Ambivalence in the Cognitive Enhancement Debate
By Neil Levy, PhD Neil Levy is the Deputy Director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics , Head of Neuroethics at Florey Neuroscience Institutes , University of Melbourne, and a member of the AJOB Neuroscience Editorial Board. His research examines moral responsibility and free will. The most hotly debated topic in neuroethics surely concerns the ethics of cognitive enhancement. Is it permissible, or advisable, for human beings already functioning within the normal range to further enhance their capacities? Some people see in the prospect of enhancing ourselves the exciting prospect of becoming more than human; others see it as threatening our humanity so that we become something less than we were. In an insightful article, Erik Parens (2005) has argued that truthfully we are all on both sides of this debate. We are at once attracted and repulsed by the prospect that we might become something more than we already are. Parens thinks both frameworks are deeply rooted in Western culture...