Sometimes I wonder if Germany is the last bastion of common sense in our world. In Germany, they do not allow any research on human embryos. Germany just recently caved to pressure and allowed preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) on human embryos, but only for cases whether the parents carry genetic disease. (In the U.S., we have no restrictions on PGD, not even for sex selection.) And it was Greenpeace of Germany that successfully challenged the patenting of human embryos in Europe. With the crazy ideas coming out of England and Australia these days, I found this story refreshingly sane.
Dr Roland Kipke, of the University of Tübingen International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities, and his colleagues have written a paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics arguing that cognitive enhancing drugs for otherwise healthy people are too dangerous to be ethical. From Michael Cook's commentary at BioEdge:
They contend that the neuroenhancers are wrong on two counts.
First, the assumption that a non-addictive drug will appear is probably false. The latest research suggests that “the neuronal correlates of key cognitive concepts, such as learning and memory, are so deeply connected with mechanisms implicated in the development and maintenance of addictive behaviour so that modification of these systems may inevitably run the risk of addiction to the enhancing drugs”.
Coffee is often cited as a neuroenhancer which is harmless and has no ethical drawbacks. However, coffee does not work in the same way as these drugs: “there is a neurobiologically definable difference that is highly relevant to addiction medicine between coffee consumption and the use of drugs such as modafinil, which indicates the addictive potential of the latter. Coffee and neuroenhancers are not the same.”
Second, its supporters believe that neuroenhancement poses no moral challenges, especially if, as they assume, the drugs are unlikely to be addictive. However, the danger of addiction is so great and so proximate and the potential benefits are so remote and hypothetical that on balance, it would be immoral even to conduct clinical trials.
For instance, although drugs might raise IQ, and therefore productivity and social success. But IQ in developed countries is rising anyway. Why risk addiction? On another level, there would almost certainly be great social pressure to use neuroenhancers. Refuseniks would be forced into lowly-paid jobs or would be forced to compromise their principles.
With all these dangers in mind, the German ethicists argue that the research into the benefits of neuroenhancers is simply too dangerous to waste precious research funds on it.
Note the authors mention the coercive nature of enhancements. You can choose not to enhance, but you will be left behind or forced into low-paying, low-satisfaction positions. Medicine, research, engineering, the law, etc will all be reserved for the enhanced because us lowlys who don't want to be addicted to some drug we don't need just won't be smart enough anymore. Some choice.
