Long-Term Ethical Issues and Logistics Concerning Cognitive Enhancement

This paper explores the ethical issues surrounding cognitive enhancement, focusing on the long-term societal effects and logistics of pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement use. Pharmaceutical cognitive enhancements are being used at a startling rate, especially by college students. These students are using enhancers despite their detrimental effects to the user and those around them. This paper finds cognitive enhancement by the healthy to be ethically wrong, as enhancement use by healthy individuals is unfair to many members of society, strains limited health and medical resources which could be otherwise used to solve actual medical problems, involves a wide range of health issues which are still largely unknown, would involve people using unnatural means to improve their bodies, and would, against their better judgment, encourage others to use harmful cognitive enhancements. Based on these findings, it is suggested that prescription of these medicines be made more strict and drug tests be implemented for cognitive enhancers at universities.