Moral Pill

Moral Pill

It was summer of 2009 when I had got the chance to read Anthony Burgess’s novel (and Stanley Kubrick’s film) A Clockwork Orange which in turn narrates Alex, an unrepentant psychopath, who has his eyes pried wide open(in the pic above) and is forced to watch violent images. Like Pavlov’s dog, Alex is being programmed to respond with nausea to violence and sex. This scene remains shocking to me till date, but, like most science fiction, it has aged. The behaviorist psychology it was drew upon has long expired, and the fear that science will be used to make, or even force, people to be morally better now sounds old-fashioned.

The basic idea or the framework of morality and concept of deliverance on which the science fiction works has an implied short age but a very long after life. In recent past decade an army of psychologists, neuroscientists, and evolutionary biologists has been busy trying to uncover the neural “clockwork” that underlies human morality. While reading an article written by Milton Friedman I found scientists have started to trace the evolutionary origins of pro-social sentiments such as empathy, and have begun to uncover the genes that dispose some individuals to senseless violence and others to acts of altruism, and the pathways in our brain that shape our ethical decisions. And to understand how something works is also to begin to see ways to modify and even control it. Scientists have not only identified some of the brain pathways that shape our ethical decisions, but also chemical substances that modulate this neural activity. He further mentions that the anti-depressant Citalopram can change the responses of individuals to hypothetical moral dilemma scenarios. Individuals given the drug were less willing to sacrifice an individual to save the lives of several others. Another series of studies has shown that when the hormone Oxytocin is administered via nasal spray, it increases trusting and cooperative behavior within social groups, but also decreases cooperation with those perceived as outsiders. Neuroscientists have even magnetically “zapped” carefully targeted areas of people’s brains to influence their moral judgments in surprising ways – for example, making it easier for them to lie.

Well as of now, no one is developing a “moral pill” that will transform us into saints and trammels to immoral behavior. But the research is advancing fast, and it is almost certain to suggest new ways to reshape our moral intuitions, sentiments, and motivations.

Now the implied question is should we use our growing scientific understanding of the basis of human morality to try to make people morally better?

A said novel The Clockwork Orange was accused of glorifying violence, and some of its scenes are still hard to watch. But Burgess himself argued, the novella has an almost righteous message: What makes us human is our freedom to choose both good and evil, and for society to crush individuals into servile conformity is as wicked as, and perhaps even worse than, the sadism of psychopaths like Alex.

I have a feeling that many will agree with this view. They will agree that our ability to distinguish right from wrong is something precious that we should safeguard, not a broken clock that scientists should fix.

Let’s go a little further, most of us don’t need to be conditioned to feel repulsed by rape or torture. But this does not mean that we are morally good, or good enough. As you read this, perfectly ordinary people somewhere in the world are doing unspeakable things to others. The most advanced and affluent societies have put a vast concentrated effort which is needed to preserve even minimal decency: think of locks, security alarms, police, courts, and prisons. And it is doubtful that we really care enough about others, or give enough to the less fortunate.

Suppose we take two person from society. One a serial killer and one top sales person for a tobacco company. Now Society as per its judicial policy will punish the serial killer for multiple homicide by giving capital punishment where as the top sales man will get accolades, bonus and benefits as his cut for the yearly sales. Let’s see, Killer is accused of dozen of killings where as the tobacco sales man kills millions yet both are treated differently. It’s like the grave and diverse and well spread your crime is the more respective you will get in society. Now the Society with its prejudiced judicial system will argue that there is a difference in both cases. The Sales man gives a choice but killer doesn’t. Well a life lost is a life lost and we are not going to discuss tangible or intangible crimes. Yet this will ring certain minds.

Talking about society let’s consider another example which I observed few days back and in fact which inspired me to write this article. I was having a soda standing in front of a stall at the angle of a crowded square at Surat, Gujarat. Nearby was an unlicensed stall for a Vada-pav. There were two people managing that stall, one in preparing the merchandise using all the questionable raw materials which will straight fail to any standards set by the health departments and the other one was distributing and collecting bills while a good number of labor class customers are enjoying the Indian burger with fries chilies mixed with salt which were served on past days news papers. Nearby a kid, not more than 5 to 6 years was busy collecting poly-wraps and poly-bags strayed on streets. Judging by his clothes and cleanness he was certainly a gypsy settled somewhere nearby. While collecting the scraps he was randomly asking people for money and out of my curiosity I observed a pattern of his targets. Most of his target people are generally young and look careless with clearly giving the message to the world that ‘my Dad is my ATM’. Few moments later his asked me. As usual out of my better judgment I fished out an Rs2 coin and put it in his dirty hand as he gave me this cute smirk and moved on forward. At that moment I saw a guy who enters this setting. He parked his red Pulsar 150 nearby. Produced a Rs100 bill and asked for 4 Classic Regular and a Pepsi RGB small bottle soda and indulged himself in the process of pandering himself which was  inhaling the black smoke as if there nothing better to do rather than sucking the black acrid smoke which will momentarily numb the various material priorities. As a habit of studying people I observed that the guy was wearing casuals consisting of a UCB Denim and a checked Spykar shirt. He has a RayBan Aviator model glares and Woodland as shoes. Had a Longinies watch and what I perceive was wearing a Hugo Boss Black perfume. He has this cocksure attitude in him with a very little beard and very short hairs both well trimmed. The kid came to him and asked for money. He smiled and took him to the stall and ordered for two burgers. The stall owner said a fresh batch was just getting out and he will then give the burgers. The guy instructed the kid to stand there and came back to shop to where he had left his soda. The kid was standing there and our guy finished his drinks and went to his bike.

Here at the stall out of two owners one came running at the kid with water at his hands and shooing him away. The kid ran back.

Stallowner-2: “Bhag Chor Kahin-ka! How many times I will tell you not to come here Phoot idhar-se”.

He has an expression on his face when usually people get shooing away a stray dog. The guy get down from his bike and catch the kid who way running by his side. He had his hands on the kid’s shoulders and approached to the stall while removing his glares. His eyes have a piercing character in them.

Guy: “What just happened? Why are you treating him like this? Don’t you have a least bit mannerism?”

Stallowner-2: “Arey sir these Chor deserve to be treated like these. Theses gutter rats are good for nothing and loot my customers and disturb the business. The governments should do vasectomy and sterile these people so they won’t copulate and populate the society.”

Guy: “Excuse me!! And who gave you that right to judge these people.”  

StallOwner-1: “Sorry sir here is the burgers. My brother didn’t know that.”

(He gave his brother a stop-talking-now look)

Guy: “You know you are too much a problem for the society as much you think they are. Have you ever subjected yourself to the same judgment? And he is only a kid for god sake how will he differentiate what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Salesman-2: (irritated) “Arey sir ji jao jao!! I don’t go around begging at his age and even now I earn fair from my hard work.”

Guy: “Right said. But do you have a certificate from the health dept with your quality of your product. Do you pay taxes? And does your Thela is cleared by the municipality.”

Guy: “No, I thought so. Now since you don’t pay taxes that tax money which might have used for this kids free education in not available to govt. Now you sell the vada pav which spreads diseases and you cannot deny that. You have a Thela in the road side which sometimes blocks road causing traffic jams thus hampering the country’s progress and for you many natural resources like fuel are wasted. So now tell me who the bigger culprit here is…”

The Stall owner-2 was going to say something but his partner stopped him as people have started to gather around.

The kid did not understand any of the conversation but just stood there as he listened to the hot arguments and cold replays from the guy.

Our Guy smiled at the kid and returned to his bike and went along the kid joyously crossed the traffic my eyes followed him as he expertly crossed the traffic and was about to get lost in the masses of crowd and dust when he turned back and gave a blank smile at the scene.

This whole scene made me thinking about the semantics of the morality. Humans are born with the capacity to be moral, but it is a limited capacity which is ill equipped to deal with the ethical complexities of the modern world. For thousands of years, humans have relied on education, persuasion, social institutions, and the threat of real (or supernatural) punishment to make people behave decently. We could all be morally better, but it is clear that this traditional approach cannot take us much further. It is not as if people would suddenly begin to behave better if we just gave them more facts and statistics, or better arguments.

So we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the suggestion that science might help – in the first instance, by helping us design more effective institutions, more inspiring moral education, or more persuasive ethical arguments. But science might also offer more direct ways of influencing our brains.

Science fiction sometimes limits rather than expands our sense of what is possible. It would be self-defeating, or worse, to try to promote morality through brutal coercion. Governments must not be given the power to control its citizens’ moral code – we know that if they had such power, they would misuse it.

It would be ideal if individuals could freely explore different ways to improve themselves, whether by practicing mindfulness, reading moral philosophy, or, yes, by taking a ‘morality’ pill. But it is also true that although some people are eager to take pills that make them feel better or think faster, it is not so obvious that people would really want to take pills that would make them morally better. It is not clear that people really want to be morally better. And those who, like the psychopathic Alex, need the most help are probably those who would want it least.

These are, of course, hypothetical questions. We don’t yet know what is possible. But it is better to begin the ethical discussion too early than too late. And even if “moral pills” are just science fiction, they raise deep questions. Will we want to take them if they ever become available? And what does it say about us if we won’t?

Can you take the Morality Pill??