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Leveling the Playing Field: Fairness in the Cognitive Enhancement Debate

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Cognitive Enhancement

Part of the book series: Trends in Augmentation of Human Performance ((TAHP,volume 1))

Abstract

One controversy within bioethics regards whether the use of potential cognitive enhancements would decrease fairness in society by giving advantages to the already privileged or increase fairness by enabling the worst off to compete with others. Both positions are based on a notion of society as competitive, in which fairness is the purpose of a certain degree of institutional intervention. In the context of cognitive enhancement, this intervention would be the regulation or deregulation of the use of certain drugs by schools, universities, employers or legislators with the goal to protect competition. In the context of neo-liberalism the state intervenes in the market to protect competition. In both contexts, the aim is to level the playing field and to provide equal opportunities to compete. Within the framework of Michel Foucault’s terminology, I will argue that the bioethical debate on fairness forms part of a neoliberal governmentality.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the US, the life-time prevalence of non-medical prescription stimulant use in 2004 was 6.9 %, according to McCabe et al. (2005). In Germany a recent study from the University of Mainz surveyed a lifetime prevalence non-medical prescription stimulant use of 0.78 % (Franke et al. 2011).

  2. 2.

    To further explore the fantasies and underlying normative assumptions on cognitive enhancement, I conducted focus group discussions in Germany and the US with students who do not necessarily take medication themselves. Results are not published yet.

  3. 3.

    Foundation of the “Neuroethics Society” (2006), Foundation of the “European Neuroscience and Society Network” (2007). Two neuroethical journals: Neuroethics (2008) and American Journal of Bioethics – Neuroscience (2010).

  4. 4.

    Bruno Latour who explores the dualistic distinctions made by modernists between nature and society, between humans and non-humans, asks (Latour 1993, 124): “Are not most ethicists busy with those two opposite but symmetrical tasks: defending the purity of science and rationality from the polluting influence of passions and interests; defending the unique values and rights of human subjects against the domination of scientific and technical objectivity?”.

  5. 5.

    Two of the co-authors of the memorandum, Jan Christoph Bublitz and Dimitris Repantis, are also contributors to this book.

  6. 6.

    Positional goods are goods that are valued for their scarcity alone (cf. Hirsch 1977).

  7. 7.

    Ian Hacking points out, that although Habermas put “Human Nature” into the title of his book it is not human nature’s integrity itself that forms the basis of his argument, but human dignity. Fukuyama, instead, uses this phrase in itself as the basis of his entire argument (cf. Hacking 2009, 16).

  8. 8.

    This doesn’t mean that today’s psychiatric neuro-interventions are not coercive any more.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Nicolas Langlitz for many very inspiring discussions that have enriched this chapter and Thomas Biebricher, Georg Fischer and Isabell Trommer for valuable editing and comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences, Institute of Sociology, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt, Germany

    Greta Wagner

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  1. Greta Wagner
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Correspondence to Greta Wagner .

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  1. , Department of Philosophy, University of Mainz, Jakob Welder-Weg 18, Mainz, 55099, Germany

    Elisabeth Hildt

  2. , Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Mainz, Untere Zahlbacher Str. 8, Mainz, 55131, Germany

    Andreas G. Franke

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Wagner, G. (2013). Leveling the Playing Field: Fairness in the Cognitive Enhancement Debate. In: Hildt, E., Franke, A. (eds) Cognitive Enhancement. Trends in Augmentation of Human Performance, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6253-4_18

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