Please read the Afterword to the text. Also consult the link below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/apr/04/morality-drugs-improve-ethical-behaviour
Answer in the space provided for one blog post whether something essential would be lost if moral behavior was determined by a pill rather than free will. What would that essential thing be? Why would losing it be unfortunate? Or, if you disagree with that premise, explain why a pill is the way to go.
Your response is due by Tues., May 10, at 4 p.m. No superficial answers, please.
Teaching Notes
You must become the flame on the candle. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Is Media Ethics Education DOA?
It sounds like a joke Jay Leno would tell during his opening monologue on The Tonight Show. Hear about the graduate students at the prestigious journalism school? They got caught cheating on an ethics exam. Ha ha ha. Except that’s actually what happened at Columbia University
No one admitted cheating despite pressure from the school’s administrators and pleas from classmates, who feared the scandal would damage the market value of their degrees. Meanwhile, the teacher of the course, New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, refused to comment. But if the disgruntled posts on RateMyProfessors.com are any indication, his students hadn’t exactly been soaking up knowledge. “Maybe he could e-mail his ‘speeches’ to the students instead of making everyone suffer through the most wasted class in j-school. . . ,” one read.
There’s an old cowboy saying that goes, “When your horse dies, get off.” Journalism ethics education is a dead horse. Or else those aren’t vultures circling in the sky.
No one admitted cheating despite pressure from the school’s administrators and pleas from classmates, who feared the scandal would damage the market value of their degrees. Meanwhile, the teacher of the course, New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, refused to comment. But if the disgruntled posts on RateMyProfessors.com are any indication, his students hadn’t exactly been soaking up knowledge. “Maybe he could e-mail his ‘speeches’ to the students instead of making everyone suffer through the most wasted class in j-school. . . ,” one read.
There’s an old cowboy saying that goes, “When your horse dies, get off.” Journalism ethics education is a dead horse. Or else those aren’t vultures circling in the sky.
A Question for Socrates
The question of how ethics is learned, or even if it can be, is as old as Western philosophy. In Plato’s dialog Meno the title character asks, “Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by teaching or by practice; or if neither by teaching nor practice, then whether it comes to man by nature, or in what other way?” Of course, Socrates, being Socrates, resists giving a definite answer. But we can’t. The sad fact is, students had better get an effective ethics education now or they may never.
Last summer I conducted an ethics workshop for some reporters and editors at the Poughkeepsie Journal, a small daily in upstate
But what I remember most is the air of defeat that clung to the staff as we sat on hard plastic chairs in the break room discussing the cases. I could hear in their voices the bitterness and cynicism of employees forced to follow corporate policies they despised. Recently, for example, the paper had started running display ads on the front page and section fronts, a much more grievous ethical lapse, their mumbled asides suggested, than anything the case studies might have to offer.
I don’t want my students to ever wear the gray, defeated expression I saw that day on the faces at the Journal. But given the downward direction in which the media are moving, and fast, how in the world can I prevent it from happening?
Teaching Media Ethics by Telling Stories
A friend of mine who teaches at a big Midwestern university recounts in class the events of her first week as a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune. She was sent to Duluth to cover Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey on the campaign trail. When they were introduced, Humphrey vigorously shook her hand. “Oh yes, Susan,” he said, “I read your stuff all the time.” He couldn’t have read her stuff, though; she hadn’t written anything yet. “Just a few words,” she explains to her students, “but words that taught this fledging reporter a great lesson about pols and the little lies they tell.”
I usually find occasion during the semester to quote I. F. Stone’s dictum, “Every government is run by liars and thieves, and nothing they say should be believed,” to make the same point. But Susan’s story makes the point better. That’s because it has existential force. Her story vividly captures in a way a secondhand quote can’t the realities of a reporter’s life.
Some might think telling “war stories” is a waste of precious class time. I’ve a colleague who didn’t want to fall into the “trap” of regaling students with stories ad nauseam (“which, let’s face it, is easier than teaching or grading,” he said). So one semester he kept track. When he toted it all up at the end, he was surprised that he’d used less than an hour - out of 45 – talking about his newspaper experiences. And yet, he admitted, it was his stories that students seemed to remember most.
“Stories teach us how to live,” Daniel Taylor said in his essay, “The Ethical Implications of Storytelling.” What he meant was that stories preserve our experience for contemplation and evaluation. Although not all stories carry a heavy message, there’s an entire category of stories, so-called “exemplary tales,” that are told to convey a moral.
Our war stories are potentially just such tales. They can provide evidence, in ethicist John Barton’s words, of “how real human beings live through various crises and trials and remain human.” My colleague who kept tabs on his storytelling has described his stories as cautionary. Most, he said, deal with “screwups I learned from.”
But sometimes the storyteller and the audience can’t agree on what exactly the moral of a story is.
When Susan was a cub reporter on the Tribune, she interviewed the Beatles, who were on their second tour of the States. She got into their hotel room by dressing up as a waitress in an ugly, mustard-colored uniform and accompanying an actual room service waiter upstairs. Ringo took one look at her little plastic name tag – it read “Donna Brown” – and snorted, “What kind of name is that?” The waiter nudged her in the side. “Tell them what you real name is,” he urged. She did, as well as her reason for being there. Rather than throw her out, the Beatles politely answered her questions. They even let her phone for a photographer. The next day her story ran on the front page, with a photo of John sitting at a table and looking up at her and laughing as she poured coffee in his cup. She still has a glossy print of that photo somewhere.
Many of Susan’s students think she’s nuts for not having the photo hanging up in her office. They also think she’s nuts for saying she’d never participate in the same kind of stunt today. To her celebrity-struck students, disguising herself as a hotel waitress to get an interview with the Beatles seems soooo cool. They lose all sight of the fact that it wasn’t a story of vital public interest that demanded undercover methods.
Susan intends one lesson when she talks about her hard day’s night, but her students, living in a paparazzi-saturated culture, draw another. “It may be a lost cause,” she remarked to me.
Or maybe not. Negotiations over what the point of a story is can be part of the point of the story. In the process of negotiating, we test different interpretations, try out different themes. This is helpful. This is educational. Lawrence Kohlberg, the Harvard psychologist famous for his research on the stages of moral development, contended that “the teaching of virtue is the asking of questions. . . not the giving of answers.” Stories don’t necessarily have to yield clear moral rules to be of value. It’s enough sometimes if they just give us something to think about.
17 comments:
While reading this article on "moral improvement" pills, I couldn't help but think of movies about dark, creaky mental asylums of the early 20th century, with patients being subjected to the most mind-altering and often cruel and unusual "medical treatments."
One of the better films of this genre is "Frances," an account of Frances Farmer, the 1940s movie star. Farmer was brash, outspoken and political; a woman decades ahead of her time. Her family and friends were concerned about Farmer's "behavior," however, and so they forced her into one mental asylum after another. These "treatments" failed, of course, and her mother ordered that she be lobotomized. Farmer emerged from the operation an entirely different woman. Talking to Farmer was now like conversing with a brick wall.
Now, that's not to say such "moral behavior" pills could be equated to lobotomies. For all I know, far unlike the treatments of nearly a century ago, these pills will wind up FDA-approved and pose little health risk. That said, I believe there is the potential for some common ground, and that's quite a scary a thought.
As expressed near the conclusion to your afterward, there is quite an upside and beauty in our ability to ponder our decision making. Sure, we make mistakes and fail sometimes, but such only makes us all the more human. Our flaws give us life and character, and it's a supreme gift to reflect and improve upon our various lapses in life.
These pills don't even hide their intention to rid us of some of this gift. I have little doubt that the masterminds behind this medicine are working with good intentions, but, frankly, I believe one's perfect, flawless human being is another's static, robotic Frances Farmer. This may not be lobotomy, but, for me at least, it's too close for comfort.
On a related note, I was struck by the attitude of some of these doctors toward the concept of "morality." Everyone has different standards on what constitutes "being moral," and, yet, these know-it-all scientists seem to have the definition of morality down-pat.
For them, good morals means not being "aggressive" and having a "nice" demeanor. Just imagine, for one moment, how insufferably boring this world would be if no one had an edge. The article also suggests that these pills will make us "more likeable," which, too, is inane, given the human race tends to like and dislike an array of different things and people. Of course, in this world of "moral behavior," nobody dislikes anything. We're all non-aggressive, likeable persons. (As was Frances Farmer, post-lobotomy, just without the talent or personality which made her notable to begin with.)
I'm not thrilled in the slightest with this concept of a pill for moral improvement. If anything, I'm downright mortified by it all. In closing my response, I thought it might prove apt to quote from a piece which, while not directly related to the topic, serves to drive home my fears. It's an excerpt from a recent Roger Ebert column, entitled "Go Gently Into That Good Night."
"What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, WONDER, and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip."
I capitalize the word "wonder," because it most grabbed me upon reading the Ebert column. I think that the act of wondering might be among the most underrated things ever. It's just about the most amazing gift. I've spent my life dreaming, wondering and pondering, on what seems like a 24/7 basis, and sometimes these thoughts involve my mistakes and flaws. Yet, I can proudly kick those blunders to the curb and this makes my dreams all the more hopeful. The way these doctors are tinkering with emotions and the mind, I cannot help but ponder the worst of all fears: a world without such wonder.
I didn't need to read the article on "morality pills" to know that I'd be appalled by it. I'm appalled by prozac, xanax, ritalin and the rest of the bevy of mind numbing substances our pharmaceutical companies have been pumping out for years now. Oh, sure, I'm certain they "work" for plenty of people. That is, they have the desired effects... but do they actually help anyone? Or do they just turn a part of them off? Xanax doesn't cure anxiety and depression; it hides it, and creates a dependency. Unfortunately, the alternative - addressing the demons of depression, anxiety, panic disorder, inability to concentrate, etc. - is too costly, mostly in terms of time, but also in terms of the sheer amount of profit that would be lost if the pharmaceutical industry couldn't make bank on anyone whose every been prescribed a drug because they feel a little down, hit a rough patch in life, or felt that common feeling of being a little uncomfortable in their own skin, at one point or another. Depression, anxiety and all the rest are normal human feelings and experiences and there are normal, natural ways of overcoming them. Masking them behind a daily dosage is not one of those methods.
The idea of a morality pill is hideous and I'm honestly baffled to hear that it's being given serious thought (I take that back; nothing baffles me anymore... I'm amazed it hasn't been secretly filtered into our water already). Like depression, anxiety... the common cold, even, moments of immorality or moral impurity are, wait for it... natural parts of the human experience. They're also part of how we learn. We wouldn't have the capacity for guilt and remorse, or even self reflection, that is inherent in our humanity if weren't intended to use it. Further, I flat out refuse to believe that a pill CAN improve morality. Decreased aggression? Increased feelings of group affiliation? That's not improved morals, that's being put to sleep. What's moral about creating a docile herd? And the guy talking about all this is a "biomedical ethics award winner". Maybe I totally misinterpreted every second of our class this semester, but NOTHING about relying on a pill for morality seems ethical to me.
What's lost if we rely on prescription drugs for artificially enhanced morality? Well for one, freedom. If a drug like this ever truly comes to fruition, I can't imagine that they would ever allow a portion of society to be free from morality regulators; wouldn't that group instantly be a threat to the peace and safety of the happily numbed out population? I mean, sure, it would probably start as a drug that's given to inmates and "problem children", to prove it's effectiveness, but how long do you think a drug that "improves morality" would remain optional? It just doesn't make sense to me that if a drug could enhance morality (supposedly) people would be allowed to say "Nah, I'm moral enough as is". Even if it didn't become a mandatory part of daily life, it would still be negating a portion of the humanity of those taking it; we are who we are. We think and act as we will, because are humans, born of free will. If we act immorally, we often face consequences and these consequences are meant to be deterrents. While growing up, we're supposed to have role models who instill our personalities with some code of morality. This is the way of life. Altering that with a pill doesn't change the way you were raised. It doesn't change the fact that perhaps you were abused or didn't have the privilege of knowing a moral role model, or the fact that the consequences for stealing, or raping, or killing don't seem to deter you as much as they do most people. It just turns a part of you off. Would the world be better if we could flip a switch and turn off the "wanton murder" impulse in every last person? Most likely, but what else would be turned off with it?
I am a firm believer that many of the pills on the market, such as Prozac and Xanax which alter moral behavior, are not necessarily a bad thing. Although I wish they didn’t take away a person’s free will I do believe that they can be necessary. I understand and appreciate that these pills are a necessity for certain people due to their mental/moral/emotional problems. If these people were given the opportunity to make their own moral choices it could dangerous for both themselves and the people around them.
The mind altering pills help to maintain some people’s sanity. Just as well as, the effects of using the pills occasionally protect the general public from people who, without the mind altering medications, are a danger to themselves and others. Sometimes people don’t have to the ability to make moral decisions, or else they don’t know how to make a moral decision, or maybe they don’t want to. In instances such as these I would be comforted to know that their level of morality would be governed by medicine.
This being said, I don’t think that all people should necessarily be put on this ‘moral pill’. I believe that people who exhibit the need for the pill and who display the inability to make moral decisions on their own should be placed upon this pill. Also, whether or not people should be put on this pill and who should be put on this pill should also be considered as well as would society run smoother if everyone lived to the same level of morality? With all of this being said I can only conclude that nothing essential would be lost if moral behavior was determined by a pill rather than free will; in fact, I believe that we as a society would only gain from a pill of this natures.
If anyone has ever seen the film Equilibrium (Christian Bale), it makes a fictional dramatization of a very similar issue to the one raised for this assignment. Equilibrium presents a futuristic society in which a mandatory drug, taken by the populace in synchronization, daily suppresses emotion, allowing humanity to be governed only by logic and to be free of jealousy, anger, lust, etc., ending war and crime. An underground resistance of "sense offenders" - individuals who shun the drug and are guilty of "feeling" - exists and Christian Bale's job is to hunt and eliminate these people, for the good of society. When he ends up being forced to face the fact the a close colleague whom he never would have suspected has actually been faking his dose and secretly sneaking off at night to :gasp: read poetry and feel emotions, it rattles his conviction and the plot takes off. I won't ruin it for anyone whose never seen it, but when Christian Bale apologizes to his colleague for having to turn him in and says "I'm sorry", his friend replies "No you're not. You don't even know what it means... it's just a vestigial word for a feeling you've never felt." When Bale asks him why he would break the law and put himself at risk, he explains the wonders of feeling and Bale rebuffs his praises by saying "but what about war? crime? Jealousy? Rage?", to which his colleague replies "It's a heavy cost. I pay it gladly". That pretty much, for me, sums up the argument against a future in which such drugs are a reality.
It is hard to answer this question because there are outliers to this situation.
I think that if a person literally has an inability to think and act morally, then a pill to create a solution to this problem is alright.
However, empathy is learned from experiences throughout life and so are morals. To provide a pill rather than learning morals and living an ethical life is irresponsible and immoral in itself.
I think that by taking a pill to be moral, one would lose their character. The person's free will would no longer be existent because a pill would be controlling his or her actions.
____________
As a response to the Afterword to the text:
I really like the final thought.
"We may never know for sure whether we've made the right choice or the wrong one, but it's good in and of itself, like truth or beauty, to reflect on the terrible responsibility that comes with choosing."
If we took a pill to be moral, we would lose the responsibility that comes with choosing. There would be no learning from lessons of a route chosen. There would be no road less taken. There would be no option. Free will and consequence would be lost.
I have many issues with the idea of making people take drugs to increase their morality. First, how is it moral in itself to create a pill to make someone a better person? Morality can be taught and it can be learned. It isn’t something that can be created from chemicals, but that is in my opinion. Also, if a pill is making a person “moral,” then it isn’t genuine. To me, it would be like any other altered state of mind under the influence of a drug (alcohol, ecstacy, anti-depressants..) when people are happy or their emotions toward others change temporarily. But when they are sober, they are their real selves again and nothing in them has really changed. It would be synthesized, it wouldn’t be real. I think everyone agrees that there could and should be more morality and empathy in the world. However, a pill is not the answer to achieving this. I don’t know exactly what the ideal solution is but I think it starts from something human and natural, and not scientific. Morality comes from compassion and understanding, and instead of focusing our attention on chemically changing people, we should try to change their hearts and mind emotionally.
As for the afterword in the text, I thought it perfectly summed up all that we learned this semester in Media Ethics. It isn’t easy to make an ethical decision but it is possible to learn the ways of making good choices. That is what I feel I learned in this class.
Just the thought of mind altering drugs is an immediate detterant. I look past all the positve aspects of these drugs that could "improve" morale and think about all the negative things that could happen if these drugs got in the wrong hands. What if someone has a side affect with the drug, and it goes terribly wrong. What if someone else, inspired by this positive idea makes a drug that could negatively impact peoples morales. Then what we have left is a world full of extreme good and extreme evil, and that is a world I hope I never live to see.
I'd much rather live in a world with both ethically good and ethically bad, where people make their own decisions instead of relying on medication to make it for them.
Losing the free will of human beings to make their own ethical decisions means losing freedom in general. The freedom for each human being to make their own decisions distinguishes who we are as people, and how we stand out from the crowd. If everyone was under the influence of such drugs, we would no longer have control of the person we wish to be.
In response to the afterword, I can personally reflect on this quote.
"We may never know for sure whether we've made the right choice or the wrong one, but it's good in and of itself, like truth or beauty, to reflect on the terrible responsibility that comes with choosing."
I feel as if a pill would remove the reflection that humans go through after making an ethical decision. It would remove the decision in general. There is beauty and truth in doing the right thing, even when others aren't. If we depend on doctors and their medical advancements for our every decision, we lose our independence as human beings. These pills would work maybe in a insane asylum, but thats as far as they should go, in order to preserve our free will as human beings. --Evan Brieff
The famous words from one of the songs done by the late Lou Rawls ask; "what is the matter with the world has the world gone mad" and the next line answers the question thus,"nothing is wrong with the world, its just the people thats in it!" That is our reality today it seems which leaves a somewhat reasonably or justifiable cause for scientist inventing a 'pill'of morality.
However,should morality be bought? well is it even possible to do so? If science has its way then maybe so. At what price? On whose command? At whose whim? If such should become a reality then I see a pandora box of issues opening. Most of them being on the dark side of ethics.The door will be open for possible mass manipulation of populations for the so called 'good' of others based on the definition of some un-ethical politician-how ironic that would be.
Good behavior and poper ethics aught to be learned and aquired. It is possible and have been happening for centuries now.It should be subjected to feelings of the heart and have gone through mental process and thought.
I imagine that those scientist or some of them have good intentions to eradicate evil in this way but I bet there are thoughts of fame,profit,control and power that lingers at the doors of such labs.
As the Afterword of the text says,"to choose one good is often to lose another, or two". Society stands to lose alot by the emergence of such 'mind altering' drugs. Free will for one would be lost-don't we all have a right to that? The luxury of 'choice' too could be lost- depite the responsebility that comes with it.
I'd rather see the teaching of ethics be made mandatory in societies than the advent of such drugs.
I wrote a bunch of random thoughts, in response to this assignment. I turned it into this poem (the best I could) I never took a formal poetry class so apologies if the format is totally wacky!
Take the pill.
Now Swallow.
What do you see?
How do you feel?
There is no guilt.
No fear.
No pain.
No nagging conscience,
Keeping you up late into the night,
Tugging on your mind like the person next to you,
Trying to hog the covers.
There is no hurt.
No wonder.
No asking God why?
The pill has all the answers.
There is no hope.
No fulfillment.
No joy.
No sense of accomplishment;
Just a numb sensation,
creepily climbing your bones
to a place where your dreams used to lie.
Of course the pill has all the answers;
There were never any questions.
For me, it's fairly obvious that something essential would be be lost if we all took pills to make us behave morally, rather than doing so on our own. While the ethical decision made in the end is of importance, the process of getting to tat decision is even more imperative. If we were to only rely on a pill to be able to act ethically, there would be no need to learn ethics, which would put all at a disadvantage. Educating ourselves about ethics helps us grow as human beings, and if a complicated situation arose and the pill could not handle it, where would we end up?
Another big point stated in the Afterword is that sometimes we confront an ethical problem without knowing it, which only worsens the matter. If we were to rely on a pill rather than our own knowledge and ethical skills, we most likely would not know when we were facing an ethical dilemma. The pill would just cause us to react in the way it deemed fit and morally correct without letting us know that we were making an ethical decision.
In the end, it really can come down to the last statement of the afterword, that it is good to reflect on the great responsibility of having to make ethical choices. If we were using a supplement to essentially make choices for us, there would be no responsibility to reflect on. We would feel no real need to act ethically because we know we would automatically, which is a problem in itself. We would lose the real will to act ethically. Ethics and morals play such an important role in our lives, that if this were to occur, we would pretty much be able to ignore them and in turn probably lead a much less fulfilling life.
Though the pill to enhance moral behavior may sound like a good idea to some, I, however, do not think that it is necessary for this kind of pill. Depending on a pill to make ethical decisions and feel compassion for others constraints one's will and one's ability to do these things on their own. It is a learning experience as one may fail and succeed in life through their decision making or actions. Everyone makes mistakes and we usually learn from them. Or the past experiences that one may have can build their character to become someone better.
If this pill were to be taken, there will no longer be self reflection and self improvement. It is rewarding to know you've done "something right", and therefore this same feeling drives us to do another good deed next time or make more ethical and morally correct decisions.
I don't think science should mess with human nature. After all, would the world really be better if everyone was on this pill and always happy and doing good? I believe there needs to be some evil for the greater good. How else would we know if we're doing something "good" if there is no "bad"? We already have things easy for us with today's technology. Shouldn't we at least be able to make our own decisions and have the ability to self reflect without the dependence on a drug?
Like you have written in the book, "We may never know for sure whether we've made the right choice or the wrong one, but it's good in and of itself, like truth or beauty, to reflect on the terrible responsibility that comes with choosing."
A response to the Afterword:
It's funny. I thought of your experience with the bird's nest that you wrote about in the Afterword this weekend. My family moved and there is a tree with a nest that can be seen right from our window. This nest carries 3 baby birds, eating, sleeping and chirping the whole day. Fascinated, I decided to record the birds getting fed by the mother bird. After recording them get fed the first time, I realized the mother bird must've sensed my presence because she would hide the worm and hesitate. It seemed like she didn't want to go back to the nest, in fear that I might be a danger to her babies.
Once realizing that I am possibly disrupting their way of life, and worrying that these birds may not get fed because of me, I decided to leave them alone. I never thought of it this way, but after reading the Afterword and taking this ethics class made me really think twice about my actions and how it affects others.
The pill is unnecessary. I think more classes and teachings on ethics is a better remedy for our moral deficient society.
To be honest, when reading the article on "moral improvement" pills the first thing that I thought of was the book The Giverby Lois Lowry. The reason that this book came into my mind was because the world in which The Giver is set in appears to be utopian in nature, where everything is equal and the same, however what the world lacked was humanity and choice; ergo, proving that the world was a dystopia due to the control of everything down to emotions.
I feel that having medications to improve moral behavior would be the same as trying to control emotions, and the essential thing that would be lost if a pill determined a person's morality would be humanity. Of course, we may not live in a perfect society, however morality can't be solved by a pill; it should be a matter of free will and how a person is raised. Pill-induced morality would simply turns us into robots.
Medicating people for morality also takes away the person's credibility. If everyone popped a pill just so they can do a good deed, that doesn't mean that they genuinely wanted to do the deed, it means that the drug motivated them to do the deed. If you have to take a pill just to be a better person, there's something wrong with that. You should want to be a better person for yourself and without saying naturally.
To add on, a part of morality is the notion of failure and guilt. Sometimes you have to make mistakes in order to make a better, more moral decision in the future. In Howie Good's Afterword in the text, it states, "[f]ailure is usually assumed to be cause for despair, but, actually, it's cause for hope--hope because we can emerge from failure wiser, less arrogant, more human." This also supports my whole stance as far as maintaining our humanity and free will.
I'm a firm believer that you don't need medication or surgery (although off topic) unless there's a dire need for it, such as a terminal illness or something to save a life. I honestly don't feel that morality has a dire need for medication.
Ethics can’t come in pill form. As the article points out, deep brain stimulation can trigger adverse reactions such as a decrease in empathy and greater sexual aggressiveness. The most troubling part is that the article stresses how it can help the prison population become more ‘moral’. I can see, since those in prison gave up their rights when they committed the crime, it being forced on them as a guinea pig-type trial run. Despite this “miracle drug”, the essential human character of free will would be lost.
There’s a reason why we discuss ethics, and why we have struggles with empathy. It’s the human experience to struggle with ethical dilemmas. As the afterword in Journalism Ethics Goes To The Movies points out, though it’s hard to say which ethical decision we made is either good or bad, it’s the ability to process it that matters. “To reflect on the terrible responsibility that comes with choosing.” This pill reminds of the microchip implants, those that caused a scare when people thought they would be forcibly placed for tracking purposes. I think it was in Florida where a mother determined it was best for her baby to get one, a baby who couldn’t fully explain what he wanted or needed. If a pill, or a microchip, exists it has the potential to be abused and blurs the line between a person’s free will and being forced into something under the pretense of “safety”.
With a pill, this eliminates the ethical decision making process. There is no need for a Potter Box, or T.A.R.E.S. Model. With this pill, is there any need to consider actions? Am I to believe that that decisions will be done blindly? Pills are for headaches, or depression, not a human being's ability to go through questions to decipher an ethical dilemma and to reach a conclusion, regardless if it's good or bad. If we take a pill, we will be ethically responsible to the pharmaceutical companies, not our audience or readers. With this pill, we will cut corners and lose the essential ability of introspective analysis of the human condition. However, maybe guilt will be eliminated, which would be nice.
Yikes. The very idea of swallowing a pill to make me a moral person sends shudders down my spine. I think there is really no question (or at the very least there SHOULDN’T be a question) as to whether something essential would be lost in our humanity if we needed to take a pill to help us act ethically.
If that were the case, what does that say about humanity as a whole? We couldn’t teach ourselves to be a morally grounded member of society with the ability to empathize and connect with one another, so we need to take a pill that will chemically alter us into a state that will allow us to do so? Scary. The concept of “ethics” would be lost forever and the need to teach ourselves what is right and wrong would be a concept lost in time. What separates us as human beings is our ability to make decisions and realize the ethical implications of doing so. If a pill does that for us – does that make us human?
The afterward brings up the all too common instance of being in an ethically charged situation without even realizing it – which in turn compounds the situation and makes it worse. If humans were to take a pill every morning and become numb to the ethical implications around us, wouldn’t we no longer realize we were EVER in an ethical situation? The important knowledge gained in making an ethical decision would also be lost forever in a sea of chemicals and imbalances.
The afterward was a good example of highlighting what I believed I learned most out of this class. Of course, I learned the do’s and don’ts of being an ethical member of the media – but I also learned how to see a decision from another point of view, or a view I at first would not normally see. Sometimes you need to take a second and realize every aspect of a decision you are making. What are the implications? Who is being harmed here? By doing so you are learning how to make good choices which is imperative.
I am disturbed by the idea that they have even created such a thing. It is unfortunate that people do not know how to act morally, or don’t care to, however free will is a gift and a right.
When I read the article, the first thing that came to mind is my body, my choice. It is no ones right to enforce something like this on anyone no matter how awful they might be. As for a personal choice to take the pill, I think a self aware person would never come to the conclusion that taking a pill to make them act moral would be a positive thing for them. If taking this pill seems right for them, then they have the ability to change and don’t need a pill to make them do so.
It makes me sick to think that people could make other people take this drug. I think something lost is compassion for people. The thought of making people take this pill would dehumanize them and our compassion for them. Does that make sense? We can’t think, well they are murders anyway so this will only help. I happen to think that anyone who commits a crime has something wrong with them anyway. A pill to make them more moral isn’t going to help. There are other factors that we would be turning our cheek to like maybe they were abused as a child, or a drug addiction messed with chemicals in their brain and made a disorder they might have had worse. People are still people in the end. I have been dealt a raw deal In life so im not necessarily defending these people but rather making the point that we cant pretend like these factors don’t contribute. How is a pill to make one moral going to help? All it is going to do it is make the public think of it as an easy way out rather than dealing with the issues at hand.
One last thought which is irrelevant to the criminal aspect but more to the mildly oblivious and immoral. Strength is something you choose. If people aren't strong enough its because they haven't learned to be yet. Experiences teach us how to be compassionate for one another. If we take a pill to make us that way then we will never really know what that kind of connection is all about. And that makes me really sad that people who take this pill might never have the chance to grow for themselves but rather be forced by a pill.
Taking a pill to increase morality truly scares me. I may be old fashioned but I always thought that morals were taught to children by their parents and through life experiences. You make mistakes, learn what is right or wrong and become a better person because of it. By removing those lessons, you are taking away an essential part of life.
This reminds me of the book/movie Fahrenheit 451. In this story, the government controls everyone minds by outlawing reading books. With these pills, people's thoughts are in jeopardy. You don't like government policies? Don't worry there's a pill for that.
Morals also differ from person to person. What is moral to one is not moral to the person standing next to them. Will these pills be customized to each person's morals? Or will everyone who takes these pills think in the same way when medicated.
Also, this country has a tendency to over-medicate for everything these days. This pill will only fuel that fire.
All in all, nothing good can come from putting these pills on the market. They have the possibility of opening up Pandora's Boz of trouble.
Post a Comment