Designing Emotional Contraception

Last updated on: May 22, 2014 at 11:22 am by Leah Libresco

Designing Emotional Contraception 2014-05-22T11:22:09-04:00 Leah Libresco

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Over at The American Conservative, I’m discussing a bioethicist who’s done a literature review to find anti-love drugs. He’s not discussing science fiction, but drugs that currently exist which could have the side effects of suppressing lust, attraction, and/or attachment if prescribed off label (anti-depressants are high on the list). His ethics questions are mostly focused on the level of the individual, but I’ve got concerns about how they’d shift societal expectations about responsibility and relationships.

Treating Heartbreak With a Pill

In these circumstances, and others like them, Earp concludes that “the individual, voluntary use of anti-love biotechnology … could be justified or even morally required.” Earp circumscribes this moral imperative to mean that it would be morally wrong to interfere with a person choosing treatment, not that it would be immoral to refuse it, but it is worth noting that most of the examples that Earp cites are ones where the lover would not want to take the drugs, at least initially.

An individual’s choice will be shaped by the soft coercion of friends, family, and society who decide it’s finally time to intervene. Just as voluntary euthanasia has drawn criticism for the potential for weak groups (women, the elderly, the disabled) to feel pressured to die “altruistically” so as not to become a burden, anti-love drugs might create a new social responsibility for the romantically bereft to take their medicine and move on.

In an essay for Modern Love, divorcée Candida Pugh describes a kind of “closure” that presages Earp’s new pharmacological regime…

It came to me as a revelation, one of those truisms that strike with lightning clarity when you’re hiding in the dark. While she ranted, I realized that her husband, and mine, had the right to leave us. Everyone has that right, however much it may hurt the one left.

In Pugh’s framework, the only obligation that marriage confers is a duty not to let your grief interfere with your partner’s choice to leave. The burden is on her to salve her wounds, not on her spouse to refrain from inflicting them.

Read more at AmCon*….*

I can praise one part of Earp’s ethics wholeheartedly: his research papers aren’t behind a paywall, you can read the full text here. (It turns out that his main concern is that people might feel pressured to use anti-love drugs to suppress feelings that society incorrectly frowns upon, like inter-caste romances and queer relationships). Overall, though, the paper could be part of a viral marketing campaign for the upcoming film adaptation of Lois Lowry’s The Giver.

The Modern Love column which I cite also put me in mind of this C.S. Lewis lecture on sexual morality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBp8M8M4DMs

“Do you take this person until preferences do you part” is state of dating, not marriage, unless marriage is merely a legal way of managing hospital visits and tax filings.

Marriage

health/medicine

Previous Post

May 21, 2014

The Stories We Tell About Illness

Next Post

May 22, 2014 Putting the Casual Back in Casual Dating

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 7 Quick Takes Apologetics Atheism Book Conversion Debate Tactics Debates Epistemology/Philosophy Housekeeping Ideological Turing Test Marriage Morality in Practice Parsing Catholicism Possibly Heretical Radio Reviews/Recommendations Sequence Index Spiritual Practice Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2017 March 2017 January 2017 December 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which book comes before Amos in the Old Testament?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Obadiah Joel Hosea Micah