Read more
Is getting high immoral? In this book, Rob Lovering defends the claim that it is not. More specifically, he argues that recreational drug use (of which getting high is a token) is neither intrinsically, nor generally extrinsically, immoral. In other words, he contends that recreational drug use is neither immoral in and of itself nor generally immoral due to an immoral-making factor with which it may be contingently linked [e.g., harm]. Lovering does so by offering two arguments for recreational drug use s ultima facie (all things considered) moral permissibility and critiquing twenty-four arguments for its immorality.
Meant to be a companion to Lovering's A Moral Defense of Recreational Drug Use (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), which was written for a general audience, this book is written for an academic specifically, philosophical audience and explores recreational drug use in a deeper, more philosophically and empirically rigorous way.
List of contents
1. Preliminaries.- 2. Arguments for Recreational Drug Use.- 3. Self-Regarding Consequentialist Arguments Against Recreational Drug Use.- 4. Other-Regarding Consequentialist Arguments Against Recreational Drug Use.- 5. Pleasure-Regarding Nonconsequentialist Arguments Against Recreational Drug Use.- 6. Degradation-Regarding Nonconsequentialist Arguments Against Recreational Drug Use.- 7. Religious Arguments Against Recreational Drug Use.
About the author
Rob Lovering is Professor of Philosophy at City University of New York, USA. His books include God and Evidence: Problems for Theistic Philosophers (2013), A Moral Defense of Recreational Drug Use (2015), A Moral Defense of Prostitution (2021), and The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoactive Drug Use (2024).
Summary
Is getting high immoral? In this book, Rob Lovering defends the claim that it is not. More specifically, he argues that recreational drug use (of which getting high is a token) is neither intrinsically, nor generally extrinsically, immoral. In other words, he contends that recreational drug use is neither immoral in and of itself nor generally immoral due to an immoral-making factor with which it may be contingently linked [e.g., harm]. Lovering does so by offering two arguments for recreational drug use’s ultima facie (all things considered) moral permissibility and critiquing twenty-four arguments for its immorality.
Meant to be a companion to Lovering's A Moral Defense of Recreational Drug Use (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), which was written for a general audience, this book is written for an academic—specifically, philosophical—audience and explores recreational drug use in a deeper, more philosophically and empirically rigorous way.