![]() We learn, too, about the growing use of illegal drugs such as MDMA and psilocybin as a means to help people with relationship problems. Love is the Drug attempts to address even more controversial questions, such as whether we should permit the use of such medicines to curb what society may see as taboo or deviant sexual desires, or even addictions to online pornography. “There already are drugs, legal and illegal, that can alter how we think about love, sex and relationships”ĭrugs could also suppress sexual desires. They explore the potential of “anti-love drugs” to suppress emotions like jealousy, and drugs that could help break the attachment of an abused person to their abuser. This needn’t be restricted to chemicals that alter our relationships “for the better”, say the authors. “It should be a scandal that we don’t know more about the effects of these drugs (good or bad) on our romantic partnerships.” “This is a blind spot in Western medicine: the tendency to ignore the interpersonal effects of drug-based interventions,” they write. There should still be a healthy scepticism about the effects of oxytocin nasal sprays, say Earp and Savulescu: the results of studies of its ability to enhance relationships should be taken with “a grain of salt”, they write.īut the scepticism might be addressed if there were more rigorous studies of the way drugs affect our relationships, the authors argue. For example, it sounds a note of caution over the many research claims made for the so-called “love hormone” oxytocin – a molecule made by the hypothalamus that acts on the brain, and plays a role in bonding, sex and pregnancy. The book doesn’t ignore the possible hype around the subject. What would be foolish would be to fail to understand the effects of the drugs we’re already using –. “They’re having those effects whether we measure them or not. “We have good theoretical reasons, and now increasing empirical reasons, to think that these drugs are having effects on our romantic neurochemistry,” says Earp. In the book, the authors detail how conventional medicines, such as antidepressants, can have libido-altering side effects that may affect relationships. Given that there’s going to be and, in some ways, already are active steps that we can take to shape the course of our romantic lives, once a choice is available to you, failing to engage is not a choice.” “We can no longer just shrug our shoulders and say – love is just something that happens to you. “It’s going to be the case that we’re able to do something about love, and that changes the choice set before us,” says Earp. In an interview with New Scientist, Savulescu says he has pushed for such a debate since he became interested when a relationship ended after 15 years Earp says his motivation is to get beyond the sentimental “sense that love is this disembodied thing that happens in a soul”. It is time to imagine a world in which we can chemically alter feelings, they say. This gives Earp, a cognitive scientist, and Savulescu, a doctor turned philosopher, the scope to ask deliberately provocative questions to stoke the debate. As such, it is no longer a question of can we use the chemicals to control our feelings, but should we. Others have yet to be created,” they write. “All of these love drugs exist right now.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |