Philosophy Department and Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY, USA.
Bruno Kessler Foundation Trento, Italy.
Front Syst Neurosci. 2014 Dec 5;8:228. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2014.00228. eCollection 2014.
Neurothics has far greater responsibilities than merely noting potential human enhancements arriving from novel brain-centered biotechnologies and tracking their implications for ethics and civic life. Neuroethics must utilize the best cognitive and neuroscientific knowledge to shape incisive discussions about what could possibly count as enhancement in the first place, and what should count as genuinely "cognitive" enhancement. Where cognitive processing and the mental life is concerned, the lived context of psychological performance is paramount. Starting with an enhancement to the mental abilities of an individual, only performances on real-world exercises can determine what has actually been cognitively improved. And what can concretely counts as some specific sort of cognitive improvement is largely determined by the classificatory frameworks of cultures, not brain scans or laboratory experiments. Additionally, where the public must ultimately evaluate and judge the worthiness of individual performance enhancements, we mustn't presume that public approval towards enhancers will somehow automatically arrive without due regard to civic ideals such as the common good or social justice. In the absence of any nuanced appreciation for the control which performance contexts and public contexts exert over what "cognitive" enhancements could actually be, enthusiastic promoters of cognitive enhancement can all too easily depict safe and effective brain modifications as surely good for us and for society. These enthusiasts are not unaware of oft-heard observations about serious hurdles for reliable enhancement from neurophysiological modifications. Yet those observations are far more common than penetrating investigations into the implications to those hurdles for a sound public understanding of cognitive enhancement, and a wise policy review over cognitive enhancement. We offer some crucial recommendations for undertaking such investigations, so that cognitive enhancers that truly deserve public approval can be better identified.
神经伦理学的责任远不止于记录新兴的以大脑为中心的生物技术可能带来的潜在人类增强，并追踪其对伦理和公民生活的影响。神经伦理学必须利用最好的认知和神经科学知识，深入探讨究竟什么可以被视为增强，以及什么才真正算作“认知”增强。就认知处理和心理生活而言，心理表现的现实背景至关重要。从个体的心理能力增强开始，只有在现实世界的练习中表现出来，才能确定认知上的实际提高。具体来说，什么可以算作某种特定类型的认知提升，在很大程度上取决于文化的分类框架，而不是大脑扫描或实验室实验。此外，在公众最终必须评估和判断个体表现增强的价值时，我们不能假设公众对增强剂的认可会在不考虑共同利益或社会正义等公民理想的情况下自动到来。如果没有对表现背景和公众背景对“认知”增强的实际影响的细微认识，认知增强的热情推动者很容易将安全有效的大脑修饰描绘成对我们和社会肯定有益的。这些热心人士并非没有意识到，从神经生理学修饰中可靠增强的障碍是相当严重的。然而，这些观察结果远比深入调查这些障碍对公众对认知增强的理解以及对认知增强的明智政策审查的影响更为常见。我们提供了一些进行此类调查的重要建议，以便更好地识别真正值得公众认可的认知增强剂。
