Ethical Inquiry  -  First Position Paper Assignment                                  Due September 26

Suppose you found this article in your morning newspaper:

The Happy Drug
By Jeremy Iggers

Hassle, S.D.    Researchers at the University of Northern South Dakota recently announced a major breakthrough in the field of psychopharmacology.  According to Dr. D. Mento, chair of the department of pharmacology, university researchers have perfected a drug that can induce a feeling that researchers describe as "happiness," or "well-being."  Extensive testing on animal and human subjects has indicated no harmful side-effects.

Dr. Mento was quick to stress that the new drug is not addictive, and that the feelings that it induces are not a high, or euphoria, but rather a feeling of contentment.  Under current federal guidelines, it is not a narcotic, and will likely be approved by the F.D.A. as an over-the-counter product, if the U.N.S.D. authorities decide to put the product on the market.  This drug does not interfere with judgment, Dr. Mento added, but it may affect perceived values and priorities.  For example, experimental subjects continued to work at their jobs, but indicated complete indifference to the prospect of salary increases or promotions, saying that they were "perfectly happy just the way they were."

U.N.S.D. sociologist, Dr. E. Besserwisser cautioned that the global distribution of this very inexpensive new drug could drastically change the course of human civilization.  "We don't know what impact this drug could have," said Besserwisser.  "What will happen if people discover that they don't need children or accomplishment or love or self-expression to be happy, just a little pill?"

Rev. Eric Larson commented, "If you haven't earned it, it isn't really happiness. Happiness is more than just a state of mind, its being in the right relationship to God and to the world."

Dr. Mento, possibly under the influence of his own discovery, insisted, "There's nothing wrong with feeling good.  That's what people have been striving for for centuries.  Only a Puritan would object."

Write a 4-6 page (typed, double-spaced, normal margins and font sizes) essay in which you discuss:

1.  How might the happy drug be evaluated by hedonism, by the desire theory, and by what Shafer-Landau calls objectivist theories of the good (the kind of theory exemplified in the selection by Jean Kazez)?  That is, what would each theory have to say about how the happy drug would or wouldn’t contribute to people having a good life?

2.  Consider the following argument: 
Hedonism has to say that a person who takes the happy drug and therefore feels happy is living a good life, whether they accomplish anything or not, whether they have any intimate relationships or not, etc.  But this is wrong.  A contented life is not necessarily a good life.  So hedonism is wrong.
Does this argument succeed?  That is, does it demonstrate that hedonism is an unacceptable theory of ‘the good life’? (Explain in some detail.)