Drugs for Moral Improvement?
April 7th, 2011
Via: The Age:
Researchers have become interested in developing biomedical technologies capable of intervening in the biological processes that affect moral behaviour and moral thinking, says a Wellcome Trust research fellow at Oxford University’s Uehiro Centre, Dr Tom Douglas. He is a co-author of Enhancing Human Capacities, published this week.
“Drugs that affect our moral thinking and behaviour already exist but we tend not to think of them in that way,” he says. “[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. Scientists will develop more of these drugs and create new ways of taking drugs we already know about.”
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Kahane does not advocate putting morality drugs in the water supply but does suggest that if administered widely, they might help humanity tackle global issues.
“Relating to the plight of people on the other side of the world or of future generations is not in our nature,” he says. “This new body of drugs could make possible feelings of global affiliation and of abstract empathy for future generations.”
Research Credit: Dang
Somewhere, Aldous Huxley’s ghost is laughing.
THX 1138 is wanted for Drug Evasion.
Seriously, I can’t view Malcolm MacDowell in this scene and not wonder what was going through his head as an actor when those metal bars were bumping up against his eyeballs!?!? I mean, this wasn’t laser-guided LASIK technology, or anything close…this was ’60’s film-maker making-the-shit-up-as-you-go-along prop stuff. And with some number of multiple takes I might add…
Anyway…that was the age when real gonzo film-making was happening…