We seem to be lacking in ethics as a culture, I have noticed. Yesterday I encountered a jaw-dropping example of this, and today I am listening to a podcast covering the lack of ethics in alternative medicine. But those are just two examples of many out there – I’m sure each and every one of you can give examples.

Ethics or moral philosophy is the branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. The term ethics derives from the Ancient Greek word ἠθικός ethikos, which is derived from the word ἦθος ethos (habit, “custom”).

Right and wrong. In a world where truth is defined by how you feel about it – what feels good must be right, and what feels bad must be wrong – the erosion of ethics is inevitable. The argument I had about the willful murder of disabled humans was being justified on the part of the person arguing for it as follows: if they feel pain, they are better off dead. What she really meant was that having a disabled child would inconvenience the parents by the special care they would require, and that a disabled child is not likely to have as long a life as a fully healthy one. So therefore, such a child is better off dead. I am, of course, referencing a conversation that arose from the horror happening in Iceland with the eradication of children with Down’s Syndrome. Ignoring that even the original article comments “Many people born with Down syndrome can live full, healthy lives, with an average lifespan of around 60 years.” The woman I briefly engaged with was convinced that they would be better off dead. She meant that she would be better off not having to care for them, look at them, or as she said, deal with the pain their disability caused. She is not alone in this belief.

Most rational humans would recoil in horror from what she was proposing. She attacked me for simply restating her own words, unable or unwilling to accept what she was saying. Right out in public! Was she right, simply because she felt she was right?

Somewhat unrelated (or is it? If we look at this from another angle, we can see that this topic is connected to the first by the desire to avoid pain, live longer, and be more perfectly healthy) is the rabbit trail I wandered down after listening to an episode of Quackcast (sadly, now on permanent hiatus, but you should look at Mark Crislip’s book for his typical witty sarcasm) talking about naturopathy. I knew from my interest in the FDA and their inspections and letters (related to my work) that many of the supplements currently on the market are being sold as what they are not. Even worse, “There is no evidence that routine supplementation with a multi-vitamin or specific vitamin is of any health benefit, and it doesn’t replace eating a well-rounded nutritionally complete diet. Antioxidants are useless and may, in fact, be harmful.” While this is fairly commonly known in the health industry, do ethics prevent the continuing recommendation and sale of such things? No, because not only is it a huge industry (I highly recommend reading the linked article in the following quote), but culturally we want to feel better good, at any cost.

The end result is a public who largely believes the lies told to them by an industry trying to sell them worthless and possibly harmful products, often with outrageous claims. All cons begin with a compelling story, and the supplement-alternative medicine industry have theirs – natural is magically safe and effective, health product regulations are about limiting consumer choice (rather than protecting consumers from fraud), doctors are trying to keep you sick, and the pharmaceutical industry is evil.

“Natural” has been marketed as a lifestyle. Consumers are encouraged to just feel good about the health halo surrounding anything “natural” and to forgo actually thinking critically about plausibility and evidence.

Feel-good philosophy has been on the rise since the 1960s. Ethics, strangely, have been on the wane since the same time. Perhaps there is a correlation? We find that with science, we deal with the black and white of ‘is’ and ‘that doesn’t work’ while with morality, we recognize that, for instance, those of us who are strong and healthy have a duty to protect the weak and infirm. To do otherwise is to wander down the seductively ‘scientific’ path that led to Eugenics and the horrors of the Holocaust. The roots of that were based not in hate, as so many today seem to think, but in science and the movement called Social Darwinism, as explained by Herbert Spencer. “Spencer coined the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’, giving Darwin’s purely biological notion of fitness a sociomoral twist: for the good of the species, the government ought not to interfere with nature’s tendency to let the strong dominate the weak.” Sound familiar? It should. It is, in essence, the argument the woman I was jousting with made. The weak are better off dead, and the human species will be better off without them.

I am a moral realist. I believe that there is, and ought to be, a higher moral standard than simply following the dictates of biology. We are more than our drives and urges, and we can reach out and shelter the weak. We can lift up the disadvantaged if we happen to stand on firmer ground. We ought to do this. We are not limited by what feels good in the moment, we are humans, not animals. We can look forward into the future and imagine what can come of enduring some discomfort now, for the effects of our work later. Small steps: we work hard, we can retire and live on the money we saved by not buying whatever the whim of the week was when we were earning it. Bigger steps: we can prevent the wholesale murder of people who are ‘not like us’ but who are human, with human right to life, liberty, and happiness. The reward? What do you think?

 

 


Comments

8 responses to “A Code of Ethics”

  1. Two things. First, there’s been an upsurge in “research” that is designed to make the supplement industry look bad. I have no evidence to support my opinion, but I think that certain factions ion the US government would like to be able to regulate that industry as they do the drug industry. This is how they get that process rolling, they use a few studies like the one you quoted to create a “need” for regulation.

    That study was done on Centrum multivitamin. I would be willing to concede that a daily dose of Centrum might not be very helpful. However I’ve done very well using supplements to treat a variety of my own ailments, as have many others. If it never worked at all, people wouldn’t be investing in it.

    In the next few years you’re going to see a whole pile of new evidence show up about cannabis too. There’s research going on that shows weed is good for a very large range of things, due to anti-inflammatory qualities and some not-well-researched salutary effects on the brain. That is -all- going to be getting done by the supplement industry, the drug companies don’t want to have anything to do with it.

    The other thing, social Darwinism, is a perennial favorite with the totalitarian set. The “Left” and the “Right” are all very concerned with efficiency, you know. They want to get the most out of the social capital they have, namely the citizens. They think old ladies and Downs Syndrome kids are an avoidable drag on the economy, and we’d all be better off if they died quietly with a minimum of expense and fuss. Hitler called them “useless eaters” and put them in the same gas chambers with the Jews and the gays. The Soviets merely starved them to death in work camps, with typical Communist efficiency. Those Nazis, always so showy and flamboyant.

    Herbert Spencer was a schmuck who didn’t understand Darwinism at all, and was bad at math besides. I’m on pretty safe grounds saying that, I read all his bullshit in university for a paper on E.O. Wilson’s “Sociobiology” book. Societies don’t behave in a Darwinist way at all.

  2. The opposite is true – the supplement industry is huge, and has a large caucus in DC that allows them to relax regulation (as they were able to do in 1994 with a workaround that released them from much of FDA regulation). There are a huge amount of studies showing that most supplemental vitamins in megadoses are not only not helpful, they can be harmful. The studies are not government funded – the opposite, in fact. My blog post today delves into some more of them.

    The drug industry is VERY interested in anything they think will make them a profit – just like the supplement industry (in fact, many are one and the same company). They are not so concerned with the ethics of marketing their products as what they are, or what they can actually do.

  3. Tammie Darden Avatar
    Tammie Darden

    Catching up on my reading. I know I commented on the FB post but I’ll put it out here too. There are some very good studies that show that supplements can be very helpful for a variety of things, there are studies that show the same for some essential oils. Some of our modern medicines are derived from herbal remedies. There are many herbal remedies that have not been studied and are used based on a history of use.
    There are modern medicines that are FDA approved that aren’t that great and often harmful too.
    I am reminded of an instance in the last few years (I wish I remembered more details) of a drug company that looked into a simple herbal remedy. They found that it did indeed work and then tried to file a patent in an effort to keep herbalists from simply gathering the flower and using it.
    The history of medicine in the USA is very power oriented. At first Medical doctors (mostly men), midwives and herbalists (mostly women) worked together, then enter the AMA and “traditional” medicine went out of style and was derided as being for the ignorant (I’d have to dig out references).
    This is not to say that there are not snake oil salesmen out there. There is a need for a good system to make sure that a customer is getting what they think they are buying. I think the driving force behind the agenda of antisupplements (including marijuana), is that these things are relatively inexpensive and herbals are often easy to grow yourself.
    I do agree that megadoses of supplements can be very bad, just like megadoses of pharmaceuticals can be bad. How do we protect the people who don’t know how to research doses and the efficaciousness of a product.

    1. The problem I’ve been trying to highlight is that while some active ingredient in a ‘natural’ product may indeed be efficacious, when you buy it in a store you want to know that what will work is *in* what you’re buying, and that how much is in it is what you need. And that it won’t interact badly with other drugs or supplements you are taking. There are massive amounts of variables, and being aware of all of them takes more than just reading labels – if what is being put on the label isn’t trustworthy, in particular. The supplement industry is BIG money, and they are fighting complying with doing these things. It will cost them, and be inconvenient, and frankly they don’t care about the consumer.

  4. Cedar said: “…when you buy it in a store you want to know that what will work is *in* what you’re buying…”

    Ah, that is a horse of a different colour. I am in full agreement with you there. One of the things Canada did right was regulate that what was on the label has to be in the bottle, and ghod help you if it isn’t. The company will face a massive fine. A very large variety of American made “herbal” products are not sold in Canada for that reason, contents don’t match the label. If it says “Holy Basil” on the bottle, that better be Holy Basil in there.

    Tammie Darden said: “There are some very good studies that show that supplements can be very helpful for a variety of things, there are studies that show the same for some essential oils.”

    Funny you should mention essential oils. Aroma Therapy has been getting sneered at for a long time as hippy nonsense, and I’ve been among those sneering.

    However.

    Some -very- interesting things are coming to light recently regarding some of the constituents of cannabis, specifically non-THC cannabinoids and turpenes. It seems there’s evidence that the turpenes, things like pinene and d-limonene, have some modifying effects on THC. More pinene makes you stoned, less pinene makes you not-stoned, THC dose remaining equal. d-limonene is the active ingredient of lemon and orange oil, it makes the “orange smell” and it seems to have other effects as well.

    The effects of various strains of weed on a particular malady vary considerably, as do the turpene and canabinoid profiles. Some people report good reduction of depression symptoms with one strain, then they report -more- depression with a different strain.

    Turpenes may turn out to be a bigger deal than THC.

    I should add that I don’t take weed for anything myself, I’ve just been seeing an explosion in the literature since medical weed became a thing.

    1. Terpenes are used for lots of things. I use them as solvents in my work. They are a big part of essential oils and I’m excited to see them being studied.

      1. It’s always nifty to see studies in new and different avenues. I’m cautious around essential oils just because I have perfume sensitivities, but I like lavender oil and use essential oil blends if I’m mixing henna for body art. The terps help the dye release better.