Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of EthicsDrake, Durant
Philosophy
Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics
Drake, Durant
Ethics
Without considering yet the physical penalty that must be paid for
this evanescent freedom, we may make the obvious remark that it is
a morally dangerous freedom. As the Odyssey has it, "Wine leads to
folly, making even the wise to love immoderately, to dance, and to
utter what had better have been kept silent." Alcohol slackens the
higher, more complicated, mental functions-our conscience, our scruples,
our reason- and leaves freer from inhibition our lower passions and
instincts. We cannot afford thus to submerge our better natures, and
leave the field to our lower selves; it is a dangerous short cut to
happiness. A far safer and more permanently useful procedure for the
individual would be so to live by his reason and his conscience that
he would not need to stupefy them, to forget his life as he is shaping
it from day today. And the lesson to the community is so to brighten
the lives of the poor with normal, wholesome pleasures and recreations,
so to lift from them the burdens of poverty and social injustice, that
they will not so much need to plunge into the grateful oblivion of
the wine-cup.
(5) The most tenacious hold of the alcohol trade lies,
however, in two things not yet enumerated. The one is, that much use
of alcohol creates a pathological craving for it; the man who is
accustomed to his beer or whiskey is restless and depressed if he cannot
get it, and will sacrifice much to still for the nonce that insatiable
longing. The other and even more important fact is, that the sale of
liquor is immensely profitable to the manufacturers and sellers. The
fighters for prohibition have to encounter the desperate opposition
of those who have become slaves to the drug-many of whom may never
get intoxicated, and would resent the term "slaves," but who have formed
the abnormal habit and cannot without discomfort get rid of it. They
have to meet the still fiercer hostility of those who are making money
from the sale of liquor and do not intend to let go their opportunity.
What are the evils that result from alcoholic liquors?
The one real value of alcohol, we have said, lies in its temporary
mental effects. It raises the hedonic tone of consciousness; it brings
about, when taken in proper amounts, the well-known happy-go-lucky,
scruple-free, expansive state of mind. What now is the price that must
be paid for its use?
(1) The physical harmfulness of even light drinking is considerable.
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