The Ethics of Cognitive Enhancement

Some can be caught and some can just simply be playing and be on steroids. “… There was no telling if you were seeing a clean or dirty event, a real athletic competition or a duel between pharmacists” (Sullivan). It is simple for an athlete to take steroids and for no one to notice until they see a change in the athlete’s ability, but there is always steroids that can be hard to find on drug tests (Drug use in Sports). With that in mind while steroids enhance athlete’s ability and breaking their records it also makes athletes more recognized by fans. For example, in the 1990s two men put on two of the most memorable baseball seasons in 1998 and 1999. Both men set high records and also set high sell out percentages in games, whether it was tickets, or souvenirs. While they were on enhancers. Even when players did not use steroids they were still accused or thought to be using steroids. Take Tarry Bonds, assumed to be a steroid user is the biggest draw in sports. (We Should Accept Performance Enhancing Drugs).

Taking Performance Enhancing Drugs makes the athletes phony and doesn’t show true skill and talent. Rather it shows that the athletes taking them don’t believe in themselves and need to have that extra boost in order to show the sporting world what they are “truly” capable of. PEDs should be banned from sports with a no tolerance policy. The consequences should be stricter and the athlete should be banned from the sport for life so that there will be less athletes to take the PEDs for years to

The Intelligence Square U.S. held a debate about whether or not the government’s rules on performance enhancing drugs should be ban in professional sports. For the debate they had Radley Balko, Investigative Journalist, Norman Fost, Professor of Pediatrics and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, and Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford argue for the motion. They argue the fact that the medicines we take on a daily basis from the pharmacy are also performance enhancers. This goes back all the way to the Romans who once used herbs to improve themselves for battle, making them believe that the only exception that separates this from steroids is that it is illegal. On the other hand, you have

“Commentators claim that performance-enhancing drugs are not right or wrong, simply another strategy to improve performance” (Introduction to Performance-Enhancing Drugs). There are two main problems wrong with the use of drugs being legal. Health of athletes would drop devastatingly, and the true competition would become who gets lucky. “Some mourn the loss of yesterday's baseball heroes, while others argue that sport figures who use performance-enhancing drugs expose flaws in American culture” (Introduction to Performance-Enhancing

Performance enhancers are very prominent in professional sports today. A lot of players are facing suspensions and other penalties for using them. The sport that gets scrutinized the most for this is Baseball. Many former users in the MLB (or formally the NABBP) have come out saying that they were using these drugs while playing. Some of these players are Jorge Sosa, Antonio Bastardo, and the famous Alex Rodriguez. Although these drugs have been prohibited, players are still finding ways around the tests which is why in some other countries they are legal so that no one player can have an unfair advantage.

In my analysis I am going to analyze the effectiveness of Margaret Talbot’s argument in “Brain Gain: The Underground World of Neuroenhancing Drugs”. This article is about the use of stimulants as cognitive enhancers for high-functioning people and not the intended use for the drugs. The problem is whether or not these stimulants should be considered ethical for everyday use as a cognitive enhancer. Talbot effectively supports her argument that “neuroenhancers” should be allowed for everyday use through her use of testimonials and factual information/statistics that she provides in the article in order to convince her targeted audience that the assistance of a stimulant as a cognitive enhancer is beneficial.

Should athletes be stripped of their titles and medals for using sports-enhancing drugs? Do sports-enhancing drugs actually improve the athlete’s natural abilities to the extent where their abilities are no longer natural? These are the controversial questions that stem from athletes involved with sports-enhancing drugs. Substances that improve the performance of an athlete are classified as an enhancing drug. Anabolic steroids, human growth hormones, and even diuretics are some commonly used sports-enhancing drugs. The professional sports industry, in my opinion, is being defined by athletes who are using or not using sports-enhancing drugs. The athletes who are in the professional sports world today and are achieving greatness end up being on a form of enhancing drug in most cases.

Performance enhancing drugs have affected these athletes in a many different ways, such as letting all of their fans and people that look up to them down by using the steroids to enhance their performance. Not only are they hurting themselves, but they are hurting their family, friends, and supporters. All of these athletes have all had similar negative outcomes. All of these athletes would want to perform to the best of their ability. In the end, Alex Rodriguez, Lance Armstrong, Tyson Gay, and Marion Jones’ careers have all plummeted. Alex Rodriguez got suspended for 162 games, Lance Armstrong has been banned from all events revolving around road biking, Tyson Gay has been disqualified from the olympics, and Marion Jones will face jail time. Lance Armstrong once said 4"I would want to change the man that did those things, maybe not the decision, but the way he acted. The way he treated people, the way he couldn't stop fighting. It was unacceptable,

Imagine being able to take a drug that enhances your performance at work so much that you are rewarded with a raise. A drug that could land you the job of your dreams and give you the competitive edge needed to beat out the rest of the competition. Drugs in baseball have been around since the early days of the game. From steroids to stimulates, baseball players have been willing to put anything in their bodies if it’ll help them stay in the show for a few years longer and keep those paychecks coming in. Now, the question is, do these performance-enhancing drugs ruin the integrity and sportsmanship in the game of baseball? How many good baseball players didn’t get a job on a Major League team because their competition accelerated their abilities

Cognition-enhancing drugs are nothing new to society today. The only thing that is changing is the development of these drugs and their intended purpose. Drugs in the medical sense are supposed to enhance our lives in a positive way by effecting the user psychologically. The use of drugs is usually to heal an illness or to compensate for something that is lacked. Drugs are extremely susceptible to abuse by the way that they can improve the well being of the user in some type of positive way. Drugs can have many different negative side effects that can potentially outweigh the positive side effects that the drugs possess. Cognition enhancing drugs can be used for many different purposes. Many of which can be for legitimate medical purposes ranging from helping to aid people with developmental conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, neurodegenerative

Humans have been seeking many different ways to improve their cognitive ability for thousands of years. For example, education has been used in order to learn and improve on cognitive ability and to improve our understanding of the world (Bostrom and Sandberg, 2009). With the advance of technology, resources and medicine, humans have managed to develop cognitive enhancing drugs that improve our cognitive ability by improving the attention, motivation and working memory.

Since mankind fist started competing in organized sports there has been a race to discover new and better ways to improve an athlete’s capability. These elite athletes are constantly looking for anything under their power that they can do to surpass their competition. However, many times they result in choosing steroids as their mean to improve themselves; a very delicate topic in our society. Us, the spectators, love seeing records being broken and home runs being hit, but when those athletes are caught using PESs (performance-enhancing substances), we do not think twice before accusing him or her of cheating. The general public has no

Society has an odd relationship with pharmaceuticals and medical technology. If something can be said to be 'natural', we tend to be ok with it. If it seems lab-made or synthetic we tend to be wary. But even synthetic drugs and manmade technology seem to be okay if the aim is to make sick or broken people well again. Steroids and doping help pitchers to throw harder, home runs to go further, cyclists to charge for longer and sprinters to test the very limits of human speed. A huge part of watching sports is watching the pinnacle of human athletic ability, and legalizing performance enhancing drugs would only help athletes climb even higher. Radley Balko stated in an article for Reason magazine that “Sports is about exploring and

One of the easiest methods to justify why consuming performance enhancing substances is wrong is the fact that it is forbidden. Once an individual accepts that he or she will be a part of a community that values particular rules, the respective person automatically agrees to respect those rules and to do everything in his or her power to make sure that fairness dominates the community as a whole. There are basically three arguments reinforcing this ide:

Many people believe that drug use in professional athletics is not a serious problem, however it is more widespread and serious than people think. In professional athletics the use of drugs is looked upon as somewhat of a serious problem, but is also very discrete and low key. Every once in a while one might see a prominent figure in a certain sport being reprimanded for the use of some outlawed drug, however this is just one of the many who happened to get caught. Athletes today seem to find no moral problem with using performance-enhancing drugs, or in other words cheating. Also many of them feel that because they are "stars" there should be no repercussions for their illegal activity.