THE GUARDIAN: “A pill to enhance moral behaviour, a treatment for racist thoughts, a therapy to increase your empathy for people in other countries – these may sound like the stuff of science fiction but with medicine getting closer to altering our moral state, society should be preparing for the consequences, according to a book that reviews scientific developments in the field.
Drugs such as Prozac that alter a patient’s mental state already have an impact on moral behaviour, but scientists predict that future medical advances may allow much more sophisticated manipulations.
The field is in its infancy, but “it’s very far from being science fiction”, said Dr Guy Kahane, deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and a Wellcome Trust biomedical ethics award winner.
“Science has ignored the question of moral improvement so far, but it is now becoming a big debate,” he said. “There is already a growing body of research you can describe in these terms. Studies show that certain drugs affect the ways people respond to moral dilemmas by increasing their sense of empathy, group affiliation and by reducing aggression.”
Researchers have become very interested in developing biomedical technologies capable of intervening in the biological processes that affect moral behaviour and moral thinking, according to Dr Tom Douglas, a Wellcome Trust research fellow at Oxford University’s Uehiro Centre. “It is a very hot area of scientific study right now.”
He is co-author of Enhancing Human Capacities, published on Monday, which includes a chapter on moral enhancement.
Drugs that affect our moral thinking and behaviour already exist, but we tend not to think of them in that way. [Prozac] lowers aggression and bitterness against environment and so could be said to make people more agreeable. Or Oxytocin, the so-called love hormone … increases feelings of social bonding and empathy while reducing anxiety,” he said.
“Scientists will develop more of these drugs and create new ways of taking drugs we already know about. We can already, for example, take prescribed doses of Oxytocin as a nasal spray,” he said.
But would pharmacologically-induced altruism, for example, amount to genuine moral behaviour? Guy Kahane, deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and a Wellcome Trust biomedical ethics award winner, said: “We can change people’s emotional responses but quite whether that improves their moral behaviour is not something science can answer.”
He also admitted that it was unlikely people would “rush to take a pill that would make them morally better.
“Becoming more trusting, nicer, less aggressive and less violent can make you more vulnerable to exploitation,” he said. “On the other hand, it could improve your relationships or help your career.”"
Read more at The Guardian (Thanks Annette M)
Can I get a pill that will make me like my job?
We could smoke more Marihuana to get the same result…
blaaaahhhhh moralness….
I think this is good for science but changing who people ‘are’ is a horrible idea… Who we are and what we say is what makes us fit into society one way or another….
This kind of stuff scares the shot out of me. Who’s going to monitor the production and distribution of these morality drugs? What’s to keep whoever is in charge from altering the minds of the masses for his own evil machinations? Drug companies are the insidious money-making, health-ruining scourge of the earth already! Let’s not give them our informed consent to chemically lobotomize us!
Deac: That’s only true to some extent. People tell me that my autism is part of ‘who I am’ (not really sure it is, it’s certainly shaped me but I wouldn’t call it part of my personality). If oxytocin could make socialising easier for me and reduce my anxiety, I’d take it in a heartbeat (provided it was approved and had no horrid side effects).
Similarly, if someone is suffering from a disorder that makes them more aggressive, I’d say they’d be more than happy to get that fixed chemically.
I don’t see a problem with medically induced behavioural changes, provided it’s not mandatory (except perhaps in violent criminals, to give them another chance at life).
Babs: How do drug companies ruin health? Antibiotics saved my life last year, those are drugs. And you can still choose what to take.
The question boils down to- is it morally permissable to take substances for purposes of introspection? We can’t possibly agree that it would be desirable for this to become universal but there is an issue of cognitive freedom down here at an individual level.
Nothing new here. Science has been hijacked by Government to control us (just like the media are). Please get in line for your RFID chip.
Get awake people.
That’s disturbing actually, I’ve heard rumors of that before. I can see the wars of the future, sure it’s all remote controlled but the gas released from the bombs make you happy to bow to the new emperor and turn your mother in to the authorities for being too emotional.
“a therapy to increase your empathy for people”
Do you think politicians would take it? With or without water?
“Drugs that affect our moral thinking and behaviour already exist”
Though they are usually dispensed in pints, as opposed to pills.
“a nasal spray”
Have they been secretly testing this on TV presenters? That could explain the recent spate of live lapses into gibberish, affecting media commentators.
This is quite worrying and scary. I don’t want to take a pill that technically would change who I am as a person. Yh I’m an angry person. Eugh, sometimes things have just got to be left alone and why do they just keep taking like the smallest things or things people don’t think about wanting to change things. Leave it alone! Exploring and finding out how things work yh sure and curing things thats ok but silly pills to change peoples morals, blah!
End of rant, lol.
Interestingly, Anthony Burgess plays about with this moral question in ‘A Clockwork Orange’. Can someone who is forced to be good really be good? Discuss!
Floribunda: That was the main plot of a LARP series I used to play in. Love personified had locked up all other emotions to protect mortals from pain and suffering. At the last event, we (the player characters) had the choice of accepting this, or setting them free again. We set them free because people can’t be whole without all the parts of them — they may be happy, but they won’t be real. I still kind of doubt our decision, though. Although my character was fairly sure of it, haha.