Neuroenhancement and Cognitive Liberty: Redrawing the Boundaries of Autonomy

Abstract

Pharmacological and technological cognitive enhancement has moved from a fringe curiosity to a widespread practice among students, shift workers, and professionals under sustained cognitive load, and the bioethics literature has responded with an expanded vocabulary of autonomy centered on the concept of cognitive liberty. This perspective reviews the substances and technologies most commonly discussed under this heading, from off-label stimulant use to non-invasive brain stimulation and consumer neurotechnology, and the empirical evidence on their effects and risks in healthy users. It then examines the central philosophical dispute: whether a right to self-directed cognitive enhancement follows from established bioethical autonomy principles, and whether that right can be reconciled with concerns about soft coercion, distributive unfairness, and authenticity that emerge once enhancement becomes socially common rather than exceptional. We trace how this debate has begun migrating into law through the emerging 'neurorights' movement, using Chile's 2021 constitutional reform as a case study, and find that legal protection has so far advanced further for neurotechnology-driven data collection than for pharmacological self-enhancement. We conclude that a workable framework needs to combine a presumption in favor of competent adult choice with institutional guardrails against coercion and legal protections for mental privacy that keep pace with, rather than trail behind, the technologies this debate increasingly involves.