PHIL 1290 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Paternalism
Document Summary
Steinhoff question: cannot just repeat his points, must include our own take on it, must fit to one page. Opening claim: drug use is more a matter of morals and laws than science. His concern is that the physician is taken to be the only authority when it comes to drugs. End of article: have to choose between an ethic of individualism or collectivism. Szasz reminds us that medicine hasn"t always stuck to science: has taken moral stances. Reminds us not to buy into all this, and he"s a psychiatrist. Anti-drug people often falsify the pharmacological properties of the drugs they want to prohibit. Szasz also argues that dangerousness, in itself, cannot justify prohibition of drugs. Prohibition of substances tends to increase the price, risk factors etc. Can"t readily determine the purity or strength of the drug. By no means does substance use lead to abuse in every instance: it"s not inevitable, it"s possible to use substances and function normally.
