Rational Philosophy

On the FDA, drug companies, and addiction to crack cocaine in Argentina.

The NY Times disputes the Supreme court’s 8-1 decision to prevent liability lawsuits against drug companies if their products have been approved by the FDA. The Times argues that the FDA falls woefully short of ensuring adequate checks against faulty drugs and medical devices, and therefore that drug companies shouldn’t be immune from lawsuits if their products prove faulty. I see the point, but it seems ridiculous. Either the FDA should get out of the way, or it should do its job. Let those who have suffered from faulty drugs or medical devices sue the FDA.

The Times also reports on the scourge of crack cocaine in Argentina. I’ve written about illegal drugs before, arguing that it is irrational to ban some drugs but permit others. I see the point of the mothers and families of those addicted — get the drugs off the streets; keep them out of the hands of our children and the world would be a better place. But I wonder how we can rationally draw distinctions between crack cocaine and, for instance, alcohol.

The distinction seems to be this — crack cocaine has no redeeming or redeemable qualities. As the story suggests, it is inevitably a pernicious substance. There’s no such thing as a recreational user, no such thing as a puff or two. I’ve never tried crack cocaine, so I’m presuming that I can believe what’s written about it. It is so highly addictive that casual, occasional, recreational use is impossible.

Laws, government agencies, police forces… Society sets up institutions in an attempt to protect us and keep us safe. We should expect these institutions to perform the kind of job we assign them, so long as we oversee them and fund them appropriately. But, while institutions should be adequate, they can’t be perfect, and we have a responsibility to ourselves to expect and protect against institutional problems, failures, and shortcomings. Holding the FDA responsible because it has inadequate testing for problematic drugs and medical devices seems appropriate. Suing a drug company because its product wasn’t adequately tested by the FDA doesn’t. On the other hand, if a company knowingly deceived or took advantage of the failings in the FDA, it does seem appropriate that the company also bears responsibility.

On Stanley Fish’s views on the humanties, and congress’s obsession with baseball.

Stanely Fish has this to say about whether studying the humanties can change us for the better: “Do the humanities ennoble? And for that matter, is it the business of the humanities, or of any other area of academic study, to save us? The answer in both cases, I think, is no.” Fish argues that the humanities serve no purpose whatsoever, but that this is OK, since “an activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good.”

To which feel moved to give a short rebuttal (”bullshit”) but feel a sense of duty to respond with something longer and more thoughtful. Back to that in a minute.

The other matter that has me scratching my head again today is all the fuss in congress over baseball drug use. Perhaps this is one of those cultural or political gaps that comes from being born and raised elsewhere, but why on earth does the government feel it should spend taxpayers’ money investigating drug use in baseball? Roger Clemens has been desperately defending himself against the allegations in the recent report. And he should be held accountable if he’s sullied the name of baseball, but by the government?

How does this relate to Stanley Fish and his misapprehension of the value of the humanities? Well, you can find echoes of Kafka and Beckett and Heller in the congress’s pursuit of the baseball players abuses, just as you can find echoes of Kafka and Vonnegut and, yes, Heller again in the Bush administration’s press to invade Iraq and chronic abuse of human rights.

Over the weekend I saw “Charlie Wilson’s War.” Granted not a film of any great artistic merit, although effectively done, but it helps illustrate the point. I came out of the theater with a renewed sense of urgency about the value and hidden dangers of the political process, with a new sense of outrage at the current administration’s deliberate mishandling of the current war and manhandling of our rights. Could I have reached the same sense of outrage without the movie? Sure, but that’s not the point.

The humanities, along with news media, word of mouth, personal observation, government and independent reports, etc., give us a picture of the world we live in. In some cases, the humanities give us a picture that we couldn’t get in any other way (because it’s purely imaginitive or impressionistic or surreal). I would pose the reverse question to Fish. If humanities don’t serve a purpose, why do they exist?

We strive to create art because we want to represent something — an emotion, an impression, an urge, a feeling – that seems important to us. Art is the tangible manifestation of our humanity. Without art we have no tangible manifestation of our humanity. Some can live in such a world, perhaps, but most of us cannot.

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Barrack Obama has been criticized for being too honest in talking about his past drug use. Unlike Bill Clinton and George Bush, Obama spoke openly about drinking and using drugs as a young person. His critics feel that too much information can be harmful to young people. Others feel that in speaking openly he did the right thing. But how can we know?

An Oprah.com article today discusses the benefits of developing an optimistic rather than pessimistic perspective on our lives. Good advice perhaps if for those who tend to be neurotic and hard on themselves. Not such good advice for those who blame everyone except themselves for their problems.

The formal field of psychology has exploded in the past half century, but as an informal area of investigation and observation it has been practised for thousands of years. For as long as we’ve been able to frame ideas and concepts, we’ve been able to wonder why we behave as we do. Psychology is insight into human motivation. Why do we do what we do. Why do we think what we think. Unfortunately, psychology too often puts an appealing layer of frosting on reality, gooey and sweet and distracting, but not very nutritious.

Without understanding the underlying principles that shape our motivations, we can’t hope to map out a solid and reliable foundation for our psychological insights. The psychological studies that get press and attention tend to focus on narrow and specific aspects of human behavior. But what is the big picture? If we want to understand motivation from first priciples, where do we begin?

We must begin, I believe, with the principles of existence. After all, psychology comes about from the application of abstract principles to human behavior. And human behavior comes about from the principles that shape evolution. And evolution comes about through the operation of the universal principle of persistence (see the meaning of life) in living things over time.

Once we accept that all human behavior derives in some way shape or form from the instinct or impulse to further the persistence of life, we have a skeletal framework upon which we can begin to build a self-consistent science of psychology.

For example, if we want to figure out whether Obama is right or wrong for being honest about his drug use, we need to understand the pros and cons of honesty as it relates to the strength of society, and we need to understand the pros and cons of admitted drug use. Honesty would seem integral to a strong society because it promotes trust and trust promotes collaboration and empathy. Admissions of drug use in and of themselves would seem to diminish taboos about drug use by our elders or those in authority, but this in turn would seem to remove one of the strongest impulses for the young person deciding whether to try drugs — the desire to rebel and be different from those in authority.

We could further flesh out this trivial inspection to include other perspectives and layers of insight, digging down into the subordinate impulses to relate them to the persistence of life. The deeper we go, the more nuanced will be our insight. And if we use the principle of persistence as our guide, we will run less risk of going astray.

Until we have a solid foundation for arriving at conclusions about people’s motivations, the science of psychology will remain messy and maleable, and pretty much useless as a vehicle for helping society move forward. But if we adopt a rational, reality-based foundation, guided by the principles of existence, we can take our understanding on a new, productive and fascinating path.

(If you want to read more, LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do to Survive further explains the origin, elaboration and application of the principle of persistence.)

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