The ethics of cognitive enhancers
Cognitive enhancers - substances that improve our ability to think, plan and remember - are already used routinely by some academics and students to boost their brainpower. Does this give the few people who currently take them an unfair advantage? Or are they the sensible ones and will the rest of us get left behind?
This is one of the questions ethics researchers at the Wellcome Centre for Neuroethics are debating. "Cognitive enhancers are going to be one of the biggest issues we're going to face socially," says Professor Julian Savulescu at the Centre.
The US Department of Education has stated that nearly half the population lack the mental ability to enjoy the rights and responsibilities of citizenship: they can only solve very simple problems like finding a bus time on a bus timetable, or where to sign their name on a national security cheque.
That's a huge number of people with severely reduced functioning. Should we give cognitive enhancing drugs selectively to these people to reduce the cognitive inequality in society? Or would it be more beneficial if we all took them?
Inequality or quality?
"If you look at the top 0.25 per cent of the population in terms of IQ, you find that five times as many patents are produced by that top quarter per cent compared to the people who are just 0.75 per cent below them," says Professor Savulescu. "And overall, that group produce eight more than the people before them. So if you think of patents as a measure of creativity, then even a very small increase, going from the bottom quarter of the top 1 per cent to the top quarter is going to make a difference to your ability to produce valuable things for society.
"It's a trade off between equality and a better quality of life for everyone. If you improved everyone's memory by 10 per cent there would be no reduction in inequality but it would make everyone's life better. They wouldn't forget their keys, or where they put the fridge instruction booklet. Everyone could do without that - it's just a waste of time. So even if they don't give us a positional advantage these drugs can still make our lives better."
Professor Savulescu and colleagues note that research is generally focussed on finding treatments for disease and malfunction - derivations from 'normal' to bring sufferers back to 'normal'. "But normal might not be all that great. Maybe more research could focus directly on enhancement - on making things better as opposed to preventing them from being bad. We're talking about positive biology, positive pharmacology. Things that will improve people's lives, not just treat diseases.
"The US military is investing a lot of money in this, because even a very small change in the cognitive performance of the working population will have massive economic benefits. One estimate puts it that if you increase everyone's IQ by just 3 per cent you'll increase GDP by 1.5 per cent and increase the US economy by $150 billion. The prizes are going to go to those countries that take human limitation seriously."
Image: A mixture of tablets spilling out of a bottle. Credit: Wellcome Images
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