Love Drugs

As I have written before, pharmaceutical enhancements will soon supercharge our economy. David Friedman has an interesting post on how they may also influence marriage. His argument is that "love and long term attachment are associated with the levels of various chemicals in the brain." So if we can figure out how to pharmaceutically influence these chemicals we can determine who we fall in love with.

I'm worried that such a love drug will hurt my son. You see, such a drug would significantly lower the benefits of being good looking. Currently, the main advantage of being attractive is that it makes it more likely that someone will fall in love with you. But if you can take a drug that causes you to fall in love with someone, you won't care as much about your mate's appearance. Consequently, very good looking people, such as my 2-year-old son, would lose some of their advantage in the marriage market if love drugs become commonplace.