When one ignores distributional concerns (which are, the only reason individuals participate in any society in the first place) it's easy to accept any and all developments that make anyone better off. Of course, that's sort of like evaluating a famly car based on how comfortable and safe the driver's seat is (Paul, you'll be a great father, I'm not insinuating otherwise) but hey, it makes things easier.

If you stop worrying about solving the problems that caused societies to form in the first place (distributional concerns), a society is always perfect; it's a very Zen solution to the whole thing. Very useful for those for whom society actually works, because it allows them to forget about the fact that society doesn't work for everyone.

The emphasis on pointing out the distributional concerns of Seymour's piece was to distinguish what he had written from what Jason and I had anticipated to be the main thrust of anti-pill activists--that there was something sinful in the taking of them. I should hope it's clear, though, that I do take the time to address these concerns, and that I at least demonstrate that any distributional concerns over these pills should really be considered in terms of the pre-existing distribution of wealth (in other words, that it's not Adderall's fault).

A couple points...

1) Paul and Jason have used analogies to labor-saving devices (and other time-saving choices like driving faster) in arguing in favor of "smart drugs." Those devices, however, don't increase a person's skill or talent. Ernest Hemingway with a paper and pencil (or, heck, cuneiform tablets) would still produce much more successful books than I could on a PC, even if it would take them longer.

2) I don't think the distributional concerns can be written off so easily. Raw talent, I believe, is fairly randomly distributed among socioeconomic classes and is the basis for most of the social mobility in capitalistic societies. A drug that effectivly increases skill or talent would almost certainly be available only to the well-off at first, and even once it had gone generic its cost would make it less unavailable to the lowest income individuals and families. Therefore, raw talent--the great equalizer--becomes more concentrated in the upper eschelons of society.

3) Philosophizing about a drug with "no risk at all" is a lot like discussing a war where no civilians are killed. It is a thing the world has never seen...and likely will never see.

To your points:

1) This may be true, in the most limited sense, but this isn't what we're talking about. Instead of putting up a "tortured artist," consider instead the productivity of most modern "creative" activities, from managing a quality-improvement team on a shopfloor in a Toyota factory to designing a CGI creature for a Pixar film. Neither of these jobs could exist without the techne of the contemporary world. Similarly, the Internet allows for radically different rearrangements in the organization, production and dissemination of knowledge (as bloggers, better than any of the literati, should well know!).

2) To stamp out what appears to be a misreading of my post: Clearly I do talk about distributional effects. However, the potential effects of these drugs is likelier to be democratizing than to exacerbate the social divisions we already see; and even if not (as, say, the mass production of distilled spirits was not in eighteenth-century London), then it will not be the fault of the drugs but of the preexisting disparities in society.

As for the "raw talent" argument: This postulates that there is a sort of "talent" just floating out there somewhere waiting to be discovered. It is, let us say, genetic. But genes only work through the environment, and so the environment of childhood, adolescence and early adulthood will likely find much different expressions because of the preexisting social infrastructure. A child with entrepreneurial tendencies growing up in the upper-middle-class might become Bill Gates; a child with the same tendencies growing up disadvantaged might become Al Capone. As the first social scientist said: men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please.

3) Yes, of course it's unlikely, but please note the scheme of my argument: That such a wonder pill allows us to isolate the concerns that pertain especially to the performance-enhancing aspect of such a compound. I do, in fact, deal with the more likely risky versions of the drug in the piece.