Delectatio and Recreational Drug Use: Using Aquinas' Account of Pleasure to Argue That Recreational Drug Use Is Immoral

Abstract

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.