Feeling Good and Doing Better: Ethics and Nontherapeutic Drug Use

by Thomas H. Murray, Willard Gaylin, Ruth Macklin

The place of drugs in American society is a problem more apt to evoke diatribe than dialog. With the support of the Na­ tional Science Foundation's program on Ethics and Values in Science and Technology, and the National Endowment for the Humanities' program on Science, Technology, and Human Values, * The Hastings Center was able to sponsor such dialog as part of a major research into the ethics of drug use that spanned two years. We assembled a Research Group from leaders in the scientific, medical, legal, and policy com­ munities, leavened with experts in applied ethics, and brought them together several times a year to discuss the moral, legal and social issues posed by nontherapeutic drug use. At times we also called on other experts when we needed certain issues clarified. We did not try to reach a consensus, yet several broad areas of agreement That our society's response to nontherapeutic drug use has been irrational and inconsistent; that our attempts at control have been clumsy and ill-informed; that many complex moral values are entwined in the debate and cannot be reduced to a simple conflict between individual liberty and state paternalism. Of course each paper should be read as the statement of that particular author or authors. The views expressed in this book do not necessarily represent the views of The Hastings Center, the National Science Foundation, or the National En­ dowment for the Humanities.

219 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1984

About the author

Thomas H. Murray; Faculty Affiliate
President and CEO, The Hastings Center
Thomas H. Murray, President and CEO, The Hastings Center, was formerly the Director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, where he was also the Susan E. Watson Professor of Bioethics.

Murray serves on many editorial boards and has been president of the Society for Health and Human Values and of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. Among other current posts, he serves as Chair of the Ethical Issues Review Panel for the World Anti-Doping Agency, as International Expert Advisor to Singapore’s Bioethics Advisory Committee, and is Vice Chair of Charity Navigator.

Murray has testified before many Congressional committees and is the author of more than 250 publications. He is also editor, with Maxwell J. Mehlman, of the Encyclopedia of Ethical, Legal and Policy Issues in Biotechnology.

Murray is currently PI of The Hastings Center’s project, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, on ethics and synthetic biology. He is writing a book on values, drugs and sport with the working title Why We Play.

In 2004, Murray received an honorary Doctor of Medicine degree from Uppsala University.