neuro not much ado

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Neuroenhancement: Much Ado About Nothing?Frdric Gilbert

a& Bernard Baertschi

b

aUniversity of Tasmania

bUniversity of Geneva

Published online: 18 Oct 2011.

To cite this article:Frdric Gilbert & Bernard Baertschi (2011) Neuroenhancement: Much Ado About Nothing?, AJOB

Neuroscience, 2:4, 45-47, DOI: 10.1080/21507740.2011.620068

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2011.620068

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of books were devoted to this topic. One of the most inter-esting is Louis-Joseph-Marie Robertss (1803), about the artof begetting great children (megalo-anthropogenesis) so asto enhance the human species. As we can see, hopes for en-hancement in human history are not unique to our epoch,and given this observation, there is some risk that bioethi-cists, in the current enhancement debate, might not have

captured or found new conceptual challenges.But we must be careful to avoid a pitfall. When Con-

dorcet and his contemporaries speak of enhancement, theydo not have in mind exactly the same thing that most oftodays authors have. More broadly, we can understandimprovementa more general termin several ways.Moral improvement is one of our oldest ideals, and ethicsin Ancient Greece had proposed such an improvementthrough the acquisition of virtues, that is, excellences. Wecan call this optimization and contrast it with augmen-tation (Baertschi, 2009), where human beings try to go be-yond natural limits. As is well known, modernity is charac-terized by a stance against raw (human) nature and a trendto go beyond, that is, to augment or to enhance what na-

ture has given to us. Condorcet and his contemporariesacknowledge that there exist natural limits and that wecannot go past these. All we can do is to reach the limitsour human nature has set, but those limits have nothing todo with our actual condition: We cannot even imagine whereand when they will put a stop in our progress. Briefly said,18th-century philosophers are not transhumanists, but theydo think that our capacities for progress are extensive, oncethe reactionary powers that prevented their development(monarchy and church) have been defeated.

This attitude indicates a first point of difference be-tween philosophers like Condorcet and those of our cen-tury. A second difference consists in the means for pro-moting human enhancement in the respective centuries.

To improve human beings, Condorcet mentions politicalmethods (the destruction of inequality between people andbetween citizens) and the improvement of cognitive pro-cesses. This improvement in cognitive processes will notbe realized through chemical substances or magnetic in-fluences in the brain, but through the improvement of ourlanguage and of our methods of discovery and mathemati-cal analysis (following Bacon, Newton and Condillac), andthrough better instruction. Science will consequently spreadthrough the population and scientific as well as technolog-ical progress will follow. The modernity of Condorcet con-sists in his faith in the power of science and politics to im-prove thehuman conditionto itstruefulfillment,stilllargelyunknown.

We think that these historical considerations are im-portant for present-day enhancement debates for tworeasons.

First, the historical elements show that the question ofhuman enhancement must be separated into two parts. Onone hand, there is a conceptual and ontological aspect, withan ethicalconsequence; on theotherhand, there is an empir-ical aspect, with an ethical consequence also, but a differentone. The ethical concern that attaches to the ontological as-

pect has to do with the respect we owe, or do not owe, tohuman nature and natural processes, and the permissibilityof the means we use to modify them. The means of humanenhancement mentioned by Condorcet are very differentfrom themeansused nowadays for neuroenhancement, andboth can be problematic if they are used in an inappropriatemanner, that is, if they are or become dangerous. Pharma-

ceutical substances canbe damaging, butso is inappropriateeducation and inappropriate politics. Here, the ethical pointconcerns safety and efficacy.

Second, the historical considerations point out that ear-lier debates could be illuminating for contemporary au-thors. Nowadays, ethical debates concerning biotechnolo-gies often take place as if they had no history and werecompletely new, but if biotechnologies are new, attemptsto enhance are not. If there is a neuroenhancement bub-ble as Lucke and colleagues argue, the risk for bioethicistsis that they revisit old debates, but without making anyconceptual progress, even if pharmaceutical substances arenew.

Do current neuroenhancement debates consist in much

ado about nothing? There is no clear answer to this ques-tion, because it depends on whichpartof the question is ad-dressed. For some bioethicists, their research efforts shouldbe devoted to practical problems, such as ensuring the safetyand efficacy of clinical trials involving psychoactive drugs,rather than spending too much time on exploring concep-tual difficulties related to speculative neuroenhancements.But for some others, the need to explore speculative prob-lems is a necessity. Even if one day a dose of a psychos-timulant could help a student to safely remain alert longerand memorize more data over many hours, what reallymatters for these bioethicists is the conceptual position ad-vocated to promote its use. The practical question of safetyis fundamental (Lucke et al. 2010) and cannot rely on past

experiments or reflections, but this is not the case with thespeculative conceptual ethics.

It is well known now that medicinal stimulants such ascacao, coffee, and tobacco have been used for enhancementpurposes for quite some time now, and yet they have neverpushed humans beyond their natural limits. To what extentwill the current slate of psychoactive stimulant drugs finishin the same historical book chapter? From our contempo-rary point of view, looking at past enhancement debateshelps us to understand that the enhancement question wasto a certainextent a speculative bubble at the time. The dan-ger with current speculative ethics is that it does not echocurrent practical ethics concerns.

A robust appreciation of the historicity of these debates

would not eliminate having to engage with speculativeethics per se, but could reduce the inflation associatedwith many assumptions concerning the potential use(s) ofcognitive enhancers (Gilbert 2011). Ignoring the debatesof the past masks a sense of deja vu in todays debatesconcerning the ethics of neuroenhancement. Reaching intohistory, reaching further back into the past, provides ethicsthe opportunity for gaining some needed distance fromtodays speculative neuroenhancement bubble. Gaining

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