Abstract

PIEDRA ALEGRIA, Jonathan. A Bioethical Approach to Cognitive Enhancement in Healthy Individuals: "The More is not the Better". rev.latinoam.bioet. [online]. 2019, vol.19, n.2, pp.93-110. ISSN 1657-4702.  https://doi.org/10.18359/rlbi.4292.

The discussion on human enhancement is one of the topics that has gained more relevance in the current bioethical debates. In this article we will approach this concept, specifically in relation to the cognitive enhancement. In order to create a reflexive ethical framework, we will approach the subject from different points of view. Firstly, how cognitive improvement is understood based on two different aspects: the enhancement purpose and the enhancing activity itself. Subsequently, the scope of cognitive enhancement will be approached from the perspective of scientific research on the subject. On the second part of this paper we will analyze (based on the metanalysis of a selection of technical-empirical research papers) whether there is an actual enhancement and, if there is, what kind of enhancement is it. Finally, we will carry out a reflection around the moral problems represented by cognitive enhancement, to briefly conclude that this kind of enhancement occurs in a very limited manner while being justified from a reductionist framework of cognition and therefore of the human being.

Keywords : human enhancement; cognitive enhancement; drugs; therapies; perfectionism ethics.

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