
This highlights the ethical inadequacy of and corresponding marginalisation of Kiwi Drug Czar and MP (Wigram) Hon Jim Anderton’s propaganda machine along with his Ministry of Health’s parlous 2006 drug policy’ consultation.
Read on, but be aware, this is both a precursor blog entry and a weapon of mass emancipation. Enjoy. The underlines are courtesy of your blogmiester, /Blair)
The key aim of this paper is to facilitate informed debate amongst doctors, scientists, policy-makers, and members of the public about the future development and use of cognitive enhancements. Providing the facts, information and some of the arguments it signals the beginning of a debate about how, as a society, we should consider and respond to the opportunities and challenges presented by cognitive enhancements. A discussion paper from the *BMA / November 2007
Executive summary
- People have long been interested in improving their brainpower. Developments in medicine and pharmacy could provide new ways of doing that but because they raise ethical issues that have not been widely discussed, there is a need for public debate about them. In Part One, this paper sets out some definitions and a framework for debate.
- Drugs and medical interventions designed as therapy for people with diagnosed problems are likely to be sought in future by healthy people to “improve” on nature. It is important to distinguish, however, between what is possible now or will be in the near future and more abstract speculation about longer-term developments. In Part Two, the document examines the evidence (or lack of it) for different methods of enhancement, including nutritional supplements, pharmaceuticals and surgery.
- People may not only want to choose enhancement for themselves but also for their children. The possibilities and limitations of genetic manipulation and selection as a means of enhancing future people are also covered in Part Two.
- Individuals have always been able to try and improve their own or their children’s intellectual abilities through study and effort. The possibility of shortcutting that process and lessening the effort required by using nutrition, drugs or medical techniques is more controversial. Part Three considers why this might be.
- It looks at the speculation about how the new technologies might bring about either positive or negative social and cultural changes, affecting not only individuals but the fabric of society. Arguments that have been put forward by those for and against such a change are briefly summarised.
- One of the main arguments concerns interconnectedness. For the purposes of discussion, the paper looks at cognitive functioning as if it could be isolated from other parts of a person’s life. In reality the potential risks or benefits of cognitive enhancement for other aspects of individuals’ personality, such as emotional stability and creativity, cannot be isolated. People are also interconnected in a social sense, so that choices made by some are likely to impact on others and possibly on society at large. This is highlighted throughout the paper and discussed in detail in Part Three where some suggestions are considered about how a balance might be attained between personal liberty and responsibility to the community.
- Why we may have quite different moral views about different methods, even though they all have the same goal, is also discussed in Part Three.
- Almost anything we try may have some unforeseen side-effects or carry some risks. In order to decide whether change should be regulated, the scope and limits of what individuals should be able to choose for themselves or for other people also need to be discussed. Part Four sets out the arguments for and against limiting choice and considers how regulation, if needed, might be implemented.
- The main questions arising from the paper are summarised in Part Five. The BMA does not have policy or recommendations to put forward on these issues but would welcome informed public debate about how, as a society, we should respond to these developments .
* The British Medical Association – the professional association for doctors. With over 139,000 members, representing practising doctors in the UK and overseas and medical students, the BMA is the voice of the profession and students.
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Blair Anderson ‹(•¿•)›
Social Ecologist ‘at large’
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