There are some great comments in here! I've been having fun reading your reactions to what I think is going to be a major ethical debate in the coming years.
To be specific, this article did not describe drugs that indeed make someone smarter, but rather make them able to focus better or remove anxiety. By my understanding that doesn't make one more intelligent or creative. It would simply allow them accomplish these task with greater ease.
Absolutely true. But creativity and intelligence depends on the ability to access certain parts of your mind, and if you can't concentrate or focus, then both creativity and intelligence suffers. With ADD, Beethoven is still Beethoven, but he can't settle down and focus to unlock all those symphonies he has inside him. Indeed, we might assume Beethoven with ADD is much stupider or less creative than he really is.
Could a drug change the very being of someone?
To an extent, I think every drug, from antidepressants down to coffee, changes the very being of someone. And in most cases, that's exactly the point! We take mood-altering drugs because we are able to recognize and admit that who we are is somehow deficient for the lifestyle we want to live. Even the coffee you drink is an admission: "I am not as alert as I need to be."
I think of a friend of mine, who can barely function without her antidepressants. Off her meds, she has trouble getting out of the bed in the morning, even though she gets terrible insomnia. She won't eat, won't go out, won't take a shower - she simply loses the will to live. That's who she is naturally - someone held prisoner to her naturally-borked brain chemistry. But with the meds, she can changes who she is into who she wants to be: a vibrant, happy self-sufficient woman.
Who am I to tell her that the person she becomes on the medication is somehow not real, that her life on drugs is inauthentic or somehow "not free"? That her life is somehow less than "good"? And yet, she's been told this - and sometimes, she even thinks it herself, that she should remain locked in the "real" her, that taking drugs is somehow cheating.
But that's an extreme case. In a greater sense, who we are is not static: It's a choice we make every day. We choose how well we want our brains to function, and what mood we want to be in - from the foods we eat, to the exercise we get (or don't get), to how much sleep we get, to the drugs we take. All of these actions change the very being of ourselves, and while I won't equate taking anti-depressants to going for a run (sorry, I'm not Tom Cruise), both actions fundamentally change your brain chemistry - and thus, who you are.
WillyWombat said:
We live in an artificially stimulating world. We move faster, eat more and have way more new stuff thrown at us than our evolution has prepared us for. Unless you are willing to go live in a grass hut on a savanna someplace and hope the world ignores you, you have to try to cope by whatever means are available.
I see many people saying that they wouldn't take these drugs if they became more widely available, but Willy brings up a good point. Soon, we're just going to have to run in place to keep up.
Imagine you work in a high-powered, high-stress environment - in fact, let's say you're a game developer. You're already expected to work long hours, and then put in 70 hour work weeks during crunch time. Some of your coworkers start taking a drug to keep their minds alert, their focus sharp. And it works; they're not just weathering the 70 hour work weeks, like you are, but breezing through them. Their work is actually improving; they're able to get more done on less sleep and rest, with less consequence to their health and sanity.
Soon, the higher-ups have taken notice of their improved performance, and give these workers raises and more vacation time - even promotions. They've also noticed you lagging behind your artificially-enhanced peers, and have warned you to pick up the pace, or they'll find someone else who can keep up. You have two kids to feed and a mortgage to pay - what do you do? It's easy to say you wouldn't take the drugs even if your livelihood depended on it, but what about when your family's security depends on it?
The scary part about these drugs is that there is no history of long term effects, so decisions to use them are going to be made with a huge gray area of ignorance.
Exactly. Many mood-altering drugs haven't even been studied over the long term (5-10 years) for their appropriate patients, much less those who don't need to take them. If every drug changes you somehow, and every change has risks and consequences, then as Dr. Chatterjee says in the article, if you're healthy, are any risks worth taking?
Anyway, good thoughts all around.
