Via email from Gerald F.:
It seems that the U.S. is not currently equipped to cooperatively lower the risk confronting us. Many are instead pinning their hopes on the rapid development and distribution of an enhancement to the immune system – a vaccine.
But I believe society may be better off, both in the short term as well as the long, by boosting not the body’s ability to fight off disease but the brain’s ability to cooperate with others. What if researchers developed and delivered a moral enhancer rather than an immunity enhancer?
Moral enhancement is the use of substances to make you more moral. The psychoactive substances act on your ability to reason about what the right thing to do is, or your ability to be empathetic or altruistic or cooperative.
And what is the morality of forcing others to adhere to a version of morality different than their firmly held belief?
And of course some (most?) would refuse which the author suggests isn’t that big of an obstacle (apparently oblivious to the practical problems of dosage, secrecy, and costs with this sort of scale):
And if you follow the link you will discover the “moral reasoning” of the author is somewhat twisted (highlighting added):
My argument for this is that if moral bioenhancement ought to be compulsory, then its administration is a matter of public health, and for this reason should be governed by public health ethics. I argue that the covert administration of a compulsory moral bioenhancement program better conforms to public health ethics than does an overt compulsory program. In particular, a covert compulsory program promotes values such as liberty, utility, equality, and autonomy better than an overt program does. Thus, a covert compulsory moral bioenhancement program is morally preferable to an overt moral bioenhancement program.
I find it very telling the author values “utility” and “equality”. And dares to suggest a covert program of forced “bioenhancement” is consistent with “liberty” and “autonomy”.
No thank you.
I want an underground bunker in Idaho.
“covert” is in line with “liberty” and “equality”? What’s in his kool-aid?
He isn’t being satirical, is he, a la “A Modest Proposal…”?
I do not believe my autonomy would be enhanced if I were being covertly controlled.
Autonomy of evil. See? Now it all fits and makes sense. These people are not stupid.
Actually, my life would probably be better if someone smarter than me were in charge of my decisions while allowing me the illusion of autonomy. However, I think I’d rather stumble through my life tripping over the issues I have created on my own, thankyouverymuch!
Do you think they’ll call it “G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate?”
Time for you to take a nap, you subversive.
When added to the air processors that works on 99.9% of people. That’s good enough, right?
This is what “a world without sin” looks like.
Ah yes; Soma! The Eugenicists, Nazis and Romish leftists in general have been considering something like this for a very long time. Unfortunately for us, we (or rather, our great grandparents) failed to get rid of them at the first signs of this sort of thinking, but instead we let them take over our schools and infiltrate all of our other most important institutions, and now we’re absolutely stuck with them. And their roots are strong and deep.
“Diet, injections and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible…”
Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society, 1952, p. 61-62
“Better Living Through Chemistry” as the saying was, back in our childhoods, and before. Now we juuuust begin, far too late, to understand what it meant.
Of course it’s not the “impact of science” that Russell was talking about in this particular instance, but the impact of evil. Thus he was in error. One should not make the mistake of conflating the two. Science, like so many things, is a tool, and we are tool-makers and tool-users. The only trouble is, some of us tool-users are committed to evil on such a mass scale as to boggle the mind, and while our minds are busy being boggled, evil takes hold of a hell of a lot of power!
When I first read this I thought it was satire. I mean who could possibly consider doing this to a large percentage of the population?
Then when I re-read it I realized he even had thought about the logistics of dosing the population to control free will.
His calling himself an ethicist would be the same as Dr. Mengele calling himself a humanitarian.
More like the Jeffrey Dahmer school of humanitarian.
yes, there are people who think like that and seriously contend (and appear to actually believe) that they are ethical and doing good things.
It is seeing that sort of thinking in so many places about the coronavirs and the #ClotShot that has me thinking evil (like demon-type evil) is more likely real than not, and has me going to church. It’s not just ignorance, or a slightly different perspective, it’s an active inversion of good and true.
A psychopathic personality with delusions of grandeur.
Suitable for long term inpatient treatment.
And of course involuntary medication administration.
An interesting use of the word moral. Looks like another word being hijacked and corrupted.
I’m wondering how he proposes to sneak his compliance drugs into the wells of the tens of millions of people who don’t live in a city water jurisdiction.
I know I wouldn’t take too kindly to finding people poking around the wellhouse of my rural property in the middle of the night, and I don’t imagine the Sheriff would question it much when asked to bring the county meat wagon out to recover the bodies.
Methinks the author doesn’t know what “ethics” means.
Wasn’t that a major plot point in “The Giver”?
I think I’ve seen this one:
This person is no more an “ethicist” than Adolph Hitler is a humanitarian or Joseph Stalin a supporter of human rights.
Apart from that, the notion that there could be a drug that has the properties he images is absurd. The article seems to talk about using random hallucinogens. It may be that putting enough LSD or the like into a human will fry his brains and make him malleable to the fascist dictatorship this criminal contemplates, but such a thing is hardly a “morality pill”.
An ample supply of weapons and ammo is clearly called for.