Abstract
Discussions about the permissibility of students using enhancements in education are often framed by the question, “Is a student who uses cognitive-enhancing drugs cheating?” While the question of cheating is interesting, it is but only one question concerning the permissibility of enhancement in education. Another interesting question is, “What kinds of students do we want in our academic institutions?” I suggest that one plausible answer to this question concerns the ideals of human excellence or virtues. The students we want in our academic institutions are virtuous or, at least minimally, possess certain virtues. I argue that a virtuous student may choose to use cognitive-enhancing drugs for reasons of self-improvement. That a virtuous student may choose to use cognitive-enhancing drugs for reasons of self-improvement illustrates that under certain conditions motivation can determine the permissibility of using enhancements. Building upon this I suggest a virtues-based institutional rule for governing and guiding student-use of cognitive enhancers in an academic institution to be for the right reasons. This ideals of human excellence or virtues approach offers interesting and unique insights for issues of enhancement in education, as it might turn out, that uneasiness many people have about students using cognitive-enhancing drugs has less to do with issues of enhancement and more to do with the motivations and character of students.
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Notes
While the development and use of cognitive enhancers is as treatment, there is evidence indicating that to some degree cognitive enhancers do improve the capacities of focus and concentration in unimpaired persons to higher functioning levels. The degree to which cognitive enhancers augment or improve the capacities of focus and concentration varies between individuals; for a few individuals cognitive enhancers actually impede cognition, for others their capacities are augmented only slightly, and for most the augmentation to their capacities is only moderate. Yet, in many cases, even moderate augmentation to a person’s capacities of focus can assist a person with declarative learning and be tremendously beneficial to their cognition overall (M. A. Mehta, I. M. Goodyer, B. j. Sahakian, N. Mavaddat, J. D. Pickard and T. W. Robbins, “Methylphenidate enhances working memory by modulating discrete frontal and parietal lobe regions in the human brain,” Journal of Neuroscience, 2000: RC65) (Charlotte R. Housden, Sharon Morein-Zamir and Barbara J. Sahakian, “Cognitive Enhancing Drugs: Neuroscience and Society,” in Enhancing Human Capacities, ed. Julian Savulescu, Ruud ter Meulen and Guy Kahane, 113–126 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2011). (M. Elizabeth Smith and Martha J. Farah, “Are Prescription Stimulants "Smart Pills"? The Epidemiology and Cognitive Neuroscience of Prescription Stimulant Use by Normal Healthy Individuals,” Psychological Bulletin, 2011: 717–741) (Anders Sandberg, “Cognition Enhancement: Upgrading the Brain,” in Enhancing Human Capacities, ed. Julian Savulescu, Ruud ter Meulen and Guy Kahane, 71–91 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2011).
That 20 % of undergraduate and graduate students reported using cognitive enhancers is alarming because the use of prescription stimulants for non-medical purposes among all Americans between 21 and 25 years is only 12.3 % (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, “Results from 2008 National Surveys on Drug Use and Heath: National Findings,” Survey Results, US Department of Health and Human Services (Rockville, 2009).
My accounts shares and draws upon many common features in an Aristotelian conception of virtue. Yet —strict speaking— my account is not an Aristotelian conception of virtue, as evident by the reliance on Confucian and Buddhist conceptions of virtues later in the chapter.
I use the terms motivational structures, character traits, and emotional tendencies interchangeably. The reason for the varying use is that while all refer to a conception of stable and enduring properties of persons, in some cases the of one term better fits the context in which I am describing a virtue. For example, in a broad overview, motivational structure often works best, whereas in a situational context character trait or emotional tendency is more apt.
If, however, one disagrees with this conception of ‘seeking accurate beliefs,’ it is possible to instead consider ‘accurate beliefs’ as meaning ‘beliefs that broaden a student’s intellectual horizons by exposure to a multiplicity of disciplines.’ Either definition is consistent not only with seeking accurate beliefs being a virtue, but something one would want students to possess.
For brevity, I use the term virtuous student in the remainder of this section as referring to “virtuous students or, at least minimally, students possessing certain virtues of seeking understanding and accurate.” beliefs.
Maartje Shermer doesn’t think that this analogy works as an argument against cognitive enhancers, but uses this example for the purposes of illustrating how cognitive enhancers could (possibly) be considered as cheapening a person’s pursuit, achievement, or experience of an academic ideal. The President’s Council on Bioethics has presented similar arguments about enhancements, not construed in terms of “cheapening experience” but in respect to the authenticity of a person’s decisions. Specifically the issue of whether the use of Prozac as an enhancement could negatively infringe on the authenticity of a person’s decisions (Maartje Schermer, “On the Argument that Enhancement is “Cheating”,” Journal of Medical Ethics, 2008: 85–88) (President’s Council On Bioethics, Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness (New York: Regan Books, 2003).
Timothy Chappell also invokes the notion of an ethical outlook, but while our notions are, roughly, similar he employs the notion of ethical outlook as a critique of contemporary academic moral theory whereas my notion of ethical outlook is solely used to facilitate the project of providing a virtues-based approach to issues of enhancement in academia (Timothy Chappell, “Ethics Beyond Moral Theory,” Philosophical Investigations, 2009: 206–243)
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Enck, G.G. Ideals of Student Excellence and Enhancement. Neuroethics 6, 155–164 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-012-9164-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-012-9164-6