B. Earp and J. Savulescu, "Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Relationships" (Stanford UP, 2020) )
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What ethical dilemmas arise when couples consider using oxytocin to repair their relationship?
Hi everyone, this is Marshall Poe. I'm the founder of the New Books Network, and I'm also a historian. I used to be a history professor, and I love maps, so I'm especially happy to tell you that this episode is sponsored by What's Your Map, which was the winner of the Best Education Podcast at the 2025 British Podcast Awards. What's Your Map is hosted by historian and prize-winning author Professor Jerry Broughton. In each episode, he invites a guest to share a map close to their heart and unfurl the ideas, inspirations, and stories behind it. I can tell you I've listened and it's fascinating. The podcast is in its sixth series and is enjoyed by audiences around the globe. You can explore all the maps in the podcast online.
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Hello, and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figdor, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. I'm co-host of the channel, along with Robert Talese, Alexis McLeod, and Sarah Tyson. Together, we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books and a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with Brian Earp and Julian Savulescu, co-authors of Love Drugs, the Chemical Future of Relationships, which is just out from Stanford University Press. Earp is Associate Director of the Yale Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy at Yale University. And Sabulescu is a Hero Chair in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford.
So consider a couple with an infant or two whose lives have become so harried and difficult, the marriage is falling apart. Would it be ethical for them to take oxytocin to help them renew their emotional bonds? Or would this be an unethical evasion of the hard work that keeping a marriage going requires? What if someone has sexual desires that they consider immoral? Should they be able to take a drug to suppress those desires? Or alternatively, can society force them to? Debates about the ethics of using drugs for enhancement rather than treatment usually focus on the individual, such as doping in sports. But in love drugs, Earp and Sabulescu consider the case for using drugs to alter our love relationships.
They note that drugs that alter sexual desire and attachment are already available, although are restricted. What is needed, they argue, is more research into the interpersonal effects of drugs and more discussion of the ethics of their use for non-medical purposes. Let's turn to a fascinating interview on a complex topic with no easy answers. Hello, Julian and Brian. Welcome to New Books and Philosophy.
Thanks for having us on. Hello.
I'm looking forward to talking about your new book, Love Drugs, The Chemical Future of Relationships. Before we get into the book itself, maybe you could give us a bit about your backgrounds. Tell us a bit about yourselves and your philosophical interests, and then how the two of you came to write this book.
Well, let's see. Julian, do you want to start first? The seed of the idea came from some early work that Julian did with our colleague, Andrew Sandberg. And then I kind of came in to develop some of those ideas. So the story really starts with Julian.
Okay. So I am originally a medical doctor and then I did a PhD with Peter Singer. And I've been interested in the sort of intersection of science and ethics since the beginning of my career. And In the late 90s, I started working on ethics of genetics and it became apparent to me that there was a genetic contribution to intelligence and that in the future, you'd be able to select embryos that were more likely to be intelligent.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What ethical dilemmas arise when couples consider using oxytocin to repair their relationship?
0:00–8:08
2
How do Brian Earp and Julian Savulescu explain their personal and philosophical backgrounds that led to *Love Drugs*?
8:08–17:14
3
What is the three‑dimensional (biological, experiential, socio‑historical) model of love proposed in the book?
17:14–27:11
4
When is it morally permissible to use “anti‑love” drugs, such as chemical castration, and when is it not?
27:11–37:43
5
How do historical examples like MDMA therapy and modern SSRIs illustrate both benefits and risks of love‑enhancing drugs?
37:43–48:37
6
Why do the authors argue that research on interpersonal effects of existing pharmaceuticals is essential?
48:37–57:28
7
What policy safeguards and research strategies do the authors propose for emerging love‑drug technologies?
57:28–1:06:31
8
What are the authors’ current research projects and future directions after publishing *Love Drugs*?
1:06:31–1:10:13
Speakers
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