… to say nothing of jounalism:
How Intellectuals and “Experts” Undermine Moral Agency - Taki's Magazine - Taki's Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… the crucial, and fairly simple, issue is this: Is drug use “voluntary” or not? In other words, do people have free will or not? We certainly do. (If you don’t think so, see whether you can’t stop reading this article for a moment and return to it afterward.) Accordingly, Heyman et al. provide an
overview of data demonstrating that addiction is a set of behaviors whose course can be altered by foreseeable consequences. The same cannot be said of conventional brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s or multiple sclerosis. The best scientific and clinical data we have do not support the view that addicts are unable to refrain from using substances by choice.
I believe it was Goethe who came up with the aphorism, "Wir sind ein wenig frei": we are a little free.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we tend to think of addiction in much too categorical terms. But I think that the term "addiction" usefully describes a range of behaviors, and that the human ability to evaluate, let alone act on, "foreseeable consequences" varies a lot.