Research Questions
At a conceptual level, this project will investigate the limits of the idea that responsibility tracks mental capacity. At a practical level, it will answer the following four policy questions:
- whether in virtue of their social roles and what is at stake, some people – in this case surgeons, aeroplane pilots and military personnel – have a moral and legal obligation to cognitively enhance themselves;
- whether it is negligent or reckless for such people to fail or refuse to do this under certain circumstances (and in this case, which?);
- what impact cognitive enhancement has on standards of care, and specifically, whether it raises them to a higher level or not; and
- whether we may sanction breaches of such higher standards of care by (e.g.) revocation of professional license, or civil and criminal liability.