Research On The Ethic Issues Of Cognitive Enhancement

Cognitive ability plays an very important part in people's modern social life, and be more intelligent is the aims of human being at all times. With the development of technology and the advance of society, more and more means of enhancing cognitive ability are emerged from the traditional nutrition and education to the modern cognitive enhancement. Cognitive enhancement mainly takes use of the technology of modern biomedicine to enhance cognitive ability, and it is divided into three categories:Pharmaceutical products, Brain stimulation and neurotechnology, and Genetic manipulation. Cognitive enhancement can effectively enhance cognitive ability. However, cognitive enhancement interfered in our body with the aims of non-therapy breaks our natural balance. This thesis attempts to discuss the main ethic issues, including justice, coerce, dignity, authenticity, and safety.The most concern of people who are not approved of cognitive enhancement is its technique risks and side-effects. However, we could not ignore its instrumental value which could bring benefits to individual or society. We encourage people make their own decision by balancing its risks and benefits. Although some scholars point out that it seems taking self as means but aims with using cognitive enhancement, and it could change the basic characteristics of human, so they conclude that it is a kind of abasing human's dignity to use it. Actually, that view isn's persuasive, because human self is the unification of aims and means, and our basic characteristics would change with nature. With regard to the issues in authenticity, some people consider that there is close relationship between happy life and real experience, and cognitive enhancement just brings the fake satisfied feeling to us but real happiness. We agree with that view and point out that cognitive enhancement just offer us an instrument to obtain happiness. Refering to the issues on justice, cognitive enhancement could enhance the cognitive ability of patients-associated cognitive impairment, making patients-associated cognitive impairment get eaqual opportunity competed with others;the problems of justiec raised in using cognitive enhancement with non-therapy aims; the elder inequally use cognitive enhancement, which could cause the difference in cognitive ability of offspring. The issue on coercion is because of the special needs of some profession, and some professional are forced to use cognitive enhancement. Finally, we attempt to avoid and solve problems by the precautionary principle, the distinct principle and the self-determination principle. We could effectively avoid the technique risks and side-effects of cognitive enhancement by the precautionary principle. If some are approved of the cognitive enhancement with certain risks, they should offer the large safe data and evidences on this technology. The distinguish principle includes the distinction of cognitive enhancement and the distinction of user. Because different cognitive enhacement have different technique risks and side-effects to some extent, so we should distinguish this technology. The distinction of user means allowing the professional in special area have priority in using cognitive enhancement, who could bring more benefits to society. The self-determination principle focus on the right of acceptance or rejection of cognitive enhancement unconstraintly.