Ethical Studies For Pharmaceutical Cognitive Enhancement By University Students

Throughout history,human beings tried possible ways to enhance themselves and seek a better life.The rise of neuroscience and biotechnology makes it more powerful and radical to transform the human condition and enhance human capacities beyond the normal range.We will be able to look younger,feel happier,perform better and become more intelligent and moral.In recent years,some college students in the western universities began to take off-label drugs to enhance attention,concentration,memory and the abilities of problem-solving and gain an edge over others.This sparks great controversy among philosophers,ethicists,doctors,lawmakers.Is it ethical for college students to improve their cognitive capabilities to gain an edge over others?Does it fit in with the goals of higher education?What ethical and social problems does it lead to?Should some policies or laws be made to control the misuse of cognition-enhancing drugs?This paper starts with the definition of human enhancement which is complex and elusive.It explores the definition from a descripitve-functional approach,a treatment-enhancement normative approach,and the welfarist approach.Enhancement varies from culture to culture,from time to time,and from context to context.A definiton which applies to all situations cannot be made.Therefore a definition of enhancement can be possilbe in a particular context or social-cultural situation.In this paper,enhancement can be defined as the use of biotechnical means to improve human normal capacities at a modest level or within human normal range.Then the history of enhancement is reviewed.The major types of human enhancement involve cognitive enhancement,mood enhancement,moral enhancement and love and marriage enhancement.Cognitive enhancement catches much attention,which can be attained by pharmacological means,non-invasive brain stimulation,deep brain stimulation,genetic means,brain-computer interface.The use of cognition-enhancing drugs has become the focus of our study.Then this paper reviews the students' use of cognition-enhancing drugs in different universities across the world with the result that the prevalence varies greatly from one country to another,from one campus to another.It appears more common in America or western developed countries,which is attributable to several possible reasons.They are closely related to social and cultural context,such as the pervasive drugs environment,the overmedicalisation of ADHD,the biased report of the prevalence and efficacy of cognitive enhancement drugs from the media,and the competitive academic environment and the disregard of the university for the students' use of drugs.The key chapter is the exploration of the ethical and social problems of college students' cognitive enhancement by cognition-enhancing drugs.Students' use of drugs is a form of cheating in some competitive occasions,like in exams,which is similar to the use of steroids in sports.But education and competitive sports are inherently different practices,because the ultimate aim of the former is to help students to acquire knowledge and skills necessary for their future career instead of taking competitive exams.So in this regard the use of cognition-enhancing drugs can help everyone to learn more and attain the internal goods of education.As for distributive justice,the rich can afford cognitive enhancement technologies,while the poor can't.As far as cognition-enhancing drugs are concerned,they are cheap and affordable,which is not a big problem for college students.And it is not uncommon to find in our society the rich can afford expensive private tutoring and the poor can't,so the use of cognition-enhancing drugs is not to blame.The second concern is that the use of cognition-enhancing drugs erodes good character and diminishes the valuable experiences of college students.Actually,it can help students study more efficiently and allow them to devote more time to other meaningful activities and cultivate other good virtues.Regarding human dignity,the use of the drugs doesn't undermine it in the Kantian sense,in which reason and freedom are emphasized.Instead the use increases it by helping the students to study better.Cognition-enhancing drugs don't alter one's narrative identity and authenticity.Overall,the ethical problems raised above don't constitute a categorical objection to the use of cognition-enhancing drugs.But the paramount concern is safety and efficacy.Cognition-enhancing drugs are addictive and mind-impairing.Overdose will lead to hypertension,high fever and even deaths.The long-term effects of drugs are still unknown.Researches can't reach a consensus on the efficacy of cognition-enhancing drugs.The effects on healthy cognition are mixed due to the subjects' genes,baseline cognitive capacities,and sleeping time etc.The effects of the drugs are modest at most.It is hard to explicitly and correctly predict which drug is effective for a particular person in a particular task.Therefore cognitive liberty is limited and relative due to its safety and efficacy.For the sake of students' health,the governments should make severe laws and policies to limit the non-therapeutic use of cognition-enhancing drugs.Particularly in the countries where drug misuse or abuse is common,collaborative efforts are made to produce a desirable effect,including the government,hospitals,media,universities and pharmaceutical companies.Even if when we have safe and efficient means of enhancement,we should take a cautious attitude towards human enhancement and enhance our capacities moderately,because radical enhancement will destroy biological balance and human values.