Ethics of Convergence for Enhancement of Cognition

Abstract

This chapter considers the ethics of the enhancement of cognition in the Convergence initiative. In mature areas of research and development, ethics can be regarded as a specialized domain of practice with its own distinctive expertise. Debate on use of stimulants for enhancement can be taken as representative. Such ethical reflection usually takes for granted the concepts, norms, and ends that govern the development and uses of pharmaceuticals in medical contexts. Instead of engaging these background interpretive frames, ethical analysis tends to focus on potential harms or negative disruptive effects associated with a specific application and is oriented toward mitigating these and renormalizing the practices. In emerging areas such as those contemplated in Convergence initiatives for enhancing cognition, such analysis is not possible. A more complex ethical discourse is required which will be entangled with scientific and technologically oriented reflection on the nature of the cognitive capacities being advanced. This will be illustrated by considering the ways notions of executive function, metacognition, ethical responsibility, and Convergences advancing cognition might be iteratively refined in relation to one another. As a broad effort to understand, foster, and manage emerging practices, Convergence provides a helpful framework for cultivating long needed reforms in the way ethical analysis and policy are approached. At the same time, cultivation of a full ethics of Convergence adds something that is missing from the current Convergence efforts. A richer convergence of Convergence and ethics would thus be mutually beneficial for both forms of second-order reflection.