Ethical Caveats Surrounding Mental Performance Enhancement

In this chapter, we apply ethical frameworks that help guide moral decisions on the use of scientific and technological advances for performance enhancement. We do not attempt to provide a clear answer to ethical dilemmas, rather we raise several considerations regarding the use of mental performance enhancement in humans. We describe several ethical frameworks which are woven throughout the present chapter, particularly when reviewing examples of the various tools used to enhance mental performance. Indeed, several of these tools rely on identifying norms and convictions of society or the individual (i.e., deontology), weighing cost–benefit analysis of applied methods (i.e., consequentialism), and through emphasis on the individual as an autonomous moral agent capable of making decisions (i.e., virtue ethics).