scholarly journals Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement and Cheapened Achievement: A New Dilemma

Neuroethics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma C. Gordon ◽  
Lucy Dunn
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Cognitive Enhancement ◽  
Cognitive Architecture ◽  
Significant Risk ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Cognitive Integration ◽  
London 2012 ◽  
Radical Enhancement ◽  
Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement ◽  
Do So

Abstract Recent discussions of cognitive enhancement often note that drugs and technologies that improve cognitive performance may do so at the risk of “cheapening” our resulting cognitive achievements (e.g., Kass, Life, liberty and the defense of dignity: the challenge for bioethics, Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2004; Agar, Humanity’s end: why we should reject radical enhancement, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2010; Sandel, The case against perfection. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2007; Sandel, The case against perfection: what’s wrong with designer children, bionic athletes, and genetic engineering?”. In: Holland (ed) Arguing about bioethics, Routledge, London, 2012; Harris in Bioethics 25:102–111, 2011). While there are several possible responses to this worry, we will highlight what we take to be one of the most promising—one which draws on a recent strand of thinking in social and virtue epistemology to construct an integrationist defence of cognitive enhancement. (e.g., Pritchard in Synthese 175:133–151, 2010; Palermos in Synthese 192:2955–2286, 2015; Clark in Synthese 192:3757–3375, 2015). According to such a line, there is—despite initial appearances to the contrary—no genuine tension between using enhancements to attain our goals and achieving these goals in a valuable way provided the relevant enhancement is appropriately integrated into the agent’s cognitive architecture (in some suitably specified way). In this paper, however, we show that the kind of integration recommended by such views will likely come at a high cost. More specifically, we highlight a dilemma for users of pharmacological cognitive enhancement: they can (1) meet the conditions for cognitive integration (and on this basis attain valuable achievements) at the significant risk of dangerous dependency, or (2) remain free of such dependency while foregoing integration and the valuable achievements that such integration enables. After motivating and clarifying the import of this dilemma, we offer recommendations for how future cognitive enhancement research may offer potential routes for navigating past it.

The Gathering of A Community: The British-born of San Francisco in 1852 and 1872

1976 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Burchell
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Geographical Mobility ◽  
The Third ◽  
Human Effort ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Incomplete Picture ◽  
Do So

Studies of the Massachusetts communities of Newburyport and Boston have revealed a high rate of geographical mobility for their populations, in excess of what had been previously thought. Because of the difficulty in tracing out-migrants these works have concentrated on persisters, though to do so is to give an incomplete picture of communal progress. Peter R. Knights in his study of Boston between 1830 and 1860 attempted to follow his out-migrants but was only able to trace some 27 per cent of them. The problem of out-migration is generally regarded as being too large for solution through human effort, but important enough now to engage the computer. What follows bears on the subject of out-migration, for it is an analysis of where part of the migrating populations of the east went in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, namely to San Francisco.

‘Cognitive enhancers’: A qualitative exploration of university students’ experiences with prescription medicines for academic purposes

2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110619
Author(s):  
Fanny Monnet ◽  
Christina Ergler ◽  
Eva Pilot ◽  
Preeti Sushama ◽  
James Green
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Cognitive Enhancement ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Cognitive Enhancers ◽  
Qualitative Work ◽  
Prescription Medicines ◽  
Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement

Qualitative work with students who use prescription medicines for academic purposes is limited. Thus, a more nuanced understanding of tertiary students’ experiences is urgently needed. Our study – which draws on five semi-structured interviews with New Zealand university students, complemented with information from local newspapers, blog entries and discussion forums – reveals students’ motivations and perceived effects, their risk perceptions and provides insights into the circumstances enabling the engagement with prescription medicines for academic purposes. Students were influenced by peers and social norms; and ideas about identity, morality and fairness also played a role for engaging with cognitive enhancers. Students used high levels of stress and workload to justify their use but took individual responsibility for their practices. By taking responsibility in this way, rather than considering it as a product of their environment, they buy into the neoliberal university discourse. Unexpectedly, some participants were already receiving medically justified psychopharmacological treatment but extended and supplemented this with nonmedical use. Others considered their use as being for academic emergencies, and that their low level of use helped manage risks. Overall, students viewed pharmacological cognitive enhancement for improving academic performance as cautious, safe, and morally acceptable. We argue in this paper that a local understanding of students’ motivations, justifications and perceptions of pharmacological cognitive enhancement is required, to tailor policies and support systems better to their needs and behaviours.

Radical Enhancement, Knowledge, and Autonomous Belief

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
J. Adam Carter
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Cognitive Enhancement ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
Belief Condition ◽  
Justification Condition ◽  
Radical Enhancement

Epistemic autonomy is necessary for knowledge in ways that epistemologists have not yet fully appreciated. This chapter uses a series of thought experiments featuring (radical) forms of cognitive enhancement in order to show why; in particular, and with reference to a series of tweaks on Lehrer’s ‘TrueTemp’ case, I motivate an autonomous belief condition on propositional knowledge, a condition the satisfaction of which—it will be shown—is neither entailed by, nor entails, the satisfaction of either a belief condition or, importantly, an epistemic justification condition. This transition from a ‘JTB+X’ to a ‘JTAB+X’ template marks an important and needed update to the received thinking about what knowing involves. (Of course, the question of whether knowledge is analysable is contentious; an appendix for knowledge-firsters explains the relevance of the necessity of epistemic autonomy for knowledge for knowledge-first projects).

The Intersection of Biology and Materials Science

MRS Bulletin ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
George M. Whitesides ◽  
Amy P. Wong
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Materials Science ◽  
Research Society ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Major Focus ◽  
Spring Meeting ◽  
Materials Research

AbstractThis article is based on the plenary address given by George M. Whitesides of Harvard University on March 30, 2005, at the Materials Research Society Spring Meeting in San Francisco. Materials science and biomedicine are arguably two of the most exciting fields in science today. Research at the border between them will inevitably be a major focus, and the applications of materials science to problems in biomedicine—that is, biomaterials science—will bud into an important new branch of materials science. Accelerating the growth of this area requires an understanding of two very different fields, and being both thoughtful and entrepreneurial in considering “Why?” “How?” and “Where?” to put them together. In this fusion, biomedicine will, we believe, set the agenda; materials science will follow, and materials scientists must learn biology to be effective.

scholarly journals Physician Attitudes towards Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement: Safety Concerns Are Paramount

PLoS ONE ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (12) ◽  
pp. e14322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Opeyemi C. Banjo ◽  
Roland Nadler ◽  
Peter B. Reiner
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Enhancement ◽  
Physician Attitudes ◽  
Safety Concerns ◽  
Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement
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