Rethinking Cognitive Enhancement

by ter Meulen, Ruud; Mohammed, Ahmed; Hall, Wayne

• ISBN13: 9780191835230
• ISBN10: 0191835234
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2017-02-23
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Author Biography

Professor Ruud ter Meulen (1952) is psychologist and ethicist. He was Professor and Director at the Institute for Bioethics and the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. In 2005 he was appointed Chair for Ethics of Medicine and Director of the Centre for ethics in Medicine at the University of Bristol. He has directed a range of European projects in the field of biomedical ethics. He was co-ordinator of the ENHANCE project, dealing with the ethical, philosophical and social issues of enhancement technologies. He was also co-ordinator of the recently finished European EPOCH project on the role of ethics in public policy-making on new biotechnologies, with enhancement as a case, and of the European SYBHEL project on the ethical, legal and social issues of synthetic biology as applied to human health. He has published about 150 articles, book chapters and edited volumes on a range of topics in bioethics.
Wayne Hall is a Professor and Director of the Centre for Youth Substance Abuse Research at the University of Queensland. He was formerly: an NHMRC Australia Fellow in addiction neuroethics at the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research and the University of Queensland Brain Institute (2009-2014); Professor of Public Health Policy, School of Population Health, UQ (2005-2009); Director of the Office of Public Policy and Ethics at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (2001-2005) at the University of Queensland; and Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW (1994-2001). He has advised the World Health Organization on: the health effects of cannabis use; the effectiveness of drug substitution treatment; the contribution of illicit drug use to the global burden of disease; and the ethical implications of genetic and neuroscience research on addiction.
Dr Ahmed Dahir Mohamed is a registered psychologist, neuroscientist and author. He was the recipient of the Emerging Psychologist Award from the 2016 International Congress of Psychology in Yokohama, Japan for his work on the effects of mindfulness in young people. He was formerly a post-doctoral fellow in Developmental Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience at the School of Psychology University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. He obtained his doctorate in Psychology from the University of Cambridge, where the focus of his thesis was how to enhance cognition in young people. Dr. Mohamed was a recognized DPhil student at the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, University of Oxford. In 2013, he was a visiting neuroscience and ethics fellow at St Cross College, University of Oxford. Dr. Mohamed holds a first class honours degree in psychology from the University of Reading and he became a full chartered member of the British Psychological Society in 2013 and elected associate fellow in 2015.

Table of Contents

Preface, Ruth Chadwick
Editorial, Ruud ter Meulen, Ahmed Mohammed, and Wayne Hall
List of Contributors
Part I: Introduction to the Volume
1. Should we get smarter by taking cognitive drugs? Towards a critical appraisal of arguments and evidence in the debate on cognitive enhancement, Ruud ter Meulen, Ahmed Mohammed, and Wayne Hall
2. The ethical debate on human enhancement and cognitive enhancement by way of biotechnologies, Ruud ter Meulen
Part II: Risk and benefits of the use of neuropharmacological drugs for cognitive enhancement
3. Overclocking the brain? The potential and limitations of Cognition-Enhancing Drugs, Reinoud de Jongh
4. Neuro-enhancement: a call for better evidence on safety and efficacy, Charles Massie, Eric Yamga, and Brendon Boot
5. Exaggerating benefits and downplaying risks in the debate on cognitive neuroenhancement, Andreas Heinz and Sabine Muller
6. The Effects of Modafinil on Creativity: Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial, Ahmed Mohammed
7. Does modafinil improve cognitive functioning in healthy individuals?, Ahmed Mohammed
8. Cognitive enhancement using noninvasive brain stimulation: weighing opportunity, feasibility, and risk, Priyanka P. Shah-Basak and Roy H. Hamilton
9. The use of brain stimulation technology for cognitive enhancement and the potential for addiction, Mark Attiah
10. Debunking the ethical neuroenhancement debate, Stephan Schleim and Boris B. Quednow
Part III: Ethical, philosophical, legal and policy issues of cognitive enhancement
11. The evolutionary limits of enhancement, Ralph Hertwig and Thomas Hills
12. Enhancement and therapy: is it possible to draw a line?, Alex McKeown
13. On the argument that enhancement is cheating, Maartje Schermer
14. Psychiatric nosology and cognitive enhancement, Dan Stein
15. Will cognitive enhancement lead to more well-being? The case of people with disabilities, Heather Bradshaw
16. The Legal Aspects of Cognitive Enhancement Legal regulations on cognitive enhancement practices, Imogen Goold
17. Students and 'smart drugs': empirical research can shed light on enhancement enthusiasm, Brad Partridge
18. Lessons for enhancement form the history of cocaine and amphetamine use, Stephanie Bell, Jayne Lucke and Wayne Hall
19. Drug policy and the public good: evidence for effective interventions, Wayne Hall and John Strang