Love (Drugs), Happiness, and Morality.

Happiness, love, and morality form a triple circularly supportive relationship: love encourages prosocial behavior, which increases happiness, which in turn enhances moral action; conversely, happiness promotes prosocial behavior, which fosters loving relationships, which then motivate moral behavior toward loved ones. This self-reinforcing cycle can be deepened and sustained through careful use of love-enhancing substances, particularly the psychedelic psilocybin, aided by guided meditation. Humans are motivated to use love drugs because they increase happiness, making voluntary love-drug use a more effective means of moral bio-enhancement than compulsory prevention of ultimate harm.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Various authors, including myself, have argued that happiness and morality operate in a circularly supportive relationship. In this paper, love will be added to this relationship. The new triple correlation will be explored through the following lens: not only do love and happiness reinforce moral action, but they appear to be in a triple circularly supportive relationship. Moral behavior is frequently grounded in love; love encourages prosocial behavior; prosocial behavior increases happiness; happiness, in turn, enhances the inclination of most people to act morally most of the time. Argued from the opposite direction: happiness tends to encourage prosocial behavior in most people most of the time; prosocial behavior is conducive to the development of loving relationships; love induces us to behave morally toward the people we love. The argument presented here will also propose that this triple circular reinforcement can be significantly deepened and sustained through a careful use of love-enhancing substances, aided by guided meditation-particularly in the case of the psychedelic psilocybin. It will be concluded that humans will be motivated to use love drugs because they tend to increase their happiness. Consequently, a voluntary use of love drugs is a more effective means of moral (bio-)enhancement than is the prevention of "ultimate harm" that is based on compulsory moral enhancement.