Abstract
The problem of regulating cognitive neuroenhancement for healthy adults has generated considerable interest.
This chapter draws and expands on my previous work which has been published as: Dubljević (2013).
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Notes
- 1.
According to the study by DeSantis et al. (2008), 34% of student participants admitted that they were using ADHD stimulants illegally. Most illegal users reported using ADHD stimulants primarily in periods of high academic stress and found them to reduce fatigue while increasing reading comprehension, interest, cognition , and memory. Furthermore, most had little information about the drugs they used and found procurement to be both easy and stigma-free.
- 2.
It should be noted here that it is very hard for the modeling strategy to be quantitative, as opposed to qualitative. Namely, currently available data on prevalence varies greatly among different surveys and ranges from 5 to 35% (see Ragan et al. 2012). Furthermore, the lack of adequate information on long term effects and even short term benefits (the issue how laboratory findings of improvement in cognition relate to every-day performance is far from clear) further complicates the matter. A purely quantitative rational choice modeling strategy would require reliable data, which is not available. Bearing all this in mind, numerical payoffs in the design of dilemmas could only be assigned tentatively and supplanted with a qualitative analysis. This also points toward the conclusion that regulatory models which could provide the missing information would be more effective, even if their preliminary assumptions turn out to be incorrect in the long run.
- 3.
Bearing this in mind, a prolonged discussion of positions that advocate legalization of “illicit” drugs for recreational use (e.g. De Greiff 1999; Husak 2005) would be misleading, as associated social problems are very different. Namely, there might be peer pressure to consume say cannabis for recreational purposes or as a life-style choice, but pressure to use CE would be felt in entirely different social milieus—competitive work and educational settings.
- 4.
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Dubljević, V. (2019). Cognitive Enhancement and the Problem of the Pressure to Enhance: Rational Choice Modeling and Normative Justification. In: Neuroethics, Justice and Autonomy: Public Reason in the Cognitive Enhancement Debate. The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13643-7_2
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