Pharmacological cognitive enhancement and the value of achievements: An intervention

Abstract Pharmacological cognitive enhancements nontherapeutically improve cognitive functioning, though recent critics have challenged their use by claiming that cognitive success, aided by the use of cognitive enhancement, is less valuable than otherwise. We criticize two recent responses to this objection, due to Carter and Pritchard and Wang, and propose a different response on behalf of proponents of cognitive enhancement that is shown to be more promising.

than it would be otherwise. The core thought is that this threat to "undercut" the value of our successes gives us pro tanto reason to refrain from using or pursuing research into such enhancements. 9 In what follows, we argue that the best line of defense for proponents of cognitive enhancement against this objection type requires a distinction between (i) immediate success attained through a combination of one's ability and a given cognitive enhancement and (ii) potential future successes for which present enhancements function as enabling conditions.
In section one, we outline the axiological objection in more detail.
In section two, we explain and evaluate response strategies from Carter and Pritchard 10 and Wang. 11 We then propose our limited defense of cognitive enhancement against the axiological objection.
The result, we think, is a new way for proponents of cognitive enhancement to address the core of the objection while at the same time accommodating some of the underlying intuitions that account for its persuasiveness.

| UNPACKING THE AXIOLOGICAL OBJECTION
Let us begin by taking a closer look at the axiological objection to cognitive enhancement, that is, roughly, the claim that cognitive enhancement reduces the value of achievements. Illustrative examples often revolve around enhancements removing certain obstacles to achieving cognitive tasks, making the intellectual process comparatively easier. Familiar obstacles in the cognitive domain include distraction, 12 poor memory, 13 fatigue, and frustration, 14 for example. We can find the axiological objection expressed in slightly different ways throughout the bioconservative literature, including in work by Kass, Sandel, and Harris. 15 Kass articulates the objection in terms of cognitive enhancements undermining the value of achievement by severing the link between performance and effort, thus making enhanced successes too "easy" to be of substantive worth. 16 Similarly, Sandel argues that cognitive enhancement undermines achievements by disconnecting success from our agency where credit goes not to the enhanced subject so much as "to the pharmacist." 17 Harris, by contrast, claims that since the value of our achievements is predicated upon the possibility of failure, reducing or removing that freedom concurrently reduces the value. 18 Carter and Pritchard use the example of a "cheat code" to illustrate the idea at the heart of all of these strands of the axiological objection. 19 To see how this analogy is supposed to work, imagine a cheat code to a computer game that removes obstacles in such a way as to make winning very easy or almost guaranteed. The success of winning the game under such conditions is intuitively not (nearly) as valuable as it would be otherwise. To the extent that cognitive enhancements (viz., cognitionboosting pharmacological enhancements, but potentially also technological intelligence augmentation) 20 reduce our successes manifesting the effortful exercise of ability, these successes then become increasingly akin, axiologically, to a game played with salient obstacles removed.
Carter and Pritchard's distinction between strong and weak cognitive achievements offers further terminology for sharpening the formulation of the above objection. As they characterize it, a weak achievement is merely a success due to ability, for example, rather than luck. 21 For example, if I intentionally lift a cup off the table, that is a success due to a very basic ability I possess. In contrast, a strong achievement-which  In defending cognitive enhancement against the axiological objection, Carter and Pritchard invite us to consider "Moddy," a student who uses modafinil when completing a maths puzzle. If she did not use it, 9 Sandel, op. cit. note 4. 10 Carter & Pritchard, op. cit. note 8. 11 Wang, op. cit. note 5. suppose, she would have given up from exhaustion, lack of focus, or frustration. They argue, and we do not dispute, that Moddy's completion of the maths puzzle might still constitute a case of strong cognitive achievement, as Moddy's success might still (despite the use of modafinil) be primarily due to her (significant) mathematical skills. To make the example more concrete, suppose that the maths puzzle Moddy is engaged with is Fermat's Last Theorem and that (like Andrew Wiles, suppose) Moddy has been working at this for over a decade, integrating multiple branches of mathematics in an effort to approach a viable proof. However, we may add to the story, during the final stretch, Moddy's focus and effort begin waning.
Stipulate that without modafinil Moddy would have fallen just short of proving the theorem; due to the modafinil, she stays the course and proves it.
Fleshed out with these details, we can see how the successful completion of a cognitive task might be such that (i) it depends indispensably on the use of an enhancer (such that, without the drug, the success would not have been achieved) and (ii) at the same time, be creditable to a significant level of skill. Cases like this, Carter and Pritchard maintain, cast doubt on the scope of the axiological objection. They reveal a compatibility between enhancement use and creditability to (significant) skill.
Wang, however, holds that the above line of argument does not satisfactorily address the extent to which ready access to cognitive enhancements will often enough (even if not always) undermine the value of achievement by artificially offsetting the kind of difficulty that contributes significantly to the value of a given achievement.
Wang's line, accordingly, draws from Bradford's 23 view that difficulty (and corresponding exertion of the will to overcome difficulty) best explains why we value achievements over mere successes.
As Wang sees it, the best response to the axiological objection is to point to how we might manifest virtue in a valuable way in our use of cognitive enhancements. 24 For example, we can envision more and less responsible ways of incorporating cognitive enhancements into our cognitive architecture, ways that draw upon other intellectual virtues.
Over time, Wang thinks, we might virtuously integrate enhancements into our own agency 25 through extended responsible use.
Both Carter and Pritchard's and Wang's responses have important limitations. In the former case, the worry is that simply granting that enhancement is compatible with strong achievement is compatible with enhancement use ordinarily enough undermining the value of our achievements. Put another way, the proponent of the axiological objection can still claim (in response to Carter and Pritchard) that cognitive enhancement usually or typically lessens (even if not always so) the value of enhanced achievements, which is a significant concession.
The limitation of Wang's proposal is different. Even if we grant Wang that navigating our use of cognitive enhancements by drawing from our other intellectual virtues is valuable in its own right, the proponent of the axiological objection may point out that it remains that the enhanced successes themselves will be (qua enhancement dependent) of a lesser value, unless, for Wang, one (over time) "integrates" these enhancements into one's cognitive character. The problem at this point is that as the literature on cognitive integration suggests, "integrating" any kind of enhancement (pharmacological or otherwise) requires meeting a relatively high bar: either (i) the source of the enhancement's reliability must be reasonably well understood 26 and/or (ii) the enhancement must (with reference to the dynamical systems theory) 27 in some way generate "feedback loops," that is, ongoing, two-way causal interactions between the subject and the enhancement. 28 While these conditions might sometimes be met in the case of technologically mediated enhancements (e.g., memory-assisting technologies), 29 we may expect that they (and especially the second condition) will be met less regularly in the case of pharmacological cognitive enhancement. Thus, as the worry goes for Wang, the axiological objection resurfaces in most cases of enhancement, where cognitive integration conditions will not plausibly be met.

| A NEW WAY FORWARD
In this section, we want to register, and then develop in more depth, an idea, briefly touched upon by Carter and Pritchard, which we think has considerably more promise.
The idea can be illustrated with reference to the case of Moddy.
Moddy (with the assistance of modafinil) will plausibly be more inclined than otherwise to attempt even more difficult problems, the problems she would not attempt in the first place without the aid of enhancement. As Carter and Pritchard note in passing, the conditional probability that Moddy will exhibit more strong cognitive achievements beyond the present task is higher given her use of cognitive enhancement in the present task than otherwise. To appreciate the promise of (a version of) what is above a simple conditional probability reply, let us begin by noting two key observations. First, proponents of the axiological objection tend to advert (when articulating the significance of achievement value lost by an enhancement) to future patterns of enhancement use, for example, patterns that would (as Sandel puts it) lead to an "easy life." Second, the value of an achievement (and by extension a given pattern of achievements) can plausibly be undermined not only by reliance on enhancement but also by lack of ambition, where the ambition level is multidimensional. 30 Let us say that an achievement's ambition level, relative to a subject, is at least going to be a function of the following: (i) how much skill the achievement demands (relative to the subject's own skill levels) 31 ; (ii) how much effort it demands (regardless of the skill required) 32 ; (iii) how many obstacles the achievement requires overcoming 33 regardless of (i, ii), and, crucially, (iv) the extent to which that achievement, if attained, would exceed in dimensions (i)-(iii) the subject's previous track record of successes.
Regarding (iv): suppose an individual has thus far (in some given domain of endeavor) typically only pursued cognitive tasks that are well within their comfort zone and limits when it comes to the skill/ effort/and obstacle ambition metrics (i)-(iii). The point of including (iv) along with the more typical (i)-(iii) as an achievement ambition metric is that an attempt at a given achievement might well be more ambitious, and accordingly more valuable, on account of diverging (especially when diverging significantly so) from the subject's previous track record with (i)-(iii). Even though climbing Everest is objectively hard, the achievement of climbing Everest might, for a subject with an established track record of climbing mountains that require great skill (i), effort (ii) and with many obstacles (iii), not do as well by the lights of ambition metric (iv) than (for, say a less able climber) the attempt at a moderately difficult mountain, against a background track record that includes comparatively (relative to that attempt) much lower score metrics for skill (i), effort (ii), and (iii) obstacles. Put another way, the achievement of a novice climber summiting a medium-level mountain might be a more ambitious achievement overall than an expert climber's summiting Everest.
What goes for mountain climbing goes, mutatis mutandis, for cognitive achievements; the ambition level of a given cognitive achievement is plausibly a function of not only ambition metrics (i-iii) but also (iv).
But once this point is appreciated, the simple conditional probability observation (i.e., that one is likely to pursue more valuable achievements predicated on enhancement use than otherwise) begins to carry more argumentative weight. The linking premise here that gets us a bona fide response to the axiological objection connects the use of enhancements with the ambition dimension (iv).
To see this, consider again the Moddy case, and let us even grant that Moddy's getting the right result on the math problem pursued depended on her use of modafinil; suppose she would have lost focus otherwise. Compare this now with a variation on the case where we hold everything fixed except that Moddy did not use the enhancement and (thus) did not solve the problem.
Given what we are conceding to the proponent of the axiological objection, we will assume that Moddy's achievement is ceteris paribus less valuable than it would be were she to have attained the same end unenhanced. However, the situation shifts (due to the ambition dimension (iv)) when we ask about future patterns of enhancement use. Here, when comparing the original case with the 'nonenhancement' version of the case, we can reliably predict future patterns that score higher on the ambition dimension (iv) in the former case.
Here, it is useful to note psychological research on ambition in goalsetting, 34 which indicates that, among other factors that explain the pursual of, and commitment to, increasingly more challenging goals (relative to one's previous track record) is the self-confidence associated with present success. 35 Put simply, the attainment of cognitive objectives, even if aided by cognitive enhancements, patterns with the more ambitious forward-goal setting than otherwise, contributing to ever-more ambitious downstream achievement attempts.
This core idea gains further support from work on drive theories of curiosity. 36 On these views, intellectual goal setting in inquiry is partly driven by our emotive responses to the acquisition of new knowledge that conflicts with one's previous conception of a subject matter, creating "information gaps." By facilitating knowledge acquisition, cognitive enhancements may also plausibly contribute to an increased sense of curiosity that drives further and more ambitious goal-setting, aimed at closing new information gaps. 37 Taken together, these points recommend a broader way of assessing our patterns of achievement, one that takes into account goal-setting expectations, which suggests that at least one important dimension of the ambitiousness of achievement (i.e., the extent to which it diverges from past track records in other ambition dimensions) will very plausibly be driven up by the success that enhancement use facilitates. This is so even if the use of enhancement has a deleterious effect on the value of any given achievement with reference to other contributing factors to an achievement's value (e.g., the contribution of skill and/or the overcoming of obstacles).