Cognitive Enhancement – A Critical Look at the Recent Debate

Abstract

Cognitive enhancement, which can be characterized as the attempt to increase cognitive functions such as attention or memory in healthy individuals, has received considerable attention during the last decade, both in the general public and in academic discourse. In spite of a very active interdisciplinary debate which has provided helpful reflections, categorizations and clarifications, the numerous questions and problems related to cognitive enhancement are far from having been exhaustively discussed or even solved. Without any doubt, there are several aspects within this field that require more reflection and further clarifications. In this chapter, which serves as an introduction to the following book, I’ll discuss three of them. The first aspect concerns conceptual issues. Specifically, it concerns the question of what we are talking about when we use the term cognitive enhancement. The second aspect regards the question of how issues in cognitive enhancement should adequately be discussed within society. And the third aspect regards the interplay between individual autonomy and society. The last section of this chapter includes an overview of the contributions to the present book.