Distributive Justice and cognitive enhancement in lower, normal intelligence

There exists a significant disparity within society between individuals in terms of intelligence. While intelligence varies naturally throughout society, the extent to which this impacts on the life opportunities it affords to each individual is greatly undervalued. While an intellectual disability is defined as any IQ less than 70, roughly the bottom 2.1% of the population, there is a growing consensus that what could be called an intellectual disability due to lower intelligence affects a greater percentage of society. General intelligence is seen as one of the most significant all purpose goods, capable of having considerable influence over a broad range of social outcomes. An increase in cognitive capacities can have vast and wide reaching effects, with even moderate increases in intelligence resulting in significant individual and societal benefits. The ability to enhance our cognitive capacities offers an exciting opportunity to correct disabling natural variation and inequality in intelligence. Although enhancement, including cognitive enhancement, has been much debated recently, we argue that there are egalitarian reasons to enhance individuals with low but normal intelligence.