clear.
H stated that having a drink to be more relaxed was OK ethically. I pointed out that any ingestion of a drug to alter who you are is deceptive, and therefore dishonest. And that being dishonest had already been accepted as being unethical.
In short, if you use mind altering drugs to pretend that you are something that you are not, then you are behaving unethically.
Please keep in mind that this is a theoretical discussion, where extremes are brought up to the point of being ridiculuous.
One extreme of the above point could be a schizophrenic, who has found a medication that completely masks the symptoms. He gets accepted into a small community as an upstanding citizen. Then, because he doesn't like how the medication makes him feel, he stops it. He goes crazy and kills everybody.
Now, just the fact that he kills everybody is unethical. That is not the point. The fact that he used drugs to make himself appear to be normal, and gain the trust that enabled him to do the killing is the point.
The other extreme would be what Hyzenthlay describes. It is a commonly accepted behaviour, and personally I don't have anything against it. But strictly speaking, it is a deception, and therefore unethical.
I am not talking about naturally occurring day-to-day changes. I am talking about the deliberate use of drugs to alter one's mood.
See? No muddle here.
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