Military Neuroenhancement and Risk Assessment - Neurotechnology in National Security and Defense - page 247

enhancements that would create a security risk if they fell into enemy hands?
For example, suppose we deploy warfighters with enhanced immunity to brain
damage or to biological or chemical pathogens that normally disable the brain, such
as neurotoxins; if they are captured and thereby have that technology discovered
and replicated by a rogue state or terror group, would it unduly risk a biological or
chemical attack on our citizens, at no risk to the warfighters themselves?
Besides policy risks, there are also specific legal risks to monitor. Some
experts have pointed out that neuropharmacological agents—either enhancing or
incapacitating—may violate the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical
Weapons Convention (The Royal Society 2012) as usually understood. We might
also suggest that the Biological Weapons Convention could be breached in an
unusual but nevertheless possible way: a bioenhanced person or animal could count
as a “biological weapon” or “biological agent,” since these terms not clearly defined
in the agreement (Lin 2012).
Some commentators have raised risks of a more abstract sort. For instance, is
there a risk of, perhaps fatally, affronting human dignity or cherished traditions
(religious, cultural, or otherwise) in allowing the existence of enhanced warfighters
or “Supermen”? Do we “cross a threshold” in creating such superhuman warfighters,
possibly in a way that will inevitably lead to some catastrophic outcome? Is this
“playing God” with human life? (Evans 2002).
What seems certain is that the rise of neuroenhanced warfighters, if mishandled,
will cause popular shock and cultural upheaval, especially if they are introduced
suddenly and/or have some disastrous safety failures early on. That is all the more
reason that a lengthy period of rigorous testing and gradual rollout (a “crawl-walk-
run” approach) appears a moral minimum for the ethical deployment of enhanced
warfighters. Further, this points to the early, prior need to identify a full range of
possible ethical, technological, and societal issues of military enhancements in order
to better account for risk.
CONCLUSION
Of course, much more can be said of the above risk-assessment model and its
risk factors: this chapter is meant to sketch out its frame in a military context.
Nor is it suggested that other forms of bioethics analysis should be replaced here
(see Chapter 17 for additional discussion). Again, bioethics is a natural and appropri-
ate starting point in discussing human enhancements. But in a novel, hybrid field as
human enhancement—often blending medicine with engineering—we need all the
conceptual tools we have to perform a full ethical analysis.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This chapter is adapted from a research report, in progress as of this writing, funded
by The Greenwall Foundation, California Polytechnic State University's College of
Liberal Arts, Philosophy Department, and Research and Graduate Programs (San
Luis Obispo). Any opinions and findings expressed in this chapter do not necessarily
reflect those of the supporting organizations.