This article offers a new argument for why recreational drug use is inherently immoral. Typical arguments against recreational drug use focus on legality, purposefully undermining the ability to reason, and harmful health effects. This argument recovers St. Thomas Aquinas' account of delectatio (pleasure) to argue that the pleasure sought in recreational drug use is immoral due to its disproportionality to the good achieved in the act of taking drugs. It then examines the use of alcohol as a helpful example for this argument since the recreational use of alcohol in low quantities is a case which can diminish the applicability of traditional arguments against recreational drug use.
HsiaoTimothy.2017. “Why Recreational Drug Use Is Immoral.” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly17(4) (Winter): 605–614.
10.
KennettJeanetteMatthewsSteveSnoekAnke. 2013. “Pleasure and Addiction.” Frontiers in Psychiatry4 (Fall): 1–11.
11.
LombardoNicholas O.P. 2011. The Logic of Desire: Aquinas on Emotion. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press.
12.
LongSteven.2013. “Fundamental Errors of the New Natural Law Theory.” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly13(1) (Spring): 105–131. https://doi.org/10.5840/ncbq201313173
13.
LongSteven.2015. The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act. Naples, Florida: Sapientia Press.
14.
MattisonWilliamIII. 2008. Introducing Moral Theology: True Happiness and the Virtues. Michigan: Brazos Press.
MinerRobert.2009. Thomas Aquinas on the Passions: A Study of Summa Theologiae 1a2ae 22–48. New York: Cambridge University Press.
17.
MiravalleJohn-Mark.2020. How to Feel Good and How Not to: The Ethics of Using Marijuana, Alcohol, Antidepressants, and Other Mood-Altering Drugs. New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press.
WhiteKevin.2013. “Pleasure, a Supervenient End.” In Aquinas and the Nicomachean Ethics, edited by Tobias Hoffman, Jorn Muller, and Matthais Perkams, 220–238. New York: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2013.00117
