Hell as Eternal Pleasure

There is no denying that there are new drugs on the market that can help lift depression, for example Prozac and the next generation of drugs in the same family. Yet, if the drugs in themselves could bring about happiness, then those struggling with depression would not stop using them. But they do. I think I would be more likely to approve of prescribing Prozac along with therapy, so that it would act as an aid during a more comprehensive treatment. This is in fact standard practice for many therapists.

The underlying question is whether happiness can be acheived through a purely biological remedy, which is in fact a question about whether there is a spiritual component to humankind, or if we are reducible to our biology. But if so then the drug addict whose pleasure centers are on overdrive ought to be happy, and they clearly are not. I think of that pitiable soul who emerged from a hole in a wall during a Geraldo Rivera special warning others not to follow in her footsteps as a heroin addict. I still recall the look on her face as she declared that she lived in hell.

And so, I aver the distinction to be made is between happiness as pleasurable sensations and happiness as a side effect of goodness. Though all of the lower level biological systems are in order, are being fed on pleasure, it is still impossible to be happy if you are not in communion with your God. (and if you do choose God, then you know that you are going to have to give up the drugs). This is why Bernard Lonergan, in his study of human understanding, goes through hundreds of pages of analysis, touching the fields of mathematics, physics, biology, the sciences, and at the end, at chapter 18, begins his chapter on The Possibility of Ethics, and the notion of the good, in which we are involved in "deliberation and decision, choice and will."

There's an interesting exchange between Adam Tierny and myself after his blog entry at in the agora on happiness as a physical process and materialist presuppositions.