In a paper
Earp, Sandberg and Savulescu suggest individual couples should be free to use pharmacological
interventions, provided these interventions allow us to keep our values and our
environment intact, to sustain and improve their romantic connection. They then
proceed to suggest some parents might have an obligation to do so in order to
enhance their relationships for the sake of their children. They further suggest
that this might be done by the use of “love drugs” such as oxytocin. Their
arguments run as follows. First they argue,
1)
Parents have an
obligation to protect their children from harm, all else being equal.
2)
Marriage
breakdown, and especially outright divorce, is harmful to children.
3)
Therefore parents
have an obligation (all else being equal)
to preserve and enhance their relationships—for the sake of their offspring.
They then proceed to argue,
1)
Parents have an
obligation (all else being equal) to
preserve and enhance their relationships for the sake of their offspring.
2)
In many cases, the only way to
do this is through pharmacological intervention, in conjunction with other
more conventional strategies like couple’s therapy.
In assessing this argument it
is crucial to understand what is meant by all else being equal. I will assume
that all else being equal means any pharmacological intervention must have no
damaging physiological or psychological side effects. However it also seems the
authors believe all else being equal also means our keeping values and our
environment intact. In what follows I will firstly argue such a belief is
mistaken. I will then consider the implications of this mistake for the argument
as a whole.
Firstly it
is clear any love drug must of necessity change the
environment we live in if it is to be effective. Such drugs will not of course
change our physical environment but they will change our psychological
environment. If parents live in a psychological environment characterised by
lots of minor discords, waning love and a general unhappiness then love drugs
should change this environment. Indeed the whole point of parents taking love
drugs is to change their psychological environment in order to stop them
divorcing. However people take anti-depressants all the time in order to change
their psychological environment with no ill effects. This suggests to me the
fact that someone who takes love drugs will have her environment changed is not
a reason to reject Earp, Sandberg and
Savulescu’s argument.
Does the taking of love drugs
change someone’s values? Change in the context of values could have two
meanings. Firstly change might means someone acquires new values or loses some
of her existing ones. Secondly change could mean she alters the priorities she
gives to her existing values. Let us assume someone’s values are linked to what
she cares about. Let us further assume her identity as a particular person
depends on what she cares about, upon her values. It follows if she acquires
new values or loses some of her existing values she alters her identity to some
degree. However I would argue someone’s identity is tied not only to those
values she possesses but also to the priorities she gives to these values. For
instance someone might value both being a mother and being good teacher.
However someone who values being a mother first and a teacher second has a
different identity to someone who reverses these priorities. It follows if
someone changes the priorities she gives to her values she also changes her
identity. The taking of love drugs does not appear to change someone’s values
using my first meaning. However the purpose someone has in taking of love drugs
would be to change the priorities she assigns to her various values in order to
benefit her children. It follows the taking of love drugs changes someone’s
values using the second meaning of change outlined above. It further follows
the taking of love drugs changes someone’s identity.
If we accept
that someone taking love drugs will have her identity altered does this give us
a reason to reject Earp, Sandberg and
Savulescu’s argument? It might be concluded the taking of these drugs would
make someone inauthentic and this fact alone gives us reason to reject the
authors’ argument. However such a conclusion seems premature. Just becoming a
parent might also change someone’s identity and alter her values. Indeed it
might not only alter the priorities someone assigns to her values but generate
new values. The fact someone’s identity sometimes changes over time is natural
and should usually give us no cause for concern. Someone might accept that
natural changes in our identity do not give us cause for concern but object
that the taking of love drugs is unnatural. In response I would suggest simply
talking about something being natural or artificial is not really helpful; it
doesn’t really do any work. My objector might respond by arguing what really
matters is the way the change is caused. I accept her point. I further accept
if love drugs alone cause a change in someone’s identity that their use is
unacceptable and that we should reject Earp,
Sandberg and Savulescu’s argument because of the damage these drugs do to her
autonomy.
However I am reluctant to
accept love drugs alone cause a change in someone’s identity. After all someone
doesn’t just take a drug randomly with no purpose in mind. She takes a drug for
a purpose and it follows she uses the drug instrumentally. In what follows I
will argue firstly that love drugs might enable a parent to make a better
decision and secondly these drugs might enable a parent carry out a previously
made autonomous decision. Prima facie it might appear there is no reason as to
why the taking of a love drug might enable us to better decision. However the
truth of this appearance depends on how a specific drug works. Some drugs
enhance our cognition. It seems plausible that a cognition enhancing drug might
permit parents to see beyond their short term marital problems and see that
remaining married will give them greater satisfaction in the long term as well
as benefiting their children. Indeed studies have shown oxytocin, a potential
love drug, is involved in nursing behaviour, trust, and mind-reading (1). If
oxytocin enhances mind reading it enhances cognition and might enable parents
to make better marital decisions resulting in fewer divorces and less harm to
their children. Moreover the taking of such a love drug might be seen as
enhancing rather than damaging someone’s autonomy.
I now want to consider the
situation when love drugs might be seen as enabling someone to enact her
previously made autonomous decision. Let us return to my example of someone who
is both a mother and teacher. Let us assume she desperately wants to be a good
mother but finds it hard to bond with her child and gives far greater priority
to her teaching. Let us also assume after some reflection she makes an
autonomous decision to shed some of her teaching load in order to become a
better mother. Let us still further assume she still finds it difficult to
implement this decision and bond with her child. After some further reflection
she makes an autonomous decision to take oxytocin to enable to enact her
previously made autonomous decision. Prima facie it appears the taking of a
love drug has once again enhanced rather than damaged someone’s autonomy and we
have no reason to reject Earp, Sandberg and Savulescu’s argument. However I
have some reservations about accepting this appearance.
My first reservation is
connected to what sort of autonomy we want to respect. Let us accept the
mother’s decision to take oxytocin is an autonomous one. However it is
perfectly possible for someone to make an autonomous decision which has the
result of damaging her capacity for autonomy. One can decide to take heroin or
perhaps more realistically a terminally ill patient might decide to commit
suicide. Is it possible that a love drug such as oxytocin might also damage
someone’s capacity for autonomy? Perhaps such a drug might bind someone so
close to her partner that this affects some of the other things she cares about
and perhaps even her cognitive judgements. Of course if we give priority to
respecting someone’s autonomous decision over preserving her capacity for
autonomy this reservation becomes groundless. Personally I favour respecting
autonomous decisions over respecting someone’s capacity for autonomy. For
instance if we respect a terminally ill cancer patient’s capacity for autonomy
rather than her autonomous decision to die then she might be left with her
capacity for autonomy but use it only to make decisions to die which she is
prevented from implementing.
My second reservation
concerns whether a mother’s decision to love her child more is always truly
autonomous. Let us accept she had all the relevant facts and was un-coerced.
Moreover she was under no pressure from her partner, friends or grandparents.
It might be thought by many the mother’s decision was clearly autonomous.
However the fact that she needed to take oxytocin to implement her decision
suggests this might not be so. I would agree with Frankfurt
that for her to make an autonomous decision means she has to come to care about
certain things and she must come to care about some of them more than others rather
than simply reflect upon her decision (2). Frankfurt
uses the example of a mother who after some reflection decides it would be in the
best interests of her child if he was adopted. However when the moment for
adoption comes she cannot go through with her decision. Her purely reflective
decision was one she was unable to implement because she discovered what she
truly cared about (3). Helm also holds that we sometimes discover our values
rather than reach them purely through reflection (4). I would question whether,
if the mother in the above example took love inhibiting drugs to enable her to
let her child be adopted, we would say these love inhibitors enhanced her
autonomy. Indeed it might be argued these inhibitors damaged her autonomy. The
above example of course does not show love drugs might damage someone’s
autonomy but it does support my reservations and emphasises the need for
caution.
- Domes, G., Heinrichs, M., Michel, A., Berger, C.
& Herpertz, S. C. (2007) Oxytocin improves
“mind-reading” in humans. Biological Psychiatry 61, 731–733.
3.
Frankfurt H, 1999, Necessity,
Volition, and Love. Cambridge University Press, page 111.
4.
Bennett Helm,
2010, Love, Friendship & the Self,
Oxford University Press, page 131.
