I'm going to write a rather lengthy P&S type response, but first of all with regards to the religious tangent,
I'd like to highlight to anyone who might have missed it that this discussion began as a tangent in itdrlg a thread from DC called Confess Your Drug Sins, which accounts for a great deal of the religious phraseology I have used in this thread, especially early on. Some people react in a rather agitated manner pretty much whenever God or religion is mentioned, and the responses tend toward a predictable and sophomoric statements about theodicy ("what kind of God would allow
x," "if your God
y, then I would never worship him," etc.) This is not an argument I'm interesting in having. We could revive my Catholic AMA thread which I have currently not been active in, if people really want to have a serious discussion about God. I think much of what we see here though is a knee jerk reaction to any mention of religion. But let's return to the issue at hand.
In this post I am going to make a point of using non-Christian and in fact anti-Christian systems to discuss the same issue.
Obviously
my religious beliefs inform
my moral and ethical system, as is the case with anyone who follows a moral or philosophical system, however loosely one might want to apply it. But really, my case regarding moral culpability in addiction isn't necessarily based in
my religion at all. I did not have any theological ideas in my head when I called out the original post in this thread as "bullshit," but rather principles which I think more or less approach cultural universals going back a very long time—
- we are moral beings;
- we have free will; and
- we have moral obligations.
In terms of principles generally universally held we could add a proposition that we are obligated to follow the law, respect authority and the normative practices of society, but that's not one which will be very popular here for obvious reasons, so we'll omit it.
(
a) and (
b) of course are clearly linked. Dropping proposition (
b) and adopting a deterministic philosophy obviously makes this entire debate moot (although, with cruel irony, inevitable.) Dropping proposition (
a) while maintaining (
b) I think is difficult, abandoning morals entirely for a completely nihilistic worldview is not very practicable: even solipsists look both ways before crossing the train tracks. Even nihilists, excepting that very rare bit horribly dangerous creature, the genuine psychopath, have people they care for, have regrets, and have limits on what they would, even only out of fear for the consequences.
I think most people can agree on the first propositions, however; pretty much every society has and does, with the possible exception of free will: Islam, for example, is extremely fatalistic) as are some branches of Christianity: the concept of predestination of the elect to salvation and others to damnation; this is not fatalism or determinism, however—we do in fact have free will, but God knows already how we will exercise it. Then, of course, there is the modern materialistic determinist who believes that we essentially live in a gargantuan billiard-ball universe neurochemistry and the firing of neurons which we experience as a loop of perception–cognition–behavior, drugs may be added to alter that, but the choice to take drugs is happening somewhere in the brain. If this is the case then talk of abstract morality is rather pointless, choices made, their consequence, and their morality are all illusory; and all three propositions are more or less negated, although we are still "free" to debate and discuss the issues. This is slightly analogous to the interpretation of predestination as God's foreknowledge, the only difference being the question of whether there is a "ghost in the machine."
Beyond that the questions as relates to the topic of the moral obligations of the drug user has a few dimensions relating to proposition (
b), free will, the idea that the addict has diminished free will, i.e. diminished capacity; and the question of externalities acquitting him of some of his obligations or at least providing an "explanation, if not an excuse." This I'll address a bit later, but let's back up a bit, and look at a few philosophical systems that are very different, or even antithetical to my own—
Aleister Crowley (perhaps the edgiest man ever to draw breath, but a formidable intellect and very interesting individual nonetheless) famously said that under
Thelema, "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law," and elsewhere, "ordinary morality is for ordinary men," among many other such ideas. This, at a minimum, dispenses with proposition (
c) above, and seems to be a little unclear about (
a), although his conception of man as a moral being is certainly by traditional standards an inverted one, even though the counterpart of the famous "do what thou wilt" is "Love is the law, love under will" (a sentiment which would later echoed by John Lennon ("All you need is …",) which initially turns the more well known formulation at least somewhat on it's head and less absolute, but again, open to a great deal of interpretation—especially the latter half, "love under will,"—which ouroborically returns us to will as the driving principle—
Thelema, will. What makes a moral being to Crowley is what manifests will and what is amoral is what hinders the same will. We can already see some antecedents to clichéd maxim among the 1960's hippies, "if it feels good, do it," which is essentially a Crowleyian proposition.
Gardner with his constructed neo-Paganism, expands upon the law of
Thelema to form a consequentialist ethic of "an it harm none, do what thou wilt," which can probably agree on this, and, while I'm admittedly somewhat out of my depth here, "harm
none" might be interpreted to include harming
oneself, cf. the Abrahamic ideal that our bodies are a temple of God, and ultimately we are accountable for what we do with them to something greater than ourselves. I'll leave this aside for the moment, as we're primarily talking here of causing harm to
other people, but there is certainly an argument to be made (which I shall not do here) that harming
oneself is a wrong. Let's again abandon this as the topic at hand is not the morality of harmful drug use and drug lifestyles
per se. Some formulation of this philosophy is echoed in the Libertarian precepts of non-coercion and that violence (including State violence such as an arrest or seizure of property), is only permissible in self defense, but otherwise as the often repeated sentiment goes, "they're not hurting anyone [but themselves], let them alone."
Somewhat related to the "rede," although not precisely comparable, are the various formulation of the "Golden Rule" (which approaches being a cultural universal, actually, although the usual formulation that we here is a Christian one; Confucius and various other teachers in Hinduism, Buddhism and other traditions state functionally the same thing.) Kant's categorical imperative is arguably by and large a more abstract and universal form of the same teaching. Just for the sake of flavor, let's take a Hindu formulation:
One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma. This is a sort of heady mix of various forms of ethics deontology, consequentialism, and a dose of virtue ethics, but it's a very important one, one might call it
the essential ethical formulation and perhaps another cultural universal.
So, basically, all of these systems are in agreement with all three propositions I mentioned at the top of my post. Crowley's antinomianism might seem to contradict both the idea that we are moral beings and that there is a moral standard, but in a subtle and inverted way, it does in fact acknowledge those propositions. A very interesting
essay on the Thelemic law:
The Book of the Law succeeds in rendering all ethical questions trivially solvable, by banishing the concept of ethics altogether, and reducing all such considerations to a question of “is it in accordance with, and necessary for, the fulfillment of my will, or is it not?” The Thelemite is released from the requirement to consider others, and need concentrate only on his own nature. Of course, this does not mean he magically aquires the ability to “stamp down the weak” without any form of repercussion or sanction, but this always was and always will be the case; the lion cannot stalk the herd of wildebeest without risk. Similarly, if he happens to be the kind of person who enjoys pleasant and supportive company, then he will need to moderate his “stamping down” in order to encourage that. He is, however, released from all obligation to consider the “rightness” of his actions, and instead need focus only on the harmony of those actions with his will, which naturally includes a consideration of their likely consequences also.
So in this case one need only worry about the
repercussions of his actions on himself; this is a sort of inversion of the categorical imperative or the Golden rule. Apparently, also, Crowley at one point stated, self-deprecatingly, but also, I think, making a serious point given his beliefs "I have never grown out of the infantile belief that the universe was made for me to suck." That is a perfect description of the attitude of many addicts and hedonists the world over. Freud, a rough contemporary of Crowley, spoke of the "oral stage" as the first stage of childhood psychosexual development, and considered it possible for people to become "stuck" in any of these phases, with various pathologies associated with them, oral fixation is associated by Freudians with dependent, manipulative and passive-aggressive personalities, and, yes, addiction.
Nietzsche, of course a great influence on Crowley, states "My formula for human greatness is
amor fati: that one wants to have nothing different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely to bear the necessary, still less to conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness before the necessary—but to love it."
All idealism is mendaciousness before the necessity. I believe this is the position being held by many posters in this thread, including drugs under the category of "necessity." Addicts surely believe so. But the ethics of both Crowley and Nietzsche, as well as many neo-pagan sects and similar groups, are based on Will. One might say that the addict's will is to get high, but the philosophical ideal of Will is a much greater drive than that momentary escape. Crowley certainly used his share of drugs as well as deviant sexuality and all sorts of hedonistic behavior which was of course incredibly scandalous at the time (he, in response, began calling himself "the wickedest man in the world.") But he had a higher goal, with all the magick and occult, seeking power and enlightenment. Nietzsche was speaking about confronting meaninglessness and the darkness in the world with
amor fati, radical acceptance of fate; just as the faithful Muslim is forever saying
insha'Allah. So there is a higher goal.
The common ground here is will,
free will. And I believe that the addict retains it; so too would the worldviews I've cited here. Of them, Gardnerian neo-paganasm ("an it harm none…") may be the only one with particular condemnation of the bad behavior of an addict, Nietzsche perhaps as well, but for different reasons, like Crowley, he might think him a weak man, or a stupid man, particularly if he got himself into trouble one way or another.
But I think that it is
free will that is the key here. If you say addicts have "diminished capacity," you are saying that our free will is lessened. I believe free will to be absolute on a philosophical (and theological) basis, as do most traditions. There were a few absolute materialist-determinists in ancient Greece (I forget which ones) and probably a few scattered about in Islamic thought and occasionally elsewhere, but real materailist-determinism now has it's scientific proponents but still isn't very popular because it makes people uncomfortable. If you take the materialist view, then drugs cause changes to the brain which cause cravings for the drug which cause problematic behaviors, or alter the consciousness and lead to bad behavior under the influence. The latter is self-evident, the former not so much.
I don't really buy into the idea that addiction, or mental illness for that matter, is "a disease like any other." I won't get into my ideas about mental illness here, but as far as addiction goes, I understand it as a series of bad choices that send you into a downward spiral. It's very much like a dysfunctional or abusive relationnship with a spouse where you still don't want to leave despite the fact tha it's hurting you. Divorcing the needle might likewise be hard. But if you're in such a relationship and you beat your wife, are you less culpable because you're in this fucked up psychological and relational cycle that's hard to break? Certainly not.
When an addict, or an intoxicated person, does something wrong, they are culpable; nearly every ethical system would believe so. People make mistakes, everyone does. Hopefully we learn from them. Beating up on oneself psychologically is not healthy, but an appropriate amount of self-examination, regret, contrition, etc. is important. When a person says "that is my disease, not I," it is not a healthy thing, they deny their own agency, thus denying themselves the opportunity to examine why they have done wrong. And when society sends the message that stealing from people, etc. is what addicts do, more addicts will probably do so because that's the expected behavior, culturally.
I agree completely with the need to reform drug laws but I'm adamantly opposed to programs that force people into addiction "treatment" facilities, which I basically don't believe in—when I was working out in the community I never sent any of my clients to one because I found 1:1 conversation with them about abstinence vs moderation vs harm reduction was the best thing. And I always made it clear to them that they were responsible for their actions.
I do not see ANY value in flagellation and self-disgust, escpecially as these such traits are often well hidden by drugs. I see it as a vicious cycle, that drug addicts are seen as weak sinners, self-loathing commences and drugs start seeming all that bit more appealing. But, I am aware that no-one in this topic is saying drug use and addiction is immoral. But yes, the actions one may engage in when addicted, such as stealing, lying, all that dark shit- they are immoral. However, I believe in diminshed responsibility. A crime by an addict is probably not something they would have enagaged in were they not an addict. This doesn't negate the fact of actions being criminal and immoral, but it changes the platform upon which these actions are decided upon. A desperate person will do things they would not normally do. They are still not right in doing these things, but I can understand and forgive that stuff easier. 
