Moral Psychopharmacology Needs Moral Inquiry: The Case of Psychedelics

Psychedelics may act as non-specific amplifiers that help people reconnect with their values, or they might specifically promote liberal and anti-authoritarian views, as recent studies suggest. The return of psychedelics from counterculture to mainstream science has diversified their users and uses. This article argues for a moral psychopharmacology that brings pharmacological and neuroscientific research into conversation with historical and anthropological scholarship on the full range of moral and political views linked to psychedelic use. The work highlights the cultural plasticity of drug action and has implications for designing psychedelic therapies, while also questioning whether other psychoactive drugs have similarly rich moral and political dimensions.

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Abstract

The revival of psychedelic research coincided and more recently conjoined with psychopharmacological research on how drugs affect moral judgments and behaviors. This article makes the case for a moral psychopharmacology of psychedelics that examines whether psychedelics serve as non-specific amplifiers that enable subjects to (re-)connect with their values, or whether they promote specific moral-political orientations such as liberal and anti-authoritarian views, as recent psychopharmacological studies suggest. This question gains urgency from the fact that the return of psychedelics from counterculture and underground laboratories to mainstream science and society has been accompanied by a diversification of their users and uses. We propose bringing the pharmacological and neuroscientific literature into a conversation with historical and anthropological scholarship documenting the full spectrum of moral and political views associated with the uses of psychedelics. This paper sheds new light on the cultural plasticity of drug action and has implications for the design of psychedelic pharmacopsychotherapies. It also raises the question of whether other classes of psychoactive drugs have an equally rich moral and political life.