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Neuroenhancement at Work: Addressing the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications

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Organizational Neuroethics

Part of the book series: Advances in Neuroethics ((AIN))

Abstract

Neuroenhancement is associated with a wide range of existing, emerging, and future biomedical technologies that are intended to improve human cognitive performance and mitigate—if not reverse—human error. Neuroenhancement in classrooms, universities, and the military has been discussed at length, but the workplace has been largely omitted from the conversation until now. By providing examples from branches of the commercial market that are rarely linked with cognitive enhancement in the literature, we argue that neuroenhancement at work is likely to become a major challenge in the labor market. Therefore, we focus here on the specific application of neuroenhancements to the workplace. Central issues involve both drugs and devices, some of which are well-trodden ethical concerns while others are novel challenges. We conclude with a brief discussion and outline of a discourage-use policy that has the potential to mitigate the challenges of neuroenhancement at work.

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Acknowledgements

VD is supported by the Faculty Research and Professional Development program at NC State University. This project was also supported in part by Technical Safety BC, Vancouver, Canada (ICM and JI) and Neuroethics Canada. JI is Canada Research Chair in Neuroethics. Special thanks go to Abigail Scheper for her help with language editing and formatting.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Veljko Dubljević

  2. Neuroethics Canada, Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Iris Coates McCall & Judy Illes

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  1. Veljko Dubljević
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  2. Iris Coates McCall
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  3. Judy Illes
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Correspondence to Veljko Dubljević .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, HEC Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Joé T. Martineau

  2. IRCM, Université de Montréal, and McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Eric Racine

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Dubljević, V., McCall, I.C., Illes, J. (2020). Neuroenhancement at Work: Addressing the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications. In: Martineau, J., Racine, E. (eds) Organizational Neuroethics. Advances in Neuroethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27177-0_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27177-0_7

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