A reader writes:
I came across this article in the Village Voice. It’s about the possibility of a “morning after pill” for the conscience. This pill would prevent moral emotions like remorse and regret. As you’ll see in the article, the thought is that they’d ostensibly use this kind of medication to ease the effects of PTSD, especially for active duty, on the battlefront soldiers. After all, who wants to live with the self-imposed emotional suffering that seems to accompany killing people in a war zone? But of course, the ramifications of being able to do away with remorse and guilt with a pill will come with debate on how moral using such a pill would be. Is it morally right to deny our fighting men and women a means to effectively eradicate the most painful emotional effects of being on the front lines in a war that the nation asked them to fight in the first place? On the other hand, is it morally right to create a pharmaceutical that might turn off emotions that act as a safeguard against mankind’s less than ethical impulses? We all know such a drug would not stay within the confines of the military forever. Does science really want to, in effect, sell sociopathy in a bottle?

