Science Literature

The idea that special potions can be made to enhance or compel love is not new. William Shakespeare wrote it into the words of Oberon in Midsummer Night's Dream:

'Fetch me that flower; the herb I show'd thee once.
The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make or man or women madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.'

Sadly, in our own day, many rare and exotic animals have been ruthlessly killed so that extracts from their body parts can be processed and sold as an aphrodisiac or something similar. The question is: is there any basis for such potions and even if there is, do they help us to understand and practise love?

According to some, inhaled oxytocin tunes people into the emotions of others (Graphic Source here, The Economist, 12 February 2004)

Larry Young knows it happens with prarie voles: "A female prarie vole rapidly becomes attached to the nearest male if her brain is infused with oxytocin." He finds an "intriguing overlap between the brain areas associated with vole pair bonding and those associated with human love". He writes about it in a "Being Human" essay in Nature. He claims that "reducing love to its component parts helps us to understand human sexuality, and may lead to drugs that enhance or diminish our love for another."

This emphasis on "reducing" emotions, feelings and relationships to biochemistry is very popular within neuroscience today. Many researchers have adopted materialism as their underpinning philosophy. Humans are physical entities, they say, and they can, in principle, be understood completely in terms of physical causes and effects.

"Now researchers are attempting to isolate and identify the neural and genetic components underlying this seemingly uniquely human emotion. Indeed, biologists may soon be able to reduce certain mental states associated with love to a biochemical chain of events. This has implications for the evolution of human sexuality [snip]."

No one saying that biochemistry is not involved in human emotions. The issue is whether materialism is the right conceptual framework for neuroscience. Adopting that philosophy makes researchers blind to non-material factors affecting humanity. This is where there are serious consequences of getting it wrong. For a start, materialism has no basis for morality. Conduct becomes a matter of personal choice and there are no rights and wrongs. Very quickly, we enter the irrational. This is well expressed by the feminist writer, Marilyn French:

"Well, love is insanity. The ancient Greeks knew that. It is the taking over of a rational and lucid mind by delusion and self-destruction. You lose yourself, you have no power over yourself, you can't even think straight."

Shakespeare recognised the problem: Oberon's plan for the "herb" was perverted. Larry Young sees possible dangers ahead but does not think there is a problem:

"recent advances in the biology of pair bonding mean it won't be long before an unscrupulous suitor could slip a pharmaceutical 'love potion' in our drink. And if they did, would we care? After all, love is insanity."

Unfortunately, there is a problem. Love is such a powerful human emotion that people are wide open to exploitation. We should care! Unscrupulous people will turn love into a biochemical experience and play down the importance of relationships. Marilyn French was wrong - love is not insanity. Nor is it irrational. Love is a relationship of trust and commitment. It is not a delusion, nor an existential experience. Those who cannot handle these thoughts would be wise to reconsider their own conceptual framework regarding what it means to be human.

Love: Neuroscience reveals all
Larry J. Young
Nature 457, 148 (8 January 2009) | doi:10.1038/457148a

Poetry it is not. Nor is it particularly romantic. But reducing love to its component parts helps us to understand human sexuality, and may lead to drugs that enhance or diminish our love for another, says Larry J. Young.

See also:

Alleyne, R. Love spray being developed by scientists, The Daily Telegraph, 8 Jan 2009