The Ethical Issues Surrounding Cognitive Enhancers

Humans have been seeking many different ways to improve their cognitive ability for thousands of years. For example, education has been used in order to learn and improve on cognitive ability and to improve our understanding of the world (Bostrom and Sandberg, 2009). With the advance of technology, resources and medicine, humans have managed to develop cognitive enhancing drugs that improve our cognitive ability by improving the attention, motivation and working memory. One example of a cognitive enhancer that is commonly used today to improve alertness is caffeine, which is contained in tea, coffee and many fizzy drinks (Bostrom and Sandberg, 2009). Other cognitive enhancers used today include Ritalin (Methylphenidate), which is used to†¦show more content†¦The hypoactivity of dopamine then causes reduced attention, impaired working memory and poor behavioural organisation. Ritalin has been used to treat ADHD by blocking the neurotransmitters so they don’t reuptake dopamine, resulting in dopamine being in the system for longer. This means that there is increased motivation and attention, helping some of the symptoms that ADHD produces. There are many studies showing that Ritalin is an effective drug to treat ADHD, with studies showing that Ritalin decreases any abnormalities found in patients with ADHD (Hart et al., 2013; Spencer et al., 2013). Despite Ritalin reducing the symptoms of ADHD, the disorder is normally first diagnosed in children as this is when symptoms first start appearing. This causes problems as children may not understand the side effects of the drugs (e.g. anxiety, nausea, insomnia, psychosis) and are too young to give informed consent. This means that the parent or guardian would have to give consent on behalf of the child which relies on the child having a parent and a parent that is not neglecting of the child. Questions arise such as, how do we know the parent has the child’s best interest at heart? Who makes the decision if the child is orphaned? What if the child doesn’t want the drug, but the parent does - who makes the decision? Another problem with treating children with ADHD is the risk of depending on medical fixes