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J Adam Carter, Duncan Pritchard, The Epistemology of Cognitive Enhancement, The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy: A Forum for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine, Volume 44, Issue 2, April 2019, Pages 220–242, https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhy040
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Abstract
A common epistemological assumption in contemporary bioethics held by both proponents and critics of nontraditional forms of cognitive enhancement is that cognitive enhancement aims at the facilitation of the accumulation of human knowledge. This article does three central things. First, drawing from recent work in epistemology, a rival account of cognitive enhancement, framed in terms of the notion of cognitive achievement rather than knowledge, is proposed. Second, we outline and respond to an axiological objection to our proposal that draws from recent work by Leon Kass (2004), Michael Sandel (2009), and John Harris (2011) to the effect that “enhanced” cognitive achievements are (by effectively removing obstacles to success) not worthy of pursuit or are otherwise “trivial”. Third, we show how the cognitive achievement account of cognitive enhancement proposed here fits snugly with recent active externalist approaches (e.g., extended cognition) in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science.