Filozofija i drustvo 2012 Volume 23, Issue 2, Pages: 79-90
https://doi.org/10.2298/FID1202079G
Full text ( 302 KB)
Seeking more than health: Using medicine for enhancement
Gligorov Nada (Mount Sinai School of Medicine New York, New York, U.S.A.)
The purpose of this essay is to examine some of the ethical concerns raised
regarding the use of neuroenhancers. Authors such as Fukuyama and Sandel
argue that medical intervention should be limited to treatment of disease,
and that enhancement should be outside of the scope of medicine. This
commentary will examine the distinction between treatment and enhancement. I
shall conclude that it is not a well-drawn distinction and should not be used
to provide guidance with regards to the use of psychopharmacological agents
for the purpose of cognitive enhancement. I shall further examine whether
concepts such as disability and normality could provide a criterion for
determining whether enhancement is a permissible use of medical intervention.
I conclude that as those concepts are contextually defined, they cannot be
used to make principled arguments against enhancement. Finally, I shall
review the charge that medicalization of cognitive performance enhancers is
not morally permissible. I shall argue that medicalization might have both
negative and positive consequences, and decisions about the moral
permissibility of medicalization should be made on a case-by-case basis.
Keywords: enhancement, treatment, neuroenhancers, disability, normality, personal identity, medical ethics
Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 41004: Retke bolesti:
molekularna patofiziologija, dijagnostički i terapijski modaliteti i
socijalni, etički i pravni aspekti, potprojekat Instituta za filozofiju i
društvenu teoriju Univerziteta u Beogradu: Bioetički aspekti: moralno
prihvatljivo u biotehnološki i društveno mogućem