quote:(1)Why is alcohol a bad choice unless you limit yourself to just one or two drinks? If you aren't greatly affected mentally or physically by three or four drinks, like some people in this thread, why the limitation to one or two?
Because, in all seriousness, a large percentage of the people I know who think they aren't affected mentally or physically by three or four drinks, clearly actually are. It obviously depends on what the drink is, though.
quote:(2) Why is alcohol a bad choice if you don't enjoy the taste of it? According to studies, some alcohol, such as a glass of red wine daily, is actually quite a good choice for your health. So you could find alcohol to taste as bad as prune juice (no offense to the prune juice lovers out there!), and drink it for just as good a reason as people drink prune juice.
I suppose, if you really think the health benefits of alcohol are that great that they'd be worth drinking stuff you don't like, this would follow. I'd go with drinking something even more healthy though, if that is the case. I actually don't know anyone who claims to drink purely for health benefits, but I have no doubt some are out there.
My main point here was not that "taste" is the only reason to drink, but rather that "to alter your state of mind" is NOT a good reason to drink. The latter is usually what people seem to be after when they say they are drinking something alcoholic but don't enjoy the taste. And to drink something in an effort to impair yourself, even slightly, is both unethical and disrespectful to yourself. I say unethical because it is essentially the same as giving control of your body and actions to somebody with poorer judgement than you. I've heard many claim that things they did while drunk were really done by the alcohol - but this of course is an excuse; their unethical decision to drink too much in the first place put themselves in the situation where they might do something wrong. And secondly, I say disrespectful to yourself because if you are intentially impairing yourself the implication is that, at least temporarily, you don't want to be your normal self. Often the reasoning behind this has something to do with having too many inhibitions, or being unable to have fun. I don't mean to say that there is anything wrong with trying to change yourself, or trying to get rid of your inhibitions. The problem is doing it artificially. If you want to change yourself, you should actually change yourself - your real personality. Relying on alcohol or other things to do it for you, when you can actually do it yourself, is treating those things as a crutch, and disrespecting your ability to be the person you'd like to be. (There are definitely cases where a person can't change themselves, I'd like to note - which is where prescription drugs do come in handy, such as with psychological diseases.) This point is tricky to explain, but I think it is what is most distinctively troublesome about alcohol and other mind-altering drugs. Eating or drinking something purely for the sake of changing yourself temporarily goes beyond just being potentially unhealthy and dangerous, because it also harms the way you look at yourself. I've most definitely known people who became considerably less fun once they began believing they could not have fun without a few drinks.
So, bottom line: The reason matters. If you enjoy the taste, that is fine. If you want the health benefits and believe they are significant, that is fine too. But if you are out to adjust your mental state a bit, I think there's a problem.
quote:(3) Why bring the "greatly mind consuming something that ruins a fairly large number of human lives" into the argument? Why should alcohol matter any more than the other things that are ruining people's lives? Twinkies, McDonald's, and other junk food causes the death of far more millions of Americans, just not as visibly as alcohol often does. Does that mean I should stop consuming junk food in moderation, just because others aren't as disciplined (or in the case of alcoholics, careful to avoid setting off their disease) as they ought to be? Or should I feel guilty for consuming it?
You should feel guilty if you consume things without paying any consideration to the harmful effects those things may have on society. But I don't think you should feel guilty if you do consider it, yet think the benefits of consuming it outweigh the benefits of taking a stand against it. You obviously cannot take a stand against everything that is in any way harmful.
The difference between alcohol and cars or fast food, is that the benefits are much less. Cars are extremely beneficial - they allow me to do many things I could not do otherwise. Fast food is less beneficial, but does allow me to have a quick meal, at a low cost in both time and money, that (hopefully) tastes pretty good. The benefits of alcohol are considerably more limited - it tastes good to some people, and it may have some health benefits. In my view, that's not enough to justify consuming something that seems to be more harmful than either cars or fast food.
People take stands against all sorts of things. Some people don't eat meat. Some people don't go to Walmarts. Some people won't vote for anyone who is pro-choice. I'm not saying any given stand on principle is necessary to take. But what I am saying is that one should at least consider the moral implications of something on society before one does it. If you don't think it is so bad that it warrants not doing, so be it. But if you really do think something like junk food destroys enough lives, and you don't get that much value out of it, you could definitely consider not consuming it. It is a matter of personal judgement.
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quote:And to drink something in an effort to impair yourself, even slightly, is both unethical and disrespectful to yourself. I say unethical because it is essentially the same as giving control of your body and actions to somebody with poorer judgement than you.
If I impair my judgment in a way that does not affect society, and I am comfortable with and willing to accept the decisions I make while slightly impaired, is it still unethical? For example, I've done many things while very tired. During those times, which could easily be avoided by sleep or a scheduling change, my judgment is probably not its best? Is that unethical too?
quote:You should feel guilty if you consume things without paying any consideration to the harmful effects those things may have on society.
This does not describe the majority of people I know, that is, most of the people that I drink with do consider the harmful effects they may have on society and often times take measures to prevent such effects while in an inebriated state.
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quote:If I impair my judgment in a way that does not affect society, and I am comfortable with and willing to accept the decisions I make while slightly impaired, is it still unethical?
Yes - because you don't know what decisions you will make while impaired and you don't know whether or not they will hurt society, yourself, or anything else. I would think, though, that making yourself slightly impaired is only slightly unethical, while trying to become very impaired is correspondingly very unethical.
quote:During those times, which could easily be avoided by sleep or a scheduling change, my judgment is probably not its best? Is that unethical too?
I'd think that avoiding sleep intentionally in order to impair your judgement is similarly unethical. Missing sleep because you have a good reason is not necessarily unethical, but neither is having your judgement impaired slightly because you enjoy the taste of alcohol. Remember, my point was that drinking is a problem in part when the intent is solely to impair oneself.
quote:This does not describe the majority of people I know, that is, most of the people that I drink with do consider the harmful effects they may have on society and often times take measures to prevent such effects while in an inebriated state.
Yes, I would think that is true.
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Tres: you know what decisions you will make when not impaired? Furthermore, you know whether or not you will hurt society, yourself, or anything else, in advance?
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Remember, Tres believes in qualia. The idea that someone can fundamentally change their own behavior by ingesting a drug has to seem like the worst sort of self-abuse.
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I'm just not entirely sure he knows the difference between a couple of glasses of wine and, say, dropping acid.
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quote:Tres: you know what decisions you will make when not impaired?
No, but I know that the decisions I make will be based upon my judgement, and not some watered-down version of my judgement.
In my view, we never really know for sure what's right or wrong, but the one fundamental ethical rule that we should always follow, no matter what belief system we have, is that we do what seems right according to our best judgement at the time. That would be my opinion.
But that is why doing something now to intentionally prevent myself from using my best judgement in the future seems to me to be inherently unethical.
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Ah, so do you view choosing to talk a bit more than one usually might as an unethical thing if it happens after one has had a few glasses of wine? That's one sort of 'impairment' we're talking about here, after all; mild changes in probability of engaging in certain kinds of innocuous social behavior. It is a change in one's normal 'decision-making' (insofar as the many subconscious vagaries that are involved constitute decisions), but for issues which I do not, in the general, view as morally constituted -- whether or not I tell a few more bad jokes, say.
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As I said, intentionally making yourself slightly impaired is only slightly unethical, because the chances that'd you end up making a significant decision and have the decision changed by the slight impairment is.... slight!
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What about other forms of slight impairment, like decision making when you're tired, or hungry?
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Along that line, given that one is in a wide variety of mentally different states throughout even a single typical day, which one is the ethical one?
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I think that if you are intentionally making yourself tired or hungry just to alter your mind and impair your judgement, then that is unethical in a similar way.
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I think that I am bothered by the word "impaired". I am not sure that a pleasant "buzz" is necessarily an impairment.
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I would back it up and question the assumption that impairment is a goal. Most people who drink for the effects and not merely for the health benefits would not agree that they are seeking to impair themselves. I think they would argue that what they are seeking is the enjoyable feeling that moderate quantities of alcohol can provide, and that one only becomes impaired when one has a more than adequate amount of alcohol. I don't agree that being more loquacious, for instance, is an impairment--not is it a goal for most people, but a willingly accepted mild side-effect.
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Ah, so the difference is in changes that are intentional. One thing that impacts people's decision making is their sleep schedule. What is the default sleep schedule with which to compare the other possible choices for impairment?
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Emotions can "impair" judgment as well. Considerably more (for me) than the occasional glass of wine. I don't intend to avoid having emotions.
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quote:I would back it up and question the assumption that impairment is a goal. Most people who drink for the effects and not merely for the health benefits would not agree that they are seeking to impair themselves.
That is a good point. I suppose the line in my thinking would be the difference between simply intending to have an experience versus intending to alter your own state. For instance, tasting a glass of orange juice gives you the experience of that taste, but it generally doesn't alter your thinking. I suppose a buzz, to some degree, could be categorized in the same way, since it is an experience too. But there is a very very thin line between drinking to experience something that makes you happy and drinking in an effort to alter yourself so you are happier, if you understand the distiniction I am getting at.
quote:One thing that impacts people's decision making is their sleep schedule. What is the default sleep schedule with which to compare the other possible choices for impairment?
I would only say a sleep schedule could be unethical for that reason only if you designed it intentionally for the purpose of altering your own mind, or if it were so extreme that your decisions are radically altered. But getting a little less sleep because you have too much work to do is no more unethical than drinking a glass of wine for health benefits - in both cases you have a reason for it.
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quote:Good heavens. I think you're taking an argument with Tresopax far too seriously.
Icarus asked a question. I answered it with my opinion. Then other people asked further questions about my opinion. Then I answered those. Is that not what I should have done? If you would prefer that I ignore when people ask questions, rather than spend my time trying to write a somewhat thoughtful response, I can certainly do so. After all, it would be far easier and less time-consuming to simply jump into threads without really adding anything meaningful, and only throw out one-liner insults at folks.
posted
Tres, as someone who has often taken an argument with you far too seriously, I have learned that you often seem to craft arguments simply to be contrary (or to argue from a position that is largely theoretical/ideal, rather than rooted in practical reality).
Arguing for argument's sake, or arguing against a theoretical absolutist, isn't something to take too seriously.
Now, it may just *seem* that way and you are always truly honest in your arguments, or you may simply enjoy the role of Devil's Advocate (often in your Xap persona), but either way, it can feel as though one is beating their head against a wall discussing a point with you.
That said, I shared your position until my third year of college, during which time I had never taken a drink. I now have become something of a connoisseur of beer and wine - seeking out new and interesting flavors and styles. If you had told me nine years ago that would be the case, I would have laughed at you - but things and views change.
I am curious if you have the same opinions in another decade that you do today.
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There are a good many medications that could impair your thinking (like a sleep aid that leaves your drowsy for part of the day) that I very much doubt we'd want to call unethical.
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I don't want to get involved in this debate any further than I already have, but I'm feeling the need to point out that many of the people who are arguing with Tres are missing a key part of his argument. In his view of things, behavior that results in a change in mental state is only immoral if the person engages in that behavior with the specific intent of inducing that change. That's certainly a point that can be argued, but ignoring it or missing it is just resulting in the discussion going around in circles.
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Tres, how are you defining "specific intent to alter one's mental state"?
I generally think that people intend the known consequences of their actions. If someone knows that alcohol changes their mental state, and they knowingly drink alcohol, then they intended to change their mental state.
If the reason they took the drink was actually the taste - or to improve their health - then they intended more than one thing with the act of drinking.
If only the taste consequence was desired, then tasting something good is their motive. But they still intended to alter their mental state if they knew that would happen when they took the drink.
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Kate, was that in response to me? You weren't one of the people I thought was missing Tres' point.
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Dag, I think your separation of motive & intention is a very useful one, and one I agree with. With this distinction in mind, I would agree that if your motive in drinking alcohol is to impair your judgment ("Let's get really drunk and make some bad decisions! Yee-haw!"), then you're making a morally bad choice. And, sadly, I have witnessed behavior or overheard conversations (on college campuses) that suggest that some young adults (mis)use alcohol in this way - they deliberately get drunk in order to get "an excuse" to do things that they know are wrong. However, I would be very surprised if any regular poster on Hatrack did this.
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Altered isn't necessarily impaired however numerous studies confirm that alcohol consumption IMPAIRS a variety of mental processes including information processing, simple reactions times, choice reaction times and a variety of higher order cognitive abilities.
In a completely unscientific study at a party while I was in graduate school, a group of largely guys were measuring their reaction times/ reflexes in starting and stopping a stop watch before and after consuming alcohol. Pretty much everyone was astonished at how their reaction time slowed even when they weren't obviously drunk. Of course the magnitude of the effect was quite different on different people, but it was a very consistent effect.
I think that even if you don't feel impaired after drinking a couple glasses of wine or a couple beers, a quantitative test would be able to detect impairment. Whether that impairment is significant enough to be of serious concern is another matter.
Its also worthy of note that "mental state" is a very broad term that could refer to a wide range of mental abilities. While research shows that some mental abilities are clearly impaired by alcohol, there are other abilities like creativity, conversational ability, empathy, and perhaps others which may actually be improved (at least for some individuals) by alcohol.
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What about certain kinds of fasting? It's deliberately avoiding food in order to have a spiritual experience, which is probably partially brought about by not eating. In fact, there are a number of religious experiences where the goal is an altered state of consciousness.
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Tresopax, do you consider the use of pain killers, especially strong prescription ones, unethical? Both can severely impair your judgement and motor skills. Alleviating pain through the use of painkillers is no more a health benefit than, say, alleviating stress or social anxiety through moderate alcohol consumption. Both typically have the aforementioned alleviation as the goal of consumption.
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quote:Alleviating pain through the use of painkillers is no more a health benefit than, say, alleviating stress or social anxiety through moderate alcohol consumption.
That may not be true. There are several studies indicating that proper pain management speeds healing.
I also don't think "fasting" is a valid comparison unless you are simply getting nickpicky about words. Although fasting, meditation, and chanting are often done to achieve an altered mental state, I've never heard of anyone wrecklessly driving a car off a mountain road, robbing a convience store or getting pregnant because they'd fasted or meditated too much.
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quote:That may not be true. There are several studies indicating that proper pain management speeds healing.
There are several studies indicating that proper management of your stress & anxiety levels maintains health.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Do those studies say that drinking is "proper management" of stress and anxiety levels?
Those studies tend to avoid naming what does and doesn't qualify as "proper management," since what works as stress relief varies near infinitely between people.
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I can just imagine the tale now. A group of buddhist monks, after a week long session of fasting and meditation enter an altered mental state, they go on a rampage destroying ancient art works through out the temple, eventuall they break down the doors to the nuns quarters and . . . .
Christians everywhere are outraged by the horrendous effects of fasting and meditation. Laws are passed prohiting minors from meditating and making it illegal to drive a car unless you have eaten within the last 4 hours. Children who come to school without having eaten a proper breakfast are suspended. Special clinics are set up to help people break the habit of fasting and prayer.
FPMA (fasters, prayers and meditators annonymous) groups form through out the country.
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Fasting at a certain level not uncommonly produces hallucinations. I have seen the effects of bad judgment calls in such cases, including unintended pregnancy.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Do those studies say that drinking is "proper management" of stress and anxiety levels?
Those studies tend to avoid naming what does and doesn't qualify as "proper management," since what works as stress relief varies near infinitely between people.
A study that tests actual pain management techniques, including pain medication, can provide direct evidence that pain medication can help speed healing.
A study that avoids naming what qualifies as proper management of stress and anxiety provides no direct evidence that alcohol helps provide health benefits by properly managing stress and anxiety.
Edit: I should note that I'm not saying studies don't exist that provide evidence of alcohol's health benefits with respect to proper management and stress and anxiety. Such studies may exist - I don't know.
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[Edited to add: this is not directed to Dagonee's post, but rather in regards to the prior posts]
The thing is, if one takes an absolutist stance with regards to a choice which is intended to impair judgment, then one has taken an absolutist stance. Relativity regarding more worse effects is beyond the point.
[That is to say, even if fasting usually doesn't have bad efects on judgment for as many people as alcohol does, for the absolutist stance, this is irrelevant. I myself don't find the absolutist stance of "anything intended to alter consciousness is bad," so I can't and won't defend it well. But I am trying to keep these positions in the various scenarios offered from being muddled, because I think that introduces yet more confusion.]
If one does not take an absolutist stance, then the most informed and useful approach to assessing damage is to assessing by relevant subgroups -- some groups have virtually no to no negative sequelae, and some have a lot. Many are in between. So one can assuredly say that depending on which group characteristics you fit, you might tend to have bad outcomes -- and in those cases (if one's argument is based on outcomes), it is wrong to make that choice.
However, a corollary is going to be that not all groups are going to be risking much if anything, and so (by outcomes) an across-the-board condemnation just isn't supported.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Do those studies say that drinking is "proper management" of stress and anxiety levels?
Those studies tend to avoid naming what does and doesn't qualify as "proper management," since what works as stress relief varies near infinitely between people.
Would you please give us some references to such studies since I find it impossible to imagine how such a study could be done.
Unless you define "proper stress management" in some terms, it would be impossible to have a control group that didn't have proper stress management. Without that, there is no way to make a conclusion that proper stress management improved health.
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I think the evaluation of acts which impair judgment is multi-dimensional. Some of the factors that matter:
1) The benefits derived from the act.
2) The amount of impairment.
3) The type of impairment.
4) The possible consequences of impairment.
5) The probability of the consequences occurring.
6) The ability and willingness to cure any negative consequences that do occur.
These factors inter-relate in unexpected ways. Moreover, a person performing a mind-impairing act can take steps to alter each of these factors - arranging for a designated driver, limiting one's intake of mind-altering substance, etc.
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quote:A study that tests actual pain management techniques, including pain medication, can provide direct evidence that pain medication can help speed healing.
A study that avoids naming what qualifies as proper management of stress and anxiety provides no direct evidence that alcohol helps provide health benefits by properly managing stress and anxiety.
If you'd like me to be more specific, there have been several studies that show alcohol may help reduce stress and anxiety levels.
quote:Non-catastrophic events showed the greatest buffer effects from alcohol use. For depressive symptoms the greatest buffer effect was produced by occasional drinking; moderate drinking had a less pronounced effect. For somatic symptoms, buffer effects were suggested for both moderate and heavy drinkers.
quote:Stress reduction, mood elevation, increased sociability, and relaxation are the most commonly reported psychosocial benefits of drinking alcohol (Baum-Baicker 1985; Hauge and Irgens-Jensen 1990; Leigh and Stacy 1991; Makela and Mustonen 1988).
quote:That moderate alcohol consumption may be beneficial to mental health was initially suggested by Bell, Keeley, and Buhl's (1977) seminal correlational study based on interviews with 2000 randomly selected adults in the southern United States. Abstainers (including former heavy drinkers, a confounding factor) scored highest on anxiety and heavy drinkers highest on depression; light or moderate drinkers scored lowest on both. Bell et al. (p. 121) concluded "that the heavy alcohol user cannot be differentiated from the abstainer on the basis of psychopathological symptom configurations." The finding that abstainers often display rigid, avoidant coping styles has been supported by more recent research (Mertens, Moos & Brennan, 1996; Watten, 1996). These findings suggest that abstainers share certain coping characteristics with problem drinkers or alcoholics, as indeed certain alcoholics alternate between these two extremes.
In another important correlational study, Lipton (1994) found with a southern California population a strong U-shaped relationship between alcohol consumption and depression in the presence of chronic strain combined with negative experiences, replicating a similar finding by Neff and Husaini (1982) in rural Tennessee. Although these studies did not control for the possibility that some abstainers had stopped drinking because of a preexisting health or drinking problem, Lipton found that overall results were unaffected when controlling for self-reported physical health. Moreover, relatively few of the large proportion of abstainers (66%) in Neff and Husaini's study were likely former problem drinkers, showing that moderate drinkers can have a psychosocial advantage over abstainers even where abstinence is a norm. Studies using other populations and methods also have found superior mental health among moderate drinkers (Liu, Waterbor, & Soong, 1996; Winefield, Goldney, Winefield, & Tiggeman, 1992).
Notwithstanding the dearth of prospective or better-controlled community studies, there is substantial evidence that moderate drinking is an indicator and perhaps a cause of good mental health. The U-shaped curves found in studies in which some controls were applied or where age considerations ruled out any substantial proportion of former problem drinkers increase the credibility of these findings, suggesting a parallel with physical health outcomes.
quote:The thing is, if one takes an absolutist stance with regards to a choice which is intended to impair judgment, then one has taken an absolutist stance. Relativity regarding more worse effects is beyond the point.
This I agree with completely and not just regarding this particular discussion. It is hard to find any absolutest stance that can't be pushed to an extreme that illustrates its obsurdity.
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quote:Originally posted by Noemon: Kate, was that in response to me? You weren't one of the people I thought was missing Tres' point.
Oh! N'mind then.
Originally posted by Rabbit:
quote: Altered isn't necessarily impaired however numerous studies confirm that alcohol consumption IMPAIRS a variety of mental processes including information processing, simple reactions times, choice reaction times and a variety of higher order cognitive abilities.
In a completely unscientific study at a party while I was in graduate school, a group of largely guys were measuring their reaction times/ reflexes in starting and stopping a stop watch before and after consuming alcohol. Pretty much everyone was astonished at how their reaction time slowed even when they weren't obviously drunk. Of course the magnitude of the effect was quite different on different people, but it was a very consistent effect.
I think that even if you don't feel impaired after drinking a couple glasses of wine or a couple beers, a quantitative test would be able to detect impairment. Whether that impairment is significant enough to be of serious concern is another matter.
Its also worthy of note that "mental state" is a very broad term that could refer to a wide range of mental abilities. While research shows that some mental abilities are clearly impaired by alcohol, there are other abilities like creativity, conversational ability, empathy, and perhaps others which may actually be improved (at least for some individuals) by alcohol.
Exactly. The alteration may be an impairment for certain things, but an enhancement of others. Depends on your goal. For driving, impairment; for something else? Maybe not.
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quote:The thing is, if one takes an absolutist stance with regards to a choice which is intended to impair judgment, then one has taken an absolutist stance. Relativity regarding more worse effects is beyond the point.
This I agree with completely and not just regarding this particular discussion. It is hard to find any absolutest stance that can't be pushed to an extreme that illustrates its obsurdity.
I just realized that this itself could be seen as an abolute condemnation of absolutism.
Anyone want to try to push it it its logically obsurd extemes!
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There is some research out there rom the late 90s and the oughts that shows a benefit to cognitive processing in some older adults from moderate alcohol consumption.
For example, this study out of the Netherlands (link is to BBC lay article) of 8000 people that showed that "Light-to-moderate alcohol consumption (one to three drinks a day) was associated with a 42% risk reduction of all dementia and about a 70% reduction in risk of vascular dementia (dementia caused by a series of small strokes)."
The benefit seemed most pronounced in people with a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer's. although the benefit is not limited to that group. Preventing dementia is certainly one element of maintaining improved mental health, and though there are many ways to go about this, moderate alcohol use (especially for certain subgroups) when there are no relevant contraindications may well be one reasonable and justifiable way to do so.
There are other recent confirmatory studies, and many more are under play but not yet completed or not yet published. I can find more if it matters to someone.
---
Look, one doesn't have to believe that all alcohol use is all bad for everyone, or even that it is a lesser choice for everyone, in order to make the choice oneself not to imbibe it, or to make the claim that or some people, it is likely a very bad choice indeed. But if one takes it further than that, I think that it is moving beyond the realm of what is supported by the research and into a realm of what one supposes or hopes might be supported by it. (Not that hoping for or supposing things in itself is bad, just that it might not be supported.)
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Edited to add: And not that anyone here is necessarily making that claim, either! I think Tresopax may be, but that's just my read on what he has written, and I think it's best to let him speak for himself.
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