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The Case Against Cognitive Enhancement: Responding to the Reversal Test View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ResearchArchive at Victoria University of Wellington THE CASE AGAINST COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT: RESPONDING TO THE REVERSAL TEST By Alice Monro A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Philosophy School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations Victoria University of Wellington 2008 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor, Nick Agar, for all his advice, guidance and encouragement. I would also like to thank the rest of the philosophy staff, especially Sondra Bacharach who has made this year so great for all the postgrads. Special thanks has to go to the postgraduate students in the philosophy department at Victoria (for the great social times as well as the academic feedback), particularly to Tony (for answering my constant questions), Frieder (for putting words into equations), Dan, Matt, Nick, Dennis and Alan (for all the helpful advice). To my editor and emotional support, Stephen – thanks for reading my entire thesis 6 times in order to find the last misplaced apostrophe. Last, but certainly not least, a huge thank you to Mum, Dad and the rest of my family for all the important stuff. 2 Abstract In this thesis I argue against the use of genetic technologies to enhance human cognitive capacities. More specifically, I respond to Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord’s “Reversal Test”, which they use to argue in favour of genetic cognitive enhancement. The Reversal Test is a burden of proof challenge designed to diagnose status quo bias in arguments against enhancement. By noting that most of those who oppose raising intelligence would also oppose lowering intelligence, the Reversal Test puts the onus on opponents of enhancement to explain why both increases and decreases in our cognitive capacity would be worse than the status quo (our current level of intelligence). Bostrom and Ord claim that if no good reasons can be provided, this indicates that the opposition to enhancement is influenced by status quo bias. Since cognitive biases cannot provide a moral reason against enhancement, opposition to genetic cognitive enhancement shown to be affected by status quo bias can accordingly be discounted. The aim of my thesis, then, is to overcome the Reversal Test’s burden of proof challenge by showing that my reasons for opposing cognitive enhancement are not influenced by status quo bias. However, I do not argue that enhanced intelligence could not be beneficial to the individual. Instead, I claim that the probable unequal distribution of enhancements between the best- and worst-off would be likely to cause serious injustices to those who are unable to afford them. 3 Contents CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................. 6 The Potential of Genetic Enhancement ......................................................................... 6 General Intelligence .................................................................................... 8 Fallacy of Genetic Determinism.................................................................. 8 Somatic and Germline Engineering ............................................................ 9 Chapters Outline.......................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 2: THE REVERSAL TEST...................................................................... 15 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 15 Psychological Evidence of Status Quo Bias................................................................ 17 The Reversal Test........................................................................................................ 20 Arguments against Cognitive Enhancement ............................................................... 21 Argument from Evolutionary Adaptation ................................................. 21 Argument from Transition Costs............................................................... 22 Argument from Risk.................................................................................. 23 Argument from Person-Affecting Ethics .................................................. 25 Responding to the Reversal Test................................................................................. 26 CHAPTER 3: THE CASE AGAINST COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT.................. 27 The Reversal Test Challenge....................................................................................... 27 Possible Responses to the Reversal Test................................................... 28 The Distribution of Enhancements.............................................................................. 30 Enhancements Costly and Technologically Complicated ......................... 31 Subsidisation of Enhancements................................................................. 32 The ‘No Harm Principle’............................................................................................. 35 Risk under Uncertainty.............................................................................. 38 Discrimination............................................................................................................. 40 Personhood Criteria for Moral Equality.................................................... 40 Smarter Humans Equals Better Reasoning?.............................................. 44 Reciprocity .................................................................................................................. 45 Competitive Harms...................................................................................................... 48 The Value of Intelligence.......................................................................... 48 Positional Advantages Create Competitive Harms ................................... 52 Balancing the Benefits and Harms .............................................................................. 53 Potential Scenarios .................................................................................... 54 Competing Moral Considerations ............................................................................... 57 4 Personal Liberty Rights............................................................................. 58 The New Reversal Test ............................................................................................... 60 Responding to the New Reversal Test ...................................................... 61 Conclusion................................................................................................................... 63 CHAPTER 4: CONSISTENCY ARGUMENTS ........................................................ 66 Argument from Medical Treatments........................................................................... 66 Reciprocity ................................................................................................ 68 Discrimination........................................................................................... 69 Loss of Support ......................................................................................... 70 Competitive Harm ..................................................................................... 70 Competing Moral Considerations ............................................................. 73 Argument from Education........................................................................................... 79 Reciprocity ................................................................................................ 82 Discrimination........................................................................................... 84 Competitive Harms.................................................................................... 88 Balancing the Benefits and Harms ............................................................ 89 Competing Moral Considerations ............................................................. 91 Conclusion................................................................................................................... 93 CHAPTER 5: THE DOUBLE REVERSAL TEST .................................................... 96 Thesis Objectives ........................................................................................................ 96 The Original Double Reversal Test............................................................................. 96 The New Double Reversal Test................................................................................... 99 Competing Moral Considerations ........................................................... 100 Conclusion................................................................................................................. 104 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION.................................................................................. 105 Chapters Review........................................................................................................ 105 Other Psychological Biases? ..................................................................................... 110 5 CHAPTER 1 Introduction THE POTENTIAL OF GENETIC ENHANCEMENT The Hollywood movie Gattaca depicts a society where pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is used
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