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Scientists target drugs that improve behaviour - Ed Jewett - 27-04-2011
Mad Scientists Lust Over Promise of Real Mind Control Drugs
25-04-2011
Scientists target drugs that improve behaviour
GUARDIAN NEWS SERVICE
AP
Researchers say morality treatments could be used instead of prison and might even help humanity tackle global issues. File Photo.
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 today (4APR), 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." Kahane does not advocate putting morality drugs in the water supply, but he suggests that if administered widely they might help humanity to tackle global issues.
"Relating to the plight of people on other side of the world or of future generations is not in our nature," he said. "This new body of drugs could make possible feelings of global affiliation and of abstract empathy for future generations." Ruud ter Meulen, chair in ethics in medicine and director of the centre for ethics in medicine at the University of Bristol, warned that while some drugs can improve moral behaviour, other drugs and sometimes the same ones can have the opposite effect.
"While Oxytocin makes you more likely to trust and co-operate with others in your social group, it reduces empathy for those outside the group," Meulen said.
The use of deep brain stimulation, used to help those with Parkinson's disease, has had unintended consequences, leading to cases where patients begin stealing from shops and even becoming sexually aggressive, he added.
"Basic moral behaviour is to be helpful to others, feel responsible to others, have a sense of solidarity and sense of justice," he said. "I'm not sure that drugs can ever achieve this. But there's no question that they can make us more likeable, more social, less aggressive, more open attitude to other people," he said.
Meulen also suggested that moral-enhancement drugs might be used in the criminal justice system. "These drugs will be more effective in prevention and cure than prison," he said.
Copyright: Guardian News & Media 2011
http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/mad-scientists-lust-over-promise-of-real-mind-control-drugs/
Scientists target drugs that improve behaviour - Keith Millea - 27-04-2011
Quote: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.
Well OK,but smoking pot will do the same thing.I know what my choice would be.
Quote:Or Oxytocin, the so-called love hormone … increases feelings of social bonding and empathy while reducing anxiety," he said.
Ecstasy,(MDMA)will do the same thing.I do not recommend taking this drug,but it can be used sparingly without harmful effects.
But doctors know best right? :hitball:
Scientists target drugs that improve behaviour - Ed Jewett - 27-04-2011
Self-selected ingestion versus social engineering... especially if on a massive scale...
Music is an effective agent of mood change, as is self-selected social company. Choosing what to listen to, or whom to listen to, is a right given to us.
Scientists target drugs that improve behaviour - Peter Lemkin - 27-04-2011
Keith Millea Wrote:Quote: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.
Well OK,but smoking pot will do the same thing.I know what my choice would be.
Quote:Or Oxytocin, the so-called love hormone … increases feelings of social bonding and empathy while reducing anxiety," he said.
Ecstasy,(MDMA)will do the same thing.I do not recommend taking this drug,but it can be used sparingly without harmful effects.
But doctors know best right? :hitball:
It all depends on which 'doctor' you trust in......Terrance McKenna [and unknown Indigenous Shaman were long my 'doctors'.
Scientists target drugs that improve behaviour - Ed Jewett - 27-04-2011
Peter Lemkin Wrote:It all depends on which 'doctor' you trust in......
"Life is short, the Art long, opportunity fleeting, judgement difficult, experience delusive."
One of the books that crossed my path while I was sans keyboard was "Hippocrates' Shadow": Secrets from the House of Medicine". See
http://www.amazon.com/Hippocrates-Shadow-Secrets-House-Medicine/dp/1416551530
I bought the book because I have had a long-term interest in medicine, have known and communicated well with more than a few doctors, and know someone who is deeply involved in efforts to improve medical care. The book is written by an emergency physician, and I spent years working with a chapter-ful of those guys, as well as having had a carer in emergency medical services. "Jenny" writes about the book and say its title ought to be "Fixing Medicine": http://diabetesupdate.blogspot.com/2008/11/book-you-must-read-hippocrates-shadow.html
"Dr. Newman shows that medical practice is riddled with many more deeply held beliefs that harm patients, beliefs based on findings published in journals fifty or sixty years ago which have been handed on from doctor to doctor as truth though they were based on flimsy or even made up evidence. The chapter "We're Missing the Meaning" explores the concept of placebo and shows how powerful the attitude communicated by a doctor can be in helping or hindering healing.... If you have any interest in understanding the way medicine is currently practiced, you should read the whole book. It will make you better understand why the care you get is so unsatisfying, and in addition it will make you realize that your doctor isn't much happier than you are at having to practice in the current environment."
I gave it to a friend of mine who is the Director of Policy for the second-highest rated health plan in America; she read it (I've only browsed it thus far), and asked me to order four copies of it to give to various and sundry people insight her circle of professional colleagues. I have created a little card that she can use as an inside transmittal note which reads:
[color="#0000FF"]"Medicine has one great advantage over other branches of knowledge:
the only criterion of truth in medicine is that it should work."[/color]
John Langdon Davies, in Man: Known and Unknown,
as cited in the conclusion by Janet Jones to The Spiritual Medicine of Tibet: Heal Your Spirit, Heal Yourself by Dr. Pema Dorjee, withJanet Jones and Terence Moore, Watkins Publishing, London, 2005.
the only criterion of truth in medicine is that it should work."[/color]
John Langdon Davies, in Man: Known and Unknown,