Have you heard about the 鈥渕orality pill鈥�? There鈥檚 growing buzz in the press about a chemical upgrade to ethical thinking.
The notion of pharmaceutically-ennobled consumers has a long pedigree. 鈥淚f it is within our reach to [chemically] increase man鈥檚 suggestibility, it will be soon within our reach to do the opposite, to counteract misplaced devotion and that militant enthusiasm, both murderous and suicidal, which we see reflected in the pages of the daily newspaper,鈥� wrote Arthur Koestler in his 1967 book The Ghost in the Machine.
The author鈥檚 musings about a magic pill for what he called 鈥淗omo maniacus鈥� was roundly derided by critics of the time. Since then there鈥檚 been an explosion of mood-altering drugs 鈥� both legal and illegal 鈥� yet Koestler鈥檚 pharmaceutical silver bullet remains vapourware to this day.
Hopeful speculations came and went, and then came again. Since 2011, editorials about a possible morality pill have been popping up with growing frequency in the mainstream media鈥檚 opinion-shaping portals.
鈥淚f continuing brain research does in fact show biochemical differences between the brains of those who help others and the brains of those who do not, could this lead to a 鈥榤orality pill鈥� 鈥� a drug that makes us more likely to help?鈥� wrote ethicist Peter Singer in a New York Times editorial.
Yet morality isn鈥檛 reducible to straightforward empathy (a state of mind that can be amplified by so-called 鈥渆mpathogens,鈥� which are illegal drugs with tightly prescribed research use). Any given ethical quandary usually depends on deciding among two or more difficult alternatives. Such decisions involve a host of complex personal and cultural variables, channelled through the brain鈥檚 association areas, language areas, frontal cortex and emotion-mediating mid-brain. The self, in effect.
Just because this extraordinarily subtle process is mediated through neurotransmitters doesn鈥檛 mean it will be 鈥渋mproved鈥� by molecular tweaking.
Sure, it鈥檚 appealing to think of Premier Christy Clark popping a capsule before bedtime and waking up in the morning sick with the knowledge that it鈥檚 very, very wrong to turn the B.C. legislature into a big, gothic whorehouse for corporate benefactors. It鈥檚 uplifting to fantasize about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, goofed on a martini and morality pill combo, turning with teary eyes to his lovely wife and saying, 鈥淲hy did I ever go back on my promise to voters about electoral reform? I must introduce a bill tomorrow.鈥�
Yet I doubt such medication, assuming it 鈥渨orks,鈥� will be marketed for, or consumed by, the uppermost tiers of society.
And whose morality? For what purposes? The greatest horrors in history weren鈥檛 perpetrated by amoral monsters but by the opposite: morally upright ideologues, prepared to convert others at the barrel of a gun or by turns of the rack. From the Inquisition鈥檚 witch hunt to the Khmer Rouge鈥檚 murderous agrarian reform and beyond, civilized people don鈥檛 suffer from a shortage of moral certainty, but an excess of it.
Guy Kahane, deputy director of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, has some doubts about psychocivilizing a population into ethical excellence. 鈥淚t would be self-defeating, or worse, to try to promote morality through brutal coercion,鈥� he observed in a 2011 Globe and Mail editorial.
Ya think?
Last week on CBC Radio鈥檚 The Current, a series of experts touched on the moral question of leaders in business or government dictating morality by medication. Koestler acknowledged this ethical Mobius strip a half-century ago: 鈥淚 am aware that 鈥榗ontrol of the mind鈥� and 鈥榤anipulating human beings鈥� have sinister undertones. Who is to control the controls, manipulate the manipulators?鈥�
Exactly. Will drug researchers, marketers, lobbyists, and legislators beta test morality pills on themselves, and suddenly realize they might be constructing an ethical Pandora鈥檚 Box? And proceed anyway once the effects wear off?
That鈥檚 assuming such medication works as advertised. Decades after SSRI antidepressants became the stock-in-trade of psychiatric health care, a meta-analysis of peer-reviewed studies revealed the drugs 鈥渟ignificantly increase the risk of both serious and non-serious adverse events.鈥�
Once again, I smell 鈥渏unk science鈥� softening up the public for a whole new line of highly-profitable, dangerous manipulation by the usual suspects. A 鈥渕orality pill鈥� belongs in the pages of sci-fi novels, not in on physicians鈥� shelves or in the public water supply.
geoffolson.com
