By German Lopez
The Vox
Originally published on December 28, 2015
Here are two excerpts:
For one, Americans are drinking more. According to the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the number of Americans who reportedly drank in the previous month slightly increased as alcohol-induced deaths did: from 51 percent of all persons 12 and older in 2006, when deaths began to climb, to 52.7 percent in 2014.
(cut)
So for the US, boosting alcohol prices 10 percent could save as many as 6,000 lives each year. To put that in context, paying about 50 cents more for a six-pack of Bud Light could save thousands of lives. And this is a conservative estimate, since it only counts alcohol-related liver cirrhosis deaths — the number of lives saved would be higher if it accounted for deaths due to alcohol-related violence and car crashes.
Aside from raising taxes, a 2014 report from the RAND Drug Policy Research Center suggested state-run shops kept prices higher, reduced access to youth, and reduced overall levels of use. And a 2013 study from RAND of South Dakota's 24/7 Sobriety Program, which briefly jails people whose drinking has repeatedly gotten them in trouble with the law (like a DUI) if they fail a twice-a-day alcohol blood test, attributed a 12 percent reduction in repeat DUI arrests and a 9 percent reduction in domestic violence arrests at the county level to the program.
The article is here.
Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care
Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Alcohol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alcohol. Show all posts
Saturday, January 16, 2016
Thursday, November 13, 2014
The drunk utilitarian: Blood alcohol concentration predicts utilitarian responses in moral dilemmas
Aaron
A. Duke and Laurent Bègueb
Cognition
Volume 134, January 2015, Pages 121–127
Highlights
•
Greene’s dual-process theory of moral reasoning needs revision.
•
Blood alcohol concentration is positively correlated with utilitarianism.
•
Self-reported disinhibition is positively correlated with utilitarianism.
•
Decreased empathy predicts utilitarianism better than increased deliberation.
Abstract
The
hypothetical moral dilemma known as the trolley problem has become a
methodological cornerstone in the psychological study of moral reasoning and
yet, there remains considerable debate as to the meaning of utilitarian
responding in these scenarios. It is unclear whether utilitarian responding
results primarily from increased deliberative reasoning capacity or from
decreased aversion to harming others. In order to clarify this question, we conducted
two field studies to examine the effects of alcohol intoxication on utilitarian
responding. Alcohol holds promise in clarifying the above debate because it
impairs both social cognition (i.e., empathy) and higher-order executive
functioning. Hence, the direction of the association between alcohol and
utilitarian vs. non-utilitarian responding should inform the relative
importance of both deliberative and social processing systems in influencing
utilitarian preference. In two field studies with a combined sample of 103 men
and women recruited at two bars in Grenoble, France, participants were
presented with a moral dilemma assessing their willingness to sacrifice one
life to save five others. Participants’ blood alcohol concentrations were found
to positively correlate with utilitarian preferences (r = .31, p < .001)
suggesting a stronger role for impaired social cognition than intact
deliberative reasoning in predicting utilitarian responses in the trolley
dilemma. Implications for Greene’s dual-process model of moral reasoning are
discussed.
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