The Ethical Import of Entheogens

Entheogens—drugs that produce ecstasy and have traditional religious and shamanic uses—can provoke experiences described in spiritual, religious, philosophical, or secular terms. These experiences allow individuals to generate meaning and gain novel philosophical insights, which users attribute directly to the experience itself. Such experiences can shift a person's fundamental philosophical commitments and ethical dispositions, making them more credible to the user than abstractly held beliefs. By examining the phenomenology of entheogenic experiences, the work argues that entheogens carry ethical significance.

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Abstract

The term entheogen refers to drugs—including the artificial substances and active principles drawn from them—which are known to produce ecstasy and have been used traditionally in certain religious and shamanic contexts. The entheogenic experiences provoked by entheogens are described by users in myriad ways, including in spiritual, religious, philosophical, and secular contexts. Entheogenic experiences have shown that they can create opportunities for individuals to generate meaning, including novel philosophical insights, which users claim to gain by way of experience. As such, entheogenic experiences exhibit the ability to influence a change in a user’s fundamental philosophical commitments, or live options, including their ethical dispositions. Given that these new live options are rooted in experience, their veracity gains further credence for users than those commitments they have come to hold by way of abstraction. By philosophically investigating the phenomenology of entheogenic experiences, this work argues that entheogens have ethical import