Here's a conundrum - how do you ensure your partner will remain faithful to you?

If the answer to that isn't complex enough, consider if this was the follow-up question - how do you convince them to inject him or her with a gene that makes them more faithful?

These sorts of outlandish questions - particularly the latter - don't simply come to my mind out of the blue. However, as an avid reader of The New York Times Magazine, I came across a recent article that begged the very question.

It referenced a series of articles in the science journal Nature about the genetic and chemical origins of sexual behavior in the vole, a small rodent. Researchers had noticed male prairie voles are overwhelmingly monogamous, and stick with one partner. Male meadow voles, on the other hand, often mate with many different females.

The scientists wanted to know why the meadow voles were behaving like rock stars, while the prairie voles seemed to have their hormones under control. Additionally, they wondered if the meadow voles could be subdued.

As it turned out, they could be. Simply take a gene from a prairie vole and inject it into the forebrain of a meadow vole, and, voila!

That's one tamed vole.

Now comes the part where everything goes awry. If the nature of science is to constantly wonder "what if," the question becomes - what if we could do the same thing to humans? And, furthermore, would it work?

First and foremost, it's necessary to complete a reality check and understand the inherent differences between humans and voles. For starters, is philandering a genetic trait in humans?

Certainly, the results from the vole experiment suggest there's a direct link in the animal between genetic characteristics and sexual behavior. But does the same hold true for humans? Can genes determine who will remain faithful and who will cheat?

Scientists would first need to establish this causal link before speculating about further implications.

Secondly, humans don't like the idea of being controlled. Since we're much more evolved and complex living organisms than voles, we consequently have the need to remain in control of our thoughts. You know, the whole "mind over matter" concept. As humans, we have the tendency to commit infidelity. To control that tendency is to control thought, to submit. Who in their right mind would give in to such a submission?

And there's another pressing question - supposing it's even possible to replicate the experiment in humans, would we really want to do it?

The implications of such a suggestion are not only messed up, they're downright frightening. To control human thought is to control the very nature of our being, and what makes us so complex.

Besides, even if we had a method of subduing our thoughts, would we commend those who are artificially tamed? After all, if someone is essentially forced to think a certain way, how can we really say they're being a good person?

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant told us that in order for any act to be good, it must be inherently good, rather than just a means to an end. If someone is steered away from infidelity, not because they consciously resisted the lure but because a gene was injected into their brain, how can their action - or in this case inaction - be deemed good?

By manipulating someone's mind, you're taking choice out of the equation. They are no longer able to decide whether to cheat or remain faithful, and thus their lack of discretion in the matter means they are effectively programmed.

The underlying message of all this philosophical mumbo-jumbo is that human thought should never be controlled. Though we may have a tendency to think deviously, it's important that we be allowed to do so, and to decide how to act in response.

As Shakespeare's Hamlet once opined, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." If we can't even be allowed to think, how can we establish anything as good or bad?

Evan Rondeau is the State News Capitol reporter. He can be reached at rondeau1@msu.edu.