Is the asterisk coming to the business world?
The use of performance-enhancing drugs has clogged up the sports world for the last couple of years, but steroid and human growth hormone are not the only way to get a chemical advantage. What about the brain drugs, those things that improve attention and alertness?
Earlier this year, the academic world got into an ethics debate when two researches at Cambridge University in England released a study that reported about a dozen of their colleagues had admitted to using Adderall, the Ritalinesqe stimulant for Attention Deficit Disorder, and Provigil, a drug that promotes wakefulness, to improve their academic performance. Both drugs are said to be very good at what they do.
In sports, the ethical argument hangs soundly on the concept that drugs are unfair. The physical advantage works to tilt the balanced playing field. But when we translate the same argument to the business and academic world, we change the way we define unfair advantage. It’s a plus, but is it a bad one?
So, then, is it an unfair advantage to take drugs that make your brain better? Is there anything wrong with it ethically?
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