I think Nick Bostrom (2003) has a strong argument against it. Within the framework of transhumanism, he makes a distinction between positional advantages and intrinsic advantages:

• Positional advantages enhance you as long as others doesn´t have it. I think enhanced drugs would fall onto this category.
• Intrinsic advantages enhance you as well as the rest of society. Vaccines would fall onto this category.

Positional advantages have ethical implications regarding inequalities and unfairness. They are a promotion of competition.

Now obviously competition doesn´t need to be a bad thing per se, particularly when is linked to values such as hard-work and effort. This would lead to reflect upon the idea of meritocracy. But that is not the discussion with competition through positional advantages, simply because the subjects that own them have done nothing relevant to acquire them, they haven´t earn them.

If you are taking about performance-enhancing drugs, then they are a few risks associated with this type of drugs:

Men may develop:

• Prominent breasts
• Shrunken testicles
• Infertility
• Prostate gland enlargement

Women may develop:

• A deeper voice, which may be irreversible
• An enlarged clitoris, which may be irreversible
• Increased body hair
• Baldness, which may be irreversible
• Infrequent or absent periods

Both men and women might experience:

• Severe acne
• Increased risk of tendinitis and tendon rupture
• Liver abnormalities and tumors
• Increased low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (the "bad" cholesterol)
• Decreased high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the "good" cholesterol
• High blood pressure (hypertension)
• Heart and blood circulation problems
• Aggressive behaviors, rage or violence
• Psychiatric disorders, such as depression
• Drug dependence
• Infections or diseases such as HIV or hepatitis if you're injecting the drugs
• Inhibited growth and development, and risk of future health problems in teenagers

\I am working on a paper about cognitive enhancement (through drugs) in healthy individuals (in educational contexts, mainly university). Do you think this is a form of cheating? Would it have different ethical implications, if it were for a student or an academic? I am interested in hearing people's thoughts on these issues. Any comments or experiences are welcome.

Jonathan I don't think your question is clear. On my interpretation, you ask whether your 'healthy' person should be able to increase 'cognitive' ability by using drugs. Why a 'healthy person'?...Is a person who wants to use drugs 'healthy'. Why should, on that basis, an unhealthy person be disallowed?

My immediate sense of your 'Would it have different ethical implications, if it were for a student or an academic?" is that you may be less interested in the paper than using the drugs yourself. Why?...owing to your 'would it have different' rather than 'does it have different'...That may be a knee-jerk thought of course.

There is copious material on this area, including the permissive enthusiasm of Leary, Manson and songwriters and designers and so on, who maintain that drug use increases their scope and ability. "Smart' drugs are prescribed ('modafinil' for example) for 'brain enhancement'. Ritalin and others are prescribed to control people rather than aid cure them through changing the societal causes of mental disease and drug taking. Is it preferable to use modafinil rather than electrotherapy'?...or would it worsen a depressed condition?

Queensland University (2018) made some comment on 'Do Smart Drugs Work?' at

https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain/learning-memory/do-smart-drugs-workhttps://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain/learning-memory/do-smart-drugs-work

D'Angelo et al, wrote a dissertation accepted by the British Medical Journal

(

British Journal of Pharmacology (2017) 174 3257–3267) which discussed ethics. "Lifestyle use of drugs by healthy people for enhancing cognition, creativity, motivation and pleasure". You may have already read it. There are numerous others.

You asked about 'cheating'. Interesting subject, my having experienced the organised cheating by large numbers of overseas students studying in Australia, facilitated by lecturers. Some are astounding in their gall and the frightening reasoning, not acceptable in Australia, is 'we don't care how we do it just as long as we get the paper (Certificate/Transcript)'.

Why should we not attend to studies 'as we are'? Is a person able to and does undertake physical fitness regimes have a fair mental advantage over those peers who don't? It doesn't always follow of course as numerous footballers in all codes train hard and take drugs but cannot conduct a rational answer to a simple question. Some will argue whether taking an aspirin to reduce pain is cheating...after all, someone else in the group might have a headache and no aspirin....chewing gum as seems to be herd animal behaviour in USA may provide stimulant (nicotine for example or peppermint).

Some might argue that using a 'smart' drug may simply be enabling a person to reach their 'inherent ability'. A concern might be that a person using drugs to pass a course may not be able to recall the course work when needed and may be a person who continues on using drugs when working in the profession, succumbing to side effects which may harm other people.

I recall a psychiatrist (French, operating in Sydney, now deceased) seriously over-prescribing DPH and endangering life most likely owing to his own 'experimenting' with LSD. A question reasonably asked is whether a person ought to be happy being examined and convicted by a judge which is on mind altering substances.

Such statements as 'all school students have tried marijuana' have progressively lead to the manifestation of marijuana as a 'health benefit'...I bought shares in one such company claiming to be used only for animals. When I later tracked the board members down on Internet and found them all either stoned or mentally impaired and mumbling nonsense I sold the shares, forthwith, at a significant loss. Recently published was the (for me) astounding news that the present PM of Australia has signed into law the importing of Kava into Australia 'to please our Pacific Islander mates'.

In fact white non-islanders have been lobbying for two decades to introduce that hepatitis-introducing brain fuzzing drug, vast profits foreseen and the PM has drunk it, in surely very diluted form. Working in the essentially corrupt areas where it is used I supervised workers who used it and I would not encourage its use and keep it away from our shores on sound reasoning..

People who want a drug culture and/or a mind-altering access readily find excuses to introduce it. The adverse effects are significant even for Valium and Zoloft. That may be an aspect to research in your studies...whether it is desirable to introduce yet another drug culture at university and if one or more students or academics (students are academic by the way) are known to use it should all the others be recommended to use it for 'equity'.

I have introduced the general as well as the specific. I'd like to see your question opened-up with specific drug nomination and why healthy people should be permitted to use a drug when 'unhealthy' (all needing defining) are not.

Thanks for the comment. I'm assuming (I can be wrong) that most people who take a drug like Modafinil, are because they need it (in a medical sense, for example to treat narcolepsy). In this sense, I am referring to "healthy individuals" (people who do not need "enhancement drugs" medically). Honestly, a lot of literature about it seems to me ambiguous, not only in front of the results, but with respect to the different implications of use (for example, for a university student it would be "cheating" to use these "enhancers", but not for a researcher who makes a report or a presentation. Possibly I am misusing the term "academic", due to a cultural issue). But the doubt was directed to a question of degrees. There are so many documents that seem to differ as to who uses them (students - seniors, teachers, nurses etc.). However, that is precisely the point, to clarify these ideas.

"Correct" is not the correct word, so the question might need fine-tuning. In any event, for a balanced exploration of that issue, I recommend the excellent documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1151309/), which I have used in my Philosophy of Sport and Recreation course.

remember the old law in chemistry? "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.". That said, I'm off for my morning coffee. As for cheating? If I am assuming you are concerned with testing. Here the element of fairness is bound up with competition. This is an academic testing question only. The alternative question is, does the mind enhancement come from making some of the dimmer mental traces available, or does it open a whole new spectrum of information not inherent in the mind without the stimulation?

I think differing contexts will help address this question. Steroids are banned in competitive sports in the U.S., but they're widely used anyway. Because they're widely used it seems it's not cheating to use them in competition.

Compare this with modafinil - a relatively safe prescription drug associated with cognitive enhancement - used by students or academics. In either case there doesn't seem wide use or expectations of use. That suggests it's cheating to use them. But even here it's not obvious. There's also not an expectation that students and academics exercise, meditate, eat healthy diets, etc., all of which considerably aid cognition. Does that mean it's cheating to meditate or exercise? I think not.

That suggests to me using a controlled substance you've reason to believe is in fact safe (cp. steroids which aren't) to improve cognition, is not cheating. Though I should say this is in part because there aren't very clear guidelines indicating how one should be a student or academic (cp. again, there are clearer guidelines for how one should be a baseball player, for instance).

At the outset I don't support any non-prescription for 'recreation' or ''consciousness altering' drug use yet one can argue a case where a one might get pleasure from eating a carrot and argue that food is a drug. If a person is lacking a brain chemical which is retarding their learning I think it reasonable that they can ingest that chemical in the 'appropriate form' and weight. That's quite different as I see it from 'mind enhancing' for a normal or lazy student. For me the question then arises that a pass or a grading achieved in a body of knowledge through 'performance enhancing' drug use can be maintained as accessible knowledge when required by say a client.

After a look-through of some interesting responses on ethics and even physical changes caused by some drugs I'm thinking:

Meditation and healthy diet are aspects of life which are used to maintain or achieve potential without partaking of 'substances' to 'enhance' mental prowess. One person might use Ritolin to combat a medical condition say ADHD. That might aid his results. Another might use it without such medical condition in the expectation of increasing achievement over and above his or her normal healthy 'brain-power'. From an ethical viewpoint there is a difference, but how it is viewed will depend on drugs view and drugs experience.

I doubt 'mind-enhancing drug it comes under any defined heading of cheating in exams as will for chemicals taken to increase sporting achievement. I do think it reflection on the pathos of human greed and deficient ego that 'unfair advantage' is sought to 'become competitive'. I'm not one who thinks giving everyone equal opportunity is by having them all on prescription or other drugs.

It's interesting that people who have offered drugs to me reduce themselves to repetitious characterisation when I say 'no'...In their view I'm 'a coward'... 'gutless'.. not prepared to even try it. I wonder how they became addicted? I have had denial of sex with a new partner, where mutual attraction was obvious but 'when the chips were down' for whom the 'communion' of altered consciousness is an essential part of their experience to the point of a virtual blackmail...or perhaps relieves them of guilt. I've lived life with lots of experiences and on reflection I'm happy to have experienced what I have without suffering the deficient ego or the narcissism which induced me to drug myself.

Please Go To This Link:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/38/6/666

Hi Jonathan,

Maybe this will be of use: Article Social Policy and Cognitive Enhancement: Lessons from Chess

Best,

Emilian