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Cognitive Enhancement, Virtue Ethics and the Good Life

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Abstract

This article explores the respective roles that medical and technological cognitive enhancements, on the one hand, and the moral and epistemic virtues traditionally understood, on the other, can play in enabling us to lead the good life. It will be shown that neither the virtues nor cognitive enhancements (of the kind we have access to today or in the foreseeable future) on their own are likely to enable most people to lead the good life. While the moral and epistemic virtues quite plausibly are both necessary and sufficient for the good life in theory, virtue ethics is often criticised for being elitist and unachievable in practice for the vast majority. Some cognitive enhancements, on the other hand, might be necessary for the good life but are far from sufficient for such an existence. Here it will be proposed that a combination of virtue and some cognitive enhancements is preferable.

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Notes

  1. This type of criticism is predominately targeted at the traditional forms of virtue ethics.

  2. See e.g.; Greene and Haidt [15]; Haidt [17]; Wheatley and Haidt [52]; Kosfeld et al. [27]; Knoch et al. [26]; Kiesel et al. [25]; Brasil-Neto et al. [4]; Baumeister [1]; Beckham [2]; Tancredi [49]; Libet et al. [33]; Harman [20]; Doris [13].

  3. For a discussion see e.g. Kahane and Shackel [24], ‘Methodological Problems in the Neuroscience of Moral Judgment’, forthcoming in Mind and Language; Levy [29]; Singer [44]; Weinberg et al. [51]

  4. Naturally, one can still accept that it is the eudaimon life but that it might not be a possibility for most people, or indeed, anyone. This is further discussed in Combining Cognitive Enhancements and Virtue.

  5. Any such enhancements must of course be voluntary and safe.

  6. Enhancement has been criticised on the grounds of threatening to erode effort, motivation and under-cut human agency in general, see e.g. Sandel [41]. I do not believe that the claim made here is vulnerable to such arguments.

  7. Throughout the article I will use cognitive enhancements to mean the type of medical and technological enhancements we have access to today or, might have, in the foreseeable future. I am open to the idea that there could be a technological leap such that some of the arguments put forward here would no longer hold.

  8. /NE1179b32-37/

  9. Harman [20]; Doris [13]; Darley and Batson [12]. For a discussion and possible responses, see e.g. Hutchinson on hexis [22]; Nussbaum [36]; Hursthouse [21]; MacIntyre [34]; Haidt [18]; Crisp and Slote [11]; Harman [20].

  10. Crisp [10]

  11. Some of these concerns will be further discussed in The Case for Cognitive Enhancement below.

  12. Wheatley and Haidt [52]

  13. Kosfeld et al. [27]

  14. Knoch et al. [26]

  15. Kiesel et al. [25]

  16. Brasil-Neto et al. [4]

  17. Beckham [2]

  18. Greene et al. [16].

  19. Quote from Greene’s website http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/. The study is Greene et al. [16].

  20. As discussed by Gilbert Harman in, for example, Harman [19]. For a discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of EDAs, see e.g. Kahane and Shackel [24], ‘Methodological Problems in the Neuroscience of Moral Judgment’, forthcoming in Mind and Language

  21. Greene and Haidt [15]; Haidt [17]

  22. For some examples, see Kahane and Shackel [24], ‘Methodological Problems in the Neuroscience of Moral Judgment’, forthcoming in Mind and Language; Singer [44]; Liao [31]; Sturgeon [48]; Street [47]; Levy [28]; Levy [30]; Tersman [50]

  23. Tancredi [49]

  24. Current examples of healthy people using prescription drugs in order to enhance their performance are Ritalin (developed to treat ADHD); Ampakines or cholinesterase inhibitors (drugs developed to counter cognitive degeneration in Alzheimer patients; and modafinil-based substances developed to treat excessive need for sleep). For a comment see e.g. Sahakian and Morein-Zamir [40]

  25. See e.g. Bostrom and Sandberg [3] ‘Cognitive Enhancement: Methods, Ethics, Regulatory Challenges’, forthcoming in Science and Engineering Ethics; Roache and Liao [39]; Savulescu and Bostrom [43]; Liao et al. [32]; Sahakian and Morein-Zamir [40]; Catterjee [8]

  26. Nair and Young [35]; Cho et al. [9]; Insel and Hulihan [23]; Williams et al. [53]; Winslow et al. [54]

  27. Young et al. [55].

  28. For example; the ‘Enhanced Liquid Trust’, a cologne-like mixture of oxytocin and pheromones said to be “designed to boost the dating and relationship area of your life”; in Australia, clinical studies are underway to determine whether an oxytocin spray might aid traditional marital therapy. http://www.verolabs.com/

  29. Savuelscu and Sandberg [42].

  30. I do not wish to imply that Savulescu and Sandberg would claim that it could.

  31. Here I am thinking especially about the example of ‘vicious Cynthia’, see Buchanan et al. [7]

  32. See e.g. Nussbaum [37]; Nussbaum [36]

  33. I am acknowledging that forms of very advanced conative (emotional) enhancement potentially might achieve both the same results and mimic the experience of habituation. For space reasons, this paper cannot deal with conative enhancement as a separate issue but for an interesting argument, see e.g. Douglas [14]; Persson and Savulescu [38]

  34. See work by virtue-responsibilists like Linda Zagzebski and James Montmarquet for example

  35. Here I am following the Aristotelian account in assuming some version of cognitivism—i.e. that the virtuous person is the one who knows what is right and wrong.

  36. For some interesting ideas on Social Moral Epistemology, see e.g. Buchanan [5]; Buchanan [6]

  37. For an account of the temporal aspects of different virtues and personal goods, i.e. the idea that certain virtues are good for us at certain points in our lives (for example, that innocence and trustingness is good for children but less so for adults), see Slote [45]. Note, however, that Slote does not claim that all virtues are ‘relative’ in this sense.

  38. See e.g. NE Books 3 and 6

  39. Sorabji [46], p. 203.

  40. Eudaimonia is the best life for any human, about this we have no choice because it is a result of our nature see e.g./NE1111b28-30/.

  41. See, for example, bio-conservatives like Francis Fukuyama, Leon Kass and George Sandel.

  42. And consequently be much less likely to lead to the bad result that many fear human enhancement will do e.g. risk taking, positional advantages.

  43. See e.g. Aristotle’s Politics and NE Book 5.7

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  1. Lincoln College, OX1 3DR, Oxford, UK

    Barbro Elisabeth Esmeralda Fröding

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Fröding, B.E.E. Cognitive Enhancement, Virtue Ethics and the Good Life. Neuroethics 4, 223–234 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-010-9092-2

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