Abstract:
Recently, attention has turned to the possibility of enhancing human cognitive abilities via pharmacological interventions. Known as ‘cognitive enhancers’, these drugs can alter human mental capacities, and in some cases can effect significant improvements. One prime example is modafinil, a drug used to treat narcolepsy, which can help combat decreases in wakefulness and cognitive capacity that arise due to fatigue in otherwise healthy individuals. In this paper, we respond to calls in the philosophical and ethical literature that surgeons and other medical professionals should be morally obliged to take cognitively enhancing drugs. We examine whether surgeons who make fatigue-related errors during patient care might be considered legally obliged to enhance themselves. We focus on liability for a failure to medicate, and conclude that it is highly unlikely that surgeons will be legally obliged to address their fatigue through the use of cognitive enhancing drugs.
Speaker:
Dr Imogen GOOLD, Associate Professor in Law, University of Oxford and Fellow of St Anne’s College
Dr Imogen Goold is Associate Professor in Law, University of Oxford and also a Fellow of St Anne’s College. She studied Law and Modern History at the University of Tasmania, Australia, receiving her PhD in Law in 2005. She also received a Masters degree in Bioethics from the University of Monash in 2005. From 1999, she was a research member of the Centre for Law and Genetics. In 2002, she took up as position as a Legal Officer at the Australian Law Reform Commission, working on the inquiries into Genetic Information Privacy and Gene Patenting. Her current research interests include human enhancement technologies and the regulation of reproduction. Her other focus is the question of whether human biomaterials should be treated as private property, on which she is currently completing a monograph to be published by Bloomsbury. She is visiting the Faculty of Law of the University of Hong Kong as the Des Voeux Chambers Oxford-HKU Visiting Fellow in August and September during which period she is also concurrently Visiting Research Fellow of the Centre for Medical Ethics & Law.
