Sean A. Spence wrote an article in the Journal of British Psychiatry, about whether we should use drugs to make people behave ethically. Among other points, the paper gives a few examples of ways that drugs are already being used to make people behave ethically.

There are drugs that make you happy, drugs that help you pay attention, and even drugs that make you smarter. What about drugs that increase empathy? There are many potential applications for such a drug.

These drugs might be able to help sociopaths, who have no ability, or a significantly lessened ability to sympathize with other human beings. It could “cure” a sociopath in the same way that an anti-depressant can cure someone with clinical depression.

What if an entire group of people artificially upped their empathy? Would this group of people be happier or sadder, more productive or less productive?

I’m not even willing to guess. This is an area where much more research needs to be conducted. Vast amounts of money are spent on both promoting behavior enhancing drugs, and studying the effects of these drugs on individuals. But, little is being done to research the effects of wide use on a population

The current trend is towards it being okay for everyone to use drugs that “improve” behavior. Is this trend for better or worse?