Cognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancement
Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of economic decision-making. Ethical decision-making has been comparatively neglected. Since ethical decisions often involve very high individual as well as collective stakes, analyzing how cognitive biases...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers
2014
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| _version_ | 1826275164082405376 |
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| author | Caviola, L Mannino, A Savulescu, J Faber, N |
| author_facet | Caviola, L Mannino, A Savulescu, J Faber, N |
| author_sort | Caviola, L |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Research into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of economic decision-making. Ethical decision-making has been comparatively neglected. Since ethical decisions often involve very high individual as well as collective stakes, analyzing how cognitive biases affect them can be expected to yield important results. In this theoretical article, we consider the ethical debate about cognitive enhancement (CE) and suggest a number of cognitive biases that are likely to affect moral intuitions and judgments about CE: status quo bias, loss aversion, risk aversion, omission bias, scope insensitivity, nature bias, and optimistic bias. We find that there are more well-documented biases that are likely to cause irrational aversion to CE than biases in the opposite direction. This suggests that common attitudes about CE are predominantly negatively biased. Within this new perspective, we hope that subsequent research will be able to elaborate this hypothesis and develop effective de-biasing techniques that can help increase the rationality of the public CE debate and thus improve our ethical decision-making. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T22:54:32Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:5feb0f52-4eca-497b-9a33-40a40aa366ad |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T22:54:32Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | Frontiers |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:5feb0f52-4eca-497b-9a33-40a40aa366ad2022-03-26T17:50:08ZCognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancementJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:5feb0f52-4eca-497b-9a33-40a40aa366adPractical ethicsEthics of the biosciencesPhilosophyEthics (Moral philosophy)EnglishOxford University Research Archive - ValetFrontiers2014Caviola, LMannino, ASavulescu, JFaber, NResearch into cognitive biases that impair human judgment has mostly been applied to the area of economic decision-making. Ethical decision-making has been comparatively neglected. Since ethical decisions often involve very high individual as well as collective stakes, analyzing how cognitive biases affect them can be expected to yield important results. In this theoretical article, we consider the ethical debate about cognitive enhancement (CE) and suggest a number of cognitive biases that are likely to affect moral intuitions and judgments about CE: status quo bias, loss aversion, risk aversion, omission bias, scope insensitivity, nature bias, and optimistic bias. We find that there are more well-documented biases that are likely to cause irrational aversion to CE than biases in the opposite direction. This suggests that common attitudes about CE are predominantly negatively biased. Within this new perspective, we hope that subsequent research will be able to elaborate this hypothesis and develop effective de-biasing techniques that can help increase the rationality of the public CE debate and thus improve our ethical decision-making. |
| spellingShingle | Practical ethics Ethics of the biosciences Philosophy Ethics (Moral philosophy) Caviola, L Mannino, A Savulescu, J Faber, N Cognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancement |
| title | Cognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancement |
| title_full | Cognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancement |
| title_fullStr | Cognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancement |
| title_full_unstemmed | Cognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancement |
| title_short | Cognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancement |
| title_sort | cognitive biases can affect moral intuitions about cognitive enhancement |
| topic | Practical ethics Ethics of the biosciences Philosophy Ethics (Moral philosophy) |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT caviolal cognitivebiasescanaffectmoralintuitionsaboutcognitiveenhancement AT manninoa cognitivebiasescanaffectmoralintuitionsaboutcognitiveenhancement AT savulescuj cognitivebiasescanaffectmoralintuitionsaboutcognitiveenhancement AT fabern cognitivebiasescanaffectmoralintuitionsaboutcognitiveenhancement |