With the enhancement in technologies dreams of the past have become realistic in the coming future, one of these technologies is a cognitive enhancement for humans. There are currently forms of enhancements such as coffee, Ritalin, and Aderall, which are readily available for the public. There are clear social benefits associated with the increase in cognitive abilities of individuals from the beginning to end of their lives. So clearly it makes sense to have everybody to receive these benefits by taking these enhancements and government should be the one forcing it, but this comes with great opposition. Assuming technology is able to create an enhancement that is safe and has no negative effects the benefits of higher cognitive abilities are huge and cover many different desirable outcomes. Those with higher IQs tend to be reaping social benefits such as better health, improved results from educational experiences, and are able to make more complex and difficult decisions to improve their livelihoods. Higher IQs are also associated with greater economical benefits as those who with higher IQs are more likely to receive a higher education. This also correlates to receiving a more rewarding job with higher income later in life and able to use this income to increase their livelihood. If this drug is cheap also it could eliminate the cost of extra education, which is usually only available to the children of the well off in forms of private education, tutors, and higher education. By taking a cognitive enhancing this can even the playing field for those who can’t afford this extra education. This plays well with Rawls difference principle as it can also help eliminate the differences among natural assets and abilities, or intellige... ... middle of paper ... ...gher IQ. Perhaps if the drug gave the least advantaged 20, the next least advantaged 19, and so on so that they all would attain the same level of IQ with the drug, or just make the drug so that it maxes out at a certain IQ level it could satisfy the fair equality of opportunity, which has lexical priority over the difference principle. It is pretty clear that cognitive enhancing drugs are beneficial in both socially and economically for any individual taking the drug in a society and the society as a whole. Government should require all children to take the drug, as requiring the drug among all children is the best option as when in comparison with only offering it to one group of people making it openly available to those who can afford it, requiring everyone to take it creates the biggest benefit for society as a whole and also creates the most just distribution.
The study required that participants must be given IQ tests, and also that they be observed in a classroom setting while interventions were put in place. Thus the adminsitratiors were able to draw results both from IQ scores and actual classroom preformance.
In the article “Brain Gain: The Underground World of “Neuroenhancing” Drugs” (Yorker 2009) Margaret Talbot discusses the misuse of prescription drugs that enhance academic performance at the college level. First Talbot introduces readers to a young college history major at Harvard University named Alex who receives a description of a demanding, busy life which seems impossible to control without the safety unapproved adopted use of a drug named Adderall. After that Alex’s dependency on the prescription drugs cognitive enhancers is described when he asks his doctor to increase the amount of intake and the listing of his daily routine on using Adderall during a week that required him to write four term papers. Next Talbot describes a personal
Cognitive disorders can seriously affect those who are afflicted with them. You cannot be discriminated against because of your cognitive disorder, as they are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). But, the ADA does not specifically define what it considers to be a cognitive disability. Since different people define cognitive disabilities differently, it can be difficult to determine exactly which conditions fall into that category. The following information will help define cognitive disabilities and how they related to the the work world and disability benefits.
Price, Joyce. "DEA restless about Ritalin: doctors are sounding the alarm about a popular drug used to combat attention disorders in kids." Insight on the News 1 July 1996: 39-40.
Livingston, Ken. "Ritalin: Miracle Drug Or Cop-Out?." Public Interest 127 (n.d.): 3-18. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 12 Nov.
"If Mozart or Beethoven had lived today they would have been drugged for ADHD. This would have destroyed their souls and immeasurably diminished human culture. In my opinion, the current indiscriminate drugging of children is satanic. It destroys character development and fosters a valueless culture. "When a problem arises take a drug."
If people seeking neurological enhancement are given access to these types of drugs many more ethical issues will be raised. Firstly, are these drugs even safe? Many pharmaceutical therapies for cognitive enhancement are relatively new, and therefore there is a severe lack of information about their long term usage. Of course, side effects are a concern with any medicine currently available to patients. However, not all drugs available deal with systems so complex as the brain and nervous system. The dangers presented are amplified greatly because of the importance and intricacies of this system.
Caffeine is the most widely used stimulant on college campuses. It stimulates the central nervous system as it temporarily combats drowsiness, and restores alertness. Caffeine’s “powers” are the perfect anecdote for college student’s busy lives, but what if the opposite was true? Whether students barely come into contact with caffeine, and others use it habitually the study researchers whether caffeine has an effect on their cognitive processes. Daily caffeine regulars and sometime users consume it in many different ways, which are coffee, tea, cola drinks, candy bars, cocoa, cold and diet medications, and sleep prevention compounds, and they also consume it in various different doses. Caffeine is in about 100 medications, stimulants like NoDoz, cold preparations, appetite suppressants and mood elevating agents (Addicott, 2009). The psychophysiological effects of the stimulant include alertness, anxiety, heart rate, and these effects can result in a different performance on different task (Acevedo, 1988). The research questions whether the effects of caffeine have a positive or negative impact on student’s cognitive abilities.
Julian Savulescu has three main arguments in favor of biological enhancement for children. His first argument is choosing not to enhance is wrong. He talks about neglecting parents and lazy parents. Lazy parents are those who have children that have normal intelligence but refuse to do something that could better their child. Neglecting parents are those who give birth to those with special abilities that need enhancement to maintain, but the parents do not give them the enhancement they need. The choice of the parents to deprive their child of higher intellectual achievement due to enhancement is wrong because they choose to not to allow their children be able to obtain that more desirable state. The only way it is right to not enhance
Today’s classroom looks vastly different than classrooms even a decade ago. Teachers today need to be aware of different impairments and the impact it has on the tools they will be using to aid all of their students ability to reach their full potential. Students with cognitive impairments bring with them a unique set of challenges for the student and teacher to both overcome. Cognitive impairments encompass a vast array of qualifiers which makes accommodating for the student seem more problematic than is the reality. So what qualifies as a cognitive impairment? Dove (2012) highlights “attention, memory, self-regulation, navigation, emotion recognition and management, planning, and sequencing activity” as some cognitive processes that provide hurdles for students with cognition deficiencies. However, as Katsioloudis and Jones (2013) note, other cognitive disabilities include traumatic brain injuries, autism, and learning disabilities among others.
Possessing an underutilized brain is like making a billion dollars, but simply hiding the money away forever: there are so many opportunities that stem from it, but it is worthless because it is never put to use. Rene Descartes felt this way himself, as he said, “It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.” I wholeheartedly agree with this quote; a mind is the most precious of commodities but one’s brain is not employed, than it is as useless as a pile of dirt. Still, not only does one have to make use of their mind, it must be in a way that can benefit society. Only than has one truly “used it well.” Despite what some may believe, it is not enough to simply be intelligence; one must use it to make something of themselves.
production for use in society. When children first enter the education system, they are given several psychological tests to identify their intelligence quotient (IQ) score. This score allows educators to slot students on an accelerated, normal, or modified track which will follow them for their entire life. Students on an accelerated trajectory are identified throug...
Using mind constricting drugs leads to immoral outcomes and therefore, mind constricting drugs must be illegal in order to at least minimize the amount of such outcomes. Making mind constricting drugs illegal prevents people from using substances which can only lessen one's quality of life and inevitably, destroy ma...
The author argues that certain decision leads to vast amount of untapped human potential and limits success to few who are selected unjustly. This example supports “Mathews Effect”. The Gladwell’s example of Bill Gates proves the “10,000 Hour Rule”, He explained that the timing and opportunity played a huge role to become an expert at computer programming. Bill Gates had access to computers decades before computers became mainstream. Such a timing helped him capture the opportunity to master the tool of trade and put him in the perfect position to start Microsoft. The Gladwell’s example of experiment by Lewis Terman, He argues about that a person’s IQ have a limited control over success. He claims that there is a minimal difference in the levels of success attained by those with IQs between 125 and 170. The author adds that IQ cannot efficiently measure person’s creativity. A person who has a high IQ does not mean that it has a high chance of winning a Nobel Prize because other kind of intelligence matter too. With the help of these facts, Gladwell proves that the relationship between IQ and success is
Lifelong learning improves cognitive abilities and positive thinking. For example in India many people give importance to Vedas and Indian literature which also has information on every aspect of life. People learn these through home education, self-interest or in a Vedic school. People who learn Vedas and Indian literature participate in Avadhana (a kind of quiz which tests your cognitive ability). Those who have completed these Avadhana’s successfully are proved to have good cognitive abilities. Indian music and traditional dances (like bharathanatyam, kathak, kuchip...