CLEARING THE BOTTLENECK OF EMPIRICAL DATA IN THE ETHICS OF COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT

Stakeholder and community engagement is a mainstay of modern ethics scholarship. This engagement is credited with the ability to provide empirical data that identifies areas of contention and consensus on issues with social and regulatory implications that, in turn, can guide appropriate practice and policy. Cognitive enhancement is used as a case study to discuss how stakeholder engagement has both advanced our understanding of and contributed to blind spots in the ethics of human enhancement. Successes of stakeholder engagement on the ethics of cognitive enhancement include delimiting the boundaries of acceptability, identifying specific areas of contention among stakeholders, and demonstrating ambivalence on some ethical issues. Blind spots that are hindering progress in the area are minimal representation of diverse communities among stakeholders, few options for regulation of enhancement, and lack of consensus on who is responsible for regulation. Clarifying the blind spots will require the concerted effort of researchers and policymakers to revisit fundamental questions about cognitive enhancement to determine what evidence is useful and how it can be underpinned by normative work to yield the promised practical impact.