Should the Gov't Be Allowed To Control Your Thoughts? This Prof Thinks So
For anyone wondering how far academia has fallen, look no further than at the writings of an ethics professor from Western Michigan University.
According to this astute scholar, any citizen who doesn’t fall in line with the ever-shifting coronavirus policies of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should take a mind-control pill to make them more amenable to what he considers the moral good.
As much as this might sound like a joke, or perhaps even a parody of the far-left’s radical rhetoric, it’s not.
In an article for The Conversation, a not-for-profit global news organization, Parker Crutchfield, an associate professor of medical ethics, humanities and law at Western Michigan, shared his self-described “far-out proposal” that Americans should be forced by the government to take a “morality pill.”
“When someone chooses not to follow public health guidelines around the coronavirus, they’re defecting from the public good,” Crutchfield wrote. “Democratically enacted enforceable rules – mandating things like mask wearing and social distancing – might work, if defectors could be coerced into adhering to them. But not all states have opted to pass them or to enforce the rules that are in place.”
“To me, it seems the problem of coronavirus defectors could be solved by moral enhancement: like receiving a vaccine to beef up your immune system, people could take a substance to boost their cooperative, pro-social behavior. Could a psychoactive pill be the solution to the pandemic?”
No, a psychoactive pill would not be a solution to the pandemic. It would, however, be a solution to the left’s problem of ridding the country of all of these pesky conservatives and libertarians who believe the federal government is in no way their moral arbiter.
In this academic’s mind, however, government policy solutions to solving the pandemic are the ultimate moral good.
Crutchfield, who has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Arizona State University, seemingly ignores the fact that the CDC has changed its mind about how to combat the virus on several occasions.
If we had been under the influence of his “morality pill” when the pandemic started, we would have followed procedures the CDC now says are ineffective.
In Crutchfield’s mind, however, earning his degree endowed him with the many secrets of moral virtue that the idiot working class couldn’t possibly comprehend.
“But I believe society may be better off, both in the short term as well as the long, by boosting not the body’s ability to fight off disease but the brain’s ability to cooperate with others. What if researchers developed and delivered a moral enhancer rather than an immunity enhancer?” Crutchfield continued.
“Moral enhancement is the use of substances to make you more moral. The psychoactive substances act on your ability to reason about what the right thing to do is, or your ability to be empathetic or altruistic or cooperative.”
When you boil it down to its bare essentials, Crutchfield’s argument represents the core of the left.
They believe they hold moral superiority over their political opponents. Universal health care, the removal of gun rights, abortion on demand — these aren’t political opinions, they are moral stances.
If you don’t agree, it’s because you lack the inherent values of equality and morality that exemplify the left.
Humans, including those in government, will forever be imperfect. No one has a right to force others to accept their arbitrary sense of morality.
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