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SYMPOSIUM

ENHANCING LOVE?

� 2020 – Philosophy and Public Issues (New Series), Vol. 10, No. 3 (2020): 93-151

Luiss University Press

E-ISSN 2240-7987 | P-ISSN 1591-0660

WHAT IS LOVE? CAN IT BE CHEMICALLY

MODIFIED? SHOULD IT BE?

REPLY TO COMMENTARIES

BY

BRIAN D. EARP AND JULIAN SAVULESCU

[THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK]

ENHANCING LOVE?

� 2020 – Philosophy and Public Issues (New Series), Vol. 10, No. 3 (2020): 93-151

Luiss University Press

E-ISSN 2240-7987 | P-ISSN 1591-0660

What is love?

Can it be chemically modified? Should it be?

Reply to commentaries

Brian D. Earp and Julian Savulescu

e are grateful to Robbie Arrell, Lotte

Spreeuwenberg, Katrien Schaubroeck, Allen

Buchanan, and Mirko D. Garasic for their

commentaries on our recent book, Love Drugs: The

Chemical Future of Relationships.1 To keep our reply

focused, we will address just some of the main points from each

paper. We will also try to keep the conversation going by pushing

back on certain claims or elaborating on valuable insights raised by

our colleagues. We begin by exploring what love is and whether it

can be chemically modified. We then focus on questions about the

ethics of attempting such modification, both at the level of the

individual or couple and at the level of society. We conclude with

some summary observations and big-picture reflections about the

future of this debate.

1 See Earp and Savulescu 2020a. The UK version is Love Is the Drug: The Chemical

Future of Our Relationships, published by Manchester University Press. For a short

pr�cis of the book see Earp and Savulescu 2020b. Thank you to Sven Nyholm,

Joan Ongchoco, Josh Knobe, Robbie Arrell, Elena Grewal, Mario Attie Picker,

David Yaden, Margaret Clark, and Moya Mapps for valuable feedback on an

earlier draft of this paper. Please note that we will mostly be using the singular

‘they’ construction throughout, for reasons discussed in Earp 2021.

W

Philosophy and Public Issues – Enhancing Love?

94

I

What is love and can it – even in principle – be affected by

chemicals? Reply to Arrell

We will start with the piece by Arrell,2 since it focuses on

foundational questions about the metaphysics of love and the

concept of ‘love-altering’ drugs. Arrell accepts that many currently

existing drugs – chemical substances often used as medications –

can have important effects on romantic relationships broadly

construed. Arrell denies, however, that such drugs affect love. To

evaluate this claim, we will need an account of love that both Arrell

and we can agree on, so as to avoid talking past each other (if we

claim that drugs can affect love and take ‘love’ to mean X, whereas

Arrell denies this but takes ‘love’ to mean Y, we might well have a

dispute, but it would semantic not substantive).3

Helpfully then, Arrell proposes an account that is compatible

with our view; we will adopt it for the sake of argument. An

important feature of this account is that love requires care in a sense

that needs some teasing out. We will start by saying what we mean

by care before turning to Arrell’s account and critically comparing

the two.

The role of care in love

Here is what we said about care in our book. We asked readers

to consider the view that true love, whatever else it may require,

“requires genuinely caring about (and trying to promote) the other

person’s well-being as an end in itself.”4 In order to care about

someone in this way we suggested that a person would have to be,

2 See Arrell 2020.

3 For a recent discussion of substantive versus semantic disagreements about

the ordinary concept of true love, see Earp, Do, and Knobe 2021.

4 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 59.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

95

at a minimum, “seriously invested” in the other’s feelings and

desires, fundamental preferences, wishes and dreams, and so on.

Finally, we proposed that if a drug made it so that your “very

capacity” to be moved by your partner’s feelings (etc.) was

“sufficiently degraded … over a long enough period of time” – so

that you were not, in fact, disposed to try to promote their overall

well-being – then the drug would have meaningfully changed your

love for your partner, “potentially to the point that it no longer

counts as love at all.”5

We argued that there may in fact be such a drug – or class of

drugs – namely selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs,

which have been documented to have effects along these lines

(importantly, we also called for further research into these effects

so as to better understand them).6 Our thinking was as follows:

since SSRIs are the most commonly used drugs to treat depression,

which is itself quite common, if they are capable of affecting love

in such a meaningful way, we should be alert to this possibility and

study it carefully.

Now we get to the potential disagreement. Arrell accepts that

the effects of SSRIs on romantic relationships might indeed be bad

or even devastating,7 and he acknowledges that this prospect is

worthy of sustained ethical analysis of the kind we try to offer in

5 Ibid., 60.

6 See, for example: Opbroek et al. 2002; Bolling and Kohlenberg 2004; Fisher

and Thomson, Jr. 2007.

7 As we explore in the book, they can also be good for some relationships, for

example, when they effectively cure the symptoms of depression in one or more

partners, where the depression itself was making the relationship worse off. One

and the same drug can have very different effects on different individuals and

couples depending on what they are dealing with, the dose of the drug, whether

it is effective along the intended dimensions, what the side-effects are, and so

on.

Philosophy and Public Issues – Enhancing Love?

96

our book. What he denies is something more abstract and

conceptual: he denies that SSRIs can affect love – as it were, ‘itself.’

To get a handle on what is at stake in this distinction, we will now

sketch out the account of love adopted by Arrell, paying close

attention to the role of ‘care’ as he conceives it.

Arrell’s counterfactualist account: love as robustly demanding

Arrell draws on Philip Pettit’s view of love as a robustly

demanding good.8 A robustly demanding good – or ‘rich’ good, to

use Pettit’s shorthand – involves a disposition (i.e., of a person) to

reliably provide certain ‘thin’ goods (roughly, benefits or resources)

to another person across a range of scenarios, including some that

may not actually materialize. Care, on this account, is one such

‘thin’ good. As Arrell puts it: in order for you to enjoy the rich

good of my love, it is not enough that I provide you with the thin

good of my care in the actual world, as things stand. Rather, it must

also be the case that I am so disposed that I would continue to

provide you with such care, among other thin goods, “even were

you/I/our circumstances somewhat altered.”9

The motivating idea here is something like Shakespeare’s

admonition that “love is not love which alters when it alteration

finds.”10 In other words, true love is not just a feeling, which may

be fleeting, but is rather something more like a trait or orientation

toward the other that is rooted in something much more stable.

So, for example, if I profess to love you, but I would in fact

abandon our relationship were you to lose your wealth or beauty,

say, then it seems right to conclude that I do not really love you

after all. More likely, I am only superficially into you, chasing after

8 As described in Pettit 2012; for a critique see Nyholm 2018.

9 From Arrell 2020, 48-49.

10 From Sonnet 116.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

97

your money or good looks. So, on this view, for something to

count as love, even in the here and now, it must be the case that it

would persist despite various potential changes in the beloved – or

the lover, the state of the world, etc. – whether or not those

changes actually happen.

We’ll assume this basic picture is correct. However, when

determining whether I truly love you, it is one thing to ask if I

would leave you for superficial reasons, like those we have just

considered; it is another thing to ask if I would leave you because,

for example, you became abusive toward me or you constantly

violated my trust. So, let’s assume that although my love for you

must not alter when it finds certain kinds of alterations, there are at

least some ways in which things might be different that could

justify my ceasing to provide you with care, without this nullifying

the current reality of my love.11

The challenge, then, is to identify the range of possible scenarios

– or ways in which you/I/our circumstances might be altered –

across which I would, hypothetically, have to continue to provide

you with the thin good of care for my ‘rich’ disposition toward you

to count as truly loving.

We are okay with this general framework. But even within the

framework, there is one point on which we and Arrell seem to

differ, and that is on the concept of care. Notice that Arrell

describes care as a ‘thin’ good: that is, as a kind of benefit – a thing

or resource I might ‘provide’ you with (as he often puts it). Let’s

call such resource-care ‘caring behavior’ to keep things straight.

Importantly, that is not how we conceived of care in our book.

11 As Amelie Rorty has written, “even a true historical love might end in

dissolution and separation. That it did end would not prove that it had not

existed” (Rorty 1987, 404).

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Rather than describing care as a resource or behavior, we wrote of

‘caring about’ one’s partner and being ‘invested’ in their needs and

desires so as to try to promote their well-being non-contingently:

that is, for its own sake rather than to get some benefit in return.12

You can think of ‘caring about’ someone in this sense as having

a caring disposition toward them – from which, of course, caring

behavior will often flow. (On this view, just to be clear, having a

caring disposition toward someone is a necessary, if insufficient,

condition for love. Romantic love, at least, might also require other

things: for instance, a disposition to be sexually attracted to one’s

partner across a relevant range of circumstances.)13

Our suggestion, then, was this: if one’s very capacity to care

about one’s partner, in our dispositional sense, were sufficiently

weakened by a drug, one’s love, being at least partly constituted by

this capacity, will by definition have been affected in some way (note:

a relatively weak claim). We also proposed that if this capacity were

weakened enough, and for a long enough period of time, it could

potentially become the case that your disposition toward your

partner no longer counted as love (a relatively strong claim).

To summarize, when we invoked the concept of care it was

precisely the disposition to be “appropriately motivated”14 to

further the beloved’s fundamental interests (including by providing

caring behavior when suitable) to which we were intending to refer.

And if a drug can dampen that, as it appears that SSRIs at least

sometimes can, we think this should be enough for the weak claim

(i.e., that drugs can affect love, if not perhaps extinguish it

altogether). Later, we’ll see if we can get to the strong claim, too.

12 Similar to the use of ‘care’ in Clark, Earp, and Crockett 2020; Earp et al. 2020.

13 For a related clarification, see Chappell 2018.

14 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 59.

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99

The chemical modification of care, part one: care as ‘caring behavior’

Having now clarified that it was this dispositional account of

care we had in mind for the book – and given the live possibility

that this disposition could be affected by drugs – it seems to us that

some of Arrell’s intended counterexamples to our account,

although admittedly humorous, nevertheless fall a little flat.

Consider this one, as a warm-up:

The Nap. Your partner: “Would you still give me the same quality

of care that you do now, if you were not awake (as you are

actually), but sleeping?” You: “Errrr, no!?” Your partner: “I knew

it! You awful swine! You don’t love me at all!”15

Arrell’s point, as we understand it, is that it simply wouldn’t be

reasonable to expect me to provide you with high-quality caring

behavior (to use our proposed terminology) if I happened to be

unconscious because I was, for instance, taking a nap. In other

words, being unconscious, on Arrell’s view, is clearly at least one

of the scenarios, possible worlds, or ways in which “you/I/our

circumstances might be altered” across which a person does not

need to provide care – in the sense of caring behavior, a ‘thin’ good

– for that person’s ‘rich’ disposition toward the beloved to count

as love.

We do not disagree. But again, we were thinking of care as a

relational disposition and a key ingredient of the ‘rich’ good of love,

rather than as a ‘thin’ good or resource that might itself be provided

(or ‘given’ in the language of The Nap). As we see it, the logic of

care in the dispositional sense operates over at least three variables

– namely need, ability, and responsibility, as we will explain in a

moment – and we propose that understanding this logic can help

15 From Arrell 2020, 54.

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us make sense of exactly why it is unreasonable for your partner in

The Nap to conclude that you don’t really love them.

Imagine two lovers who care about each other, in our sense,

very much. If the care is genuine, it should reflect or respond to:

(1) the type and magnitude of the other’s needs, where a need is

simply anything that is instrumentally necessary to secure the

person’s well-being, (2) the strength of one’s ability to meet the

other’s needs without too severely compromising one’s own well-

being in the process,16 and (3) the degree of responsibility one has

– or has taken on – to try to secure the person’s well-being (i.e., by

meeting their needs). In short, to have a caring disposition toward

someone, on this view, is to be disposed to try to meet their needs

to the best of your ability (without expecting specific benefits in

return), in proportion to the degree of responsibility you have for

promoting their overall well-being.17

Now, suppose that your partner has a need for care in Arrell’s

sense – that is, a need for caring attention or behavior – and you

just so happen to be taking a nap. Well, given that you are asleep,

you obviously are not able to ‘provide care’ right now, and so you

do not violate the logic of a caring disposition, as per (2). On the

other hand, if you had an inexcusable, lazy habit of napping all day

16 Think, perhaps, of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, which has been criticized

for positively portraying a supposedly ‘selfless’ love that should really be seen as

a – troublingly gendered – abusive relationship in which one party exploits the

other. See, e.g., Manne 2017.

17 Note, this account is indifferent as to whether the responsibility has come

about by choice/commitment or by circumstance. For a more formal

description of the account, see Earp et al. 2020. There, ‘care’ is described as a

relational function which helps solve certain recurring coordination problems of

human social life, where these problems are ultimately posed by interpersonal

dilemmas related to survival and reproduction. This sense of care is based on

Bugental 2000; Clark and Mills 1993; and Clark, Earp, and Crockett 2020.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

101

long, even when you knew your partner was relying on you for

help, and as a consequence of this, you failed to meet your

responsibility to address your partner’s needs, your partner likely

would have a legitimate complaint, as per (3). Given that, on the

view under consideration, a disposition of care is necessary for

love, it follows that a sufficiently serious breakdown in this

disposition corresponds to a breakdown in love.18 Accordingly, we

think that your partner in this scenario would be justified in saying

something like the following: “If you truly loved me, you would

make a point of being awake long enough to actually be there for

me when I need you.” Arrell, we assume, would agree.

Now consider a harder case:

Depression. Your partner: “Would you still give me the same quality

of care you give me now, if you were not in good mental health

(as you are actually), but clinically depressed and under the

influence of SSRI medication that made it so you couldn’t give me

the same quality of care you give me now? You: “Errrr, no!?” Your

partner: “I knew it! You awful swine! You don’t love me at all!”19

Again, Arrell’s point is that it just isn’t reasonable to expect your

partner to provide you with high-quality caring behavior if your

partner is clinically depressed, is taking medication to treat the

depression, and, on account of the medication or its side-effects,

is not able to do so. In other words, Arrell seems committed to an

‘ought implies can’ constraint on the robust demands entailed by

love. That seems right to us. Indeed, such a constraint follows also

from the logic of care, which, likewise, has an ‘ability’ condition.

So, let us go ahead and assume that, despite not being able to

provide you with caring behavior due to the side-effects of their

18 A similar view has been defended by hooks 2000 among others.

19 From Arrell 2020, 55.

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medication, your partner’s caring disposition toward you is still

maintained under these conditions. In other words, all else being

equal, it could still be right to say that they love you.

Even so, we suggest, the situation described in Depression is

nothing short of tragic. Let us embellish. We have stipulated that

your partner in this case does indeed maintain their caring

disposition – they are, in some deep sense, motivated to at least try

to meet your needs – but because of a drug they must take in order

to ward off their depression, they cannot, as it were, follow through

on this motivation. For example, when you come to them for

emotional support because a friend of yours has fallen seriously ill,

your partner can see that you are worried, and as a consequence,

they desire and intend to comfort you. But because their

medication has so dulled their emotional responsiveness (a known

side-effect or risk of SSRIs), their attempts at consolation fail.

Perhaps their words seem hollow, almost forced – like they’re

reading from a script. Far from helping, their robotic performance

of sympathy only seems to make things worse.

You know your partner is trying their best. You appreciate the

effort. And they feel awful about their inability to respond to your

emotions in a way that makes things better. Before they started on

the medication, as you both remember, they could cheer you up

without a problem. But without the medication – which we will

suppose they must now take indefinitely – your partner is unable

to function in most other areas of life. So, you adapt. When you

need comforting, you turn to others. You no longer rely on your

partner for emotional support. You wish things were different, but

it is what it is.

To reiterate, along with Arrell, we think that in such a case you

could reasonably believe that your partner still loves you but is

simply unable to express or manifest that love by providing you with

caring behavior. It is tempting here to think of such expressions

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

103

as: “Deep down, they still love you; they just can’t show it very well

because of their condition.” It is a heartrending situation.

Nevertheless, we are prepared to agree that, although the drug has

diminished an important aspect of your romantic relationship, it

has not in fact diminished your partner’s love.

The chemical modification of care, part two: care as ‘caring disposition’

But now suppose that the effects of the drug are – or could

reasonably be conceptualized as – somewhat different. Suppose

that the drug doesn’t just block your partner’s ability to provide

you with high-quality caring behavior (as in Depression). Suppose

instead that the drug has a more direct effect on your partner’s

caring disposition. In particular, suppose that it undermines your

partner’s ability to ‘care about’ your feelings, in our sense, in the

first place. Suppose it saps their motivation even to try to promote

your well-being. Suppose they become indifferent to your needs.

We can imagine that Arrell would still reject this case as an

instance of a drug affecting love. If it were not for the drug, Arrell

might say, your partner would still have a caring disposition, and

that counterfactual is all that is needed.

Perhaps. But try to put yourself in this situation.

Suppose you decide to continue in the relationship with your

partner for as long as you can. Although it is almost completely

one-sided now, you attend to their needs to the best of your ability.

You love them, after all, and you have taken on a significant

amount of responsibility to promote their well-being (through

thick and thin). Perhaps you know, or fervently hope, that if it were

not for the medication, your partner would at least be motivated to

do the same for you. But you can’t live on counterfactuals forever.

Day after day, not only does your partner fail to engage in caring

behavior, however ineffectually; they also seem to have lost their

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104

caring spirit. When you are sad, for example, it is not that they try

and fail to comfort you; it is that they don’t even seem to try. For

all that you can see, your sadness doesn’t move them.

Suppose it gets to the point where you say to yourself:

“Although it’s nobody’s fault, and I understand it’s likely due to

the medication they’re taking, I just no longer feel that my partner

actually loves me.” Our point is, even if your partner would,

hypothetically, be concerned about your emotions if not for the

medication, this doesn’t invalidate your belief that – in the actual

world – their love for you has in fact faded. Or suppose that your

partner says: “I truly believe it’s ultimately because of my

medication, which I wish I didn’t have to take – but I’m sorry, I

just don’t love you anymore.” We don’t think your partner would

be making a conceptual error or a mistake about ontology.

To summarize, we can compare two cases. In one case, you ask

your partner if they would continue to provide you with high-quality

caring behavior if, tragically, they had to take a drug indefinitely that

disabled them from providing such behavior. With Arrell, we think

that if your partner said “No,” this would not mean that they don’t

really love you. Moreover, we think that, if this situation were to

materialize, it could still be reasonable to conclude that your

partner loves you, but is simply unable to express or manifest that

love in a particular (albeit significant) way.

In the other case, you ask your partner if they would continue

to have a caring disposition toward you – that is, be invested in your

feelings and desires, motivated to promote your well-being, and so

forth – if, tragically, they had to take a drug indefinitely that

disabled them from ‘caring about’ you in the sense we have

discussed. If your partner says “No,” we don’t think this means

that they don’t really love you now. But, if this situation were to

materialize, we do think it could be reasonable to conclude that,

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

105

tragedy of tragedies, your partner’s love for you has in fact been

caused to fade.

Concluding thoughts

So this is what we’d like to suggest. If it turns out that SSRIs, or

any other class of drug, can in fact bring about such an effect – if

they can modify not just your caring behavior, but also your caring

disposition – we think we would be entitled to the ‘strong’ claim too.

That is, we think it would be conceptually defensible to conclude

that drugs can not only ‘affect’ love (in a weak sense – in terms of

the quality of its expression, for instance) but also in some cases

alter its very existence.

What are the implications of this discussion? If research into

the interpersonal effects of common medications or other drugs is

expanded, as we call for in the book, we hope this exchange with

Arrell will be of some use. What it shows is that studying the effects

of drugs on high-level aspects of relationships is only part of the

puzzle. These effects also need to be mapped onto various

philosophical models of love. In other words, we will need to

clarify not only what is ethically at stake for the flourishing of

different kinds of relationships when drugs are added into the mix,

but also what is conceptually at stake for our understanding of love.

II

Love, authenticity, and context:

Reply to Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck

Like Arrell, Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck raise conceptual

questions about the nature of love. As a part of this, they too put

pressure on our claim that – depending on how one conceives of

love – certain effects of SSRIs or other drugs could be interpreted

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106

as love-diminishing. For example, they ask: “What if someone

would insist that he still loves his child or partner, but is too

depressed to show it? Arguably some will think it is harsh to deny

the depressed father the capacity to love.”20

We interpret Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck here as offering

a similar argument to that of Arrell, which we addressed in the

previous section. However, they also raise an alternative

interpretation which seems consistent with our view: namely, that

it could still be reasonable to deny the existence of love in certain

cases even if – in the absence of a drug or medication – the alleged

lover would have maintained a caring disposition toward the beloved

and/or engaged in caring behavior.

To see this, consider the case of a child whose depressed father

does not show him any care. Let us now suppose that the lack of

care is due to the depression or associated medications, rather than

to negligence. Even so, Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck claim,

one could argue that it is unfair or misleading “to console the child

that his father still loves him when there is no evidence of it.”21 In

our modified Depression case, above, we made a similar point. What

these examples highlight (among other things) is the need to

consider the perspective not only of the alleged lover, but also of

the one they claim to love, when deciding whether a drug has

affected love.22 We will return to this point a little later on.

Another thing to consider is how a drug might affect love. So

far, we have explored the idea that SSRIs can affect love by

sometimes causing it to fade. But what about the use of drugs to

bolster love, as in the case of MDMA-assisted couples therapy?

20 From Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck 2020, 71.

21 Ibid.

22 See Pettit 1997 for a description of the way in which partners in love may

(need to) have a ‘shared awareness’ of both loving and being loved by the other.

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107

That was the focus of Chapter 6 of our book, and it raises classic

concerns about authenticity. To address these concerns, we will start

by reviewing what we wrote about authenticity in the book before

turning to a counterargument given by Spreeuwenberg and

Schaubroeck.

Love, drugs, and authenticity

In writing our chapter on MDMA-assisted couples therapy, we

anticipated that some readers might doubt the authenticity of a

romantic connection whose causal history includes a drug-

mediated experience. In fact, when we hold workshops or give

lectures on this topic, this is the number one response that we hear.

“If you have to take a drug to feel love for your partner, how can

that love be real? Isn’t it just an illusion – some kind of pseudo-

love that’s coming from the drug, not you?”

To show our sympathy for this position in the book, we began

by acknowledging that MDMA-inspired ‘love’ can indeed be

inauthentic (as can ‘love’ inspired by other factors, like lust or a

desire to be famous). We then proposed that initial research into

the matter should focus, not on sparking new ‘love’ between

relative strangers, but on maintaining or restoring “an existing

bond – one that is already founded on an authentic connection

between partners.”23 After all, we reasoned, if you are currently “in

a relationship with someone, and you have had time to consider

your shared values, the strengths and weaknesses of your

partnership, and the pros and cons of trying to improve your

relationship with or without drug-assisted psychotherapy, then

there would be less risk of making unrealistic or inauthentic

23 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 95.

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decisions.”24 We argued that under such conditions, any apparent

insights into yourself or your relationship that might be facilitated

by an MDMA-assisted therapy session would have a better chance

of being genuine, rather than illusory.

To see how this might work, imagine that you decide to go to

therapy – albeit traditional ‘talk’ therapy without the use of any

drugs. Your goal is to become a better partner within your

romantic relationship. Suppose that, by working through various

hang-ups, confronting childhood traumas, disarming unhelpful

defense mechanisms, and learning to take your partner’s

perspective more seriously, your relationship undergoes a positive

transformation. Now suppose that your friends say, approvingly,

“You seem like a completely different person!”25

In such a case, we argued, although major changes would have

occurred, both to yourself and to the relationship, these changes

wouldn’t necessarily be inauthentic.26 In fact, if anything, you might

come to believe that your defense mechanisms, childhood traumas,

and so on, were impediments to authenticity, and that the therapy

24 Ibid. As we go on to say, however, “Even if a relationship starts with an

inauthentic falling-in-love, an authentic love may still develop over time as

shared interactions, conversations, and experiences combine to build a unique

foundation.”

25 There is an analogous phenomenon in some cases of deep-brain stimulation,

where a person may undergo major, albeit positive, changes, and see themselves

as having ‘finally grown into their true self’ rather than as occupying a

technologically-mediated (hence) inauthentic identity (Nyholm and O’Neill

2016; Tobia 2016).

26 We were drawing on some other work of ours in which we found that positive

changes to a person’s moral character were less likely to be seen as disruptive to

their identity than negative changes, whether or not a drug or medication was

involved (Earp et al. 2019).

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helped you get in touch with your true self.27 Likewise, we

suggested, “if you started feeling and acting more loving toward

your partner”28 as a result of the same therapeutic experience, these

feelings and behaviors should not be dismissed as inauthentic

simply because they are different from what you felt or expressed

before.

As a final step – based on the extensive research we reviewed

in the chapter – we argued that MDMA, when administered by a

trained professional in an appropriately supportive context, seems

to facilitate the typical aims and intended outcomes of classical ‘talk’

therapy. In other words, rather than inducing inauthentic thoughts

or behaviors, it seems to enhance the therapeutic process as it is

traditionally conceived. For example, by temporarily disabling hair-

trigger fear responses to traumatic memories which a person would

otherwise avoid, or be unwilling to verbalize, MDMA can help a

person finally deal with the trauma rather than indefinitely suppress

it. So, we proposed, if ‘traditional’ therapy can induce changes in a

person or relationship that are not necessarily inauthentic, and if

MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can help to facilitate those very

same sorts of changes, the latter should not be assumed to be

inauthentic, simply because a drug was involved.

Referring to this argument, Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck

raise what they describe as a “counterargument to the idea that

drug induced loving behavior should be seen as authentic.”29 They

ask us to suppose that a drunk person at a bar is flirting with

27 For present purposes, we are not committing ourselves to any particular view

of what a person’s ‘true self’ might be, or whether there is such a thing. For

recent work on the concept of a true self in ordinary language, see De Freitas et

al. 2018; Newman, Bloom, and Knobe 2014; Newman, De Freitas, and Knobe

2015; Strohminger, Knobe, and Newman 2017.

28 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 97.

29 From Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck 2020, 71.

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someone, so that, in the moment, the flirter starts to feel and act

“more lovingly” towards the object of their flirtation. One could

argue, they say, that the drug in this example – namely, alcohol –

“has helped to reveal the flirter’s authentic love.” But they caution

that the momentary “lovely behavior” of the flirter is not in fact

enough to prove this. Rather, other factors would also need to be

taken into consideration, such as: “Is the supposedly authentic love

of the flirter reliable? Is the flirter really focusing on you or are you

just another passerby on [whom] the flirter can focus their feelings

and behavior? And how do the two of you relate to each other?

What is socially expected of the both of you in this moment? How

do the social groups to which you belong relate to each other?”30

These are all good questions, at least some of which, we agree,

would need to be asked and answered in order to meaningfully

evaluate the flirter’s supposed love. In fact, we made a similar point

in the book. As we noted in our own discussion of alcohol-fueled

flirting, which we framed as a mutual interaction, it might well turn

out that the parties “have nothing in common and this becomes

obvious” once they are sober. “Context matters,” we stressed. For

example, “your mind-set, the setting, the other people involved,

and a whole lot else have to coincide and interact in the right

way.”31

In any case, the drunk flirter scenario raised by

Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck is not a “counterargument” to

our example of MDMA-assisted therapy for already-established

couples – i.e., couples who, as we wrote, will have had time to

consider their shared values, reflect on their goals, and so on.

Perhaps the scenario was meant to support a different point,

then? Although Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck do not make the

connection explicit, they seem to be thinking of the drunk flirter

when they make the following claim: “When one wants to know

30 Ibid.

31 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 63.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

111

whether X loves Y, it is important but not enough to ask X. Nor

does it suffice to observe (the absence of) X’s behavior. One needs

to pay attention to the interactions between X and Y, as well as to

the social norms that guide that interaction.”32

As we alluded to earlier, we do not disagree with any of this.

However, Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck seem to suggest that

we do in fact hold those very views. In other words, they seem to

suggest that, according to us, judgments about whether love exists

in a given case can be made by simply asking one of the parties

involved and/or observing their behavior, without needing to take

into account the interpersonal dynamics or the background social

norms. Unfortunately, this is a serious misrepresentation of our

view. Accordingly, we have prepared a separate Appendix at the

end of the article to explain in detail what Spreeuwenberg and

Schaubroeck get wrong about our concept of love, so that we can

use this part of the reply to address more substantive philosophical

issues.

Love as attention?

One such issue concerns the view of love put forward by

Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck, framed as an alternative to our

own. Drawing on some of their own past work, Spreeuwenberg

and Schaubroeck argue that love should be seen, not as a

psychological condition or set of behaviors (a view they wrongly

attribute to us), but rather as a socially situated practice (a view we

endorse and emphasize throughout the book). In particular, they

adopt an Iris Murdoch-inspired account, according to which love

is fundamentally about how one opens up to the world and focuses

one’s attention on others in a loving way.

32 Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck 2020, 72-73.

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This is not the sense of love-as-practice we explore in the book,

on which more below, but we appreciate Murdoch’s writings and

are happy to entertain this perspective. However, we wondered if

there might be a tension between this Murdoch-inspired account

of love and the argument of Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck that

love cannot be identified solely with reference to the perspective

of a single individual. To see this, consider what they say about

love as attention: “Looking, attending, and focusing one’s attention

all takes place in the inner life. Hence [we] can love someone from

afar, we can love someone without them knowing, and we can even

love the dead.”33 We found these claims difficult to reconcile with

the rest of their argument. If I can love someone from afar, without

them knowing, then it seems that love does not depend on the

interactions between two or more people and that it can be

analyzed from the perspective of a single individual: it is a matter

of how the individual uses their attention.

As we wrote in the book, we are open to a range of theoretical

accounts of the metaphysics of love, so long as they are compatible

with the idea that love has at least two dimensions: one biological

and one psychosocial/historical (see Appendix). As far as we can

tell, there is nothing about this Murdoch-style account of love as

attention that is inconsistent with that basic insight. Presumably,

our attention, as well as our ability to attend to certain things in

certain ways, is influenced both by biological and psychosocial

factors. One potential way of harmonizing our account with that

of Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck, then, would be to explore

some of the ways in which chemical substances might affect our

loving attention, both in desirable and undesirable ways. However,

Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck do not engage in such

exploration. Instead, they write that “Love is getting to know an

33 Ibid., 77.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

113

individual” (including from afar? without them knowing?) and

conclude that this process is “not something that can easily be

fixed by merely looking at the ‘chemicals between us.’”34

This last part is ostensibly a reference to us. However we did

not argue, nor suggest, that the challenge of getting to know a

person – or indeed any other complex interpersonal project or

phenomenon – can “easily be fixed” by “merely” looking at

romantic neurochemistry. In fact, we were at pains to argue for the

exact opposite position throughout the book, starting with the first

chapter: “at no point do we advocate the use of biotechnology as

a quick fix for relationship troubles.” Instead, we make clear that

“we consider the voluntary use of biochemical agents in conjunction

with psychotherapy, social support, and other established strategies

as a way to help people achieve their relationship goals.”35

Situating the ethics of love drugs and anti-love drugs

Now we can talk a bit about the ethics. As Spreeuwenberg and

Schaubroeck point out, in order to evaluate whether the use of a

biotechnology really is sufficiently ‘voluntary’ to avoid certain

concerns about coercion, it is important not to rely on a “fantasy

of autonomy that many do not experience.” As they correctly note,

autonomy “is not a moral good that is equally available for every

person in real life. Choices are always made in a social context.”36

We agree. In fact, we made that same point in our book. We

wrote that the “cool-headed rationality” that is widely thought to

34 Ibid.

35 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 12-13, emphasis added.

36 From Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck 2020, 83.

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be required for a choice to be meaningfully voluntary37 may not be

“all that common in real-life medical decision-making, and may

even be a myth.” In real life, we wrote, “people make their

decisions about therapy or other healthcare in a fog of desperation,

confusion, and stress, while balancing all sorts of competing

interests, from their own pain, discomfort, and fears to those of

others.” We go on to state: “Romantic relationships may involve

all of these pressures and more. Adding drugs to the mix will only

make things more complicated. It will be crucial to get a handle on

actual power dynamics and shifting contextual factors when

bringing drugs into romantic relationships.”38

For example, when evaluating a wife’s decision to take an anti-

love drug to help her leave a bad relationship, Spreeuwenberg and

Schaubroeck suggest that we should ask whether she has

alternatives, what her exit options are, and if she could be

financially independent. Those are great questions. In fact, we

raised those very same questions in the book: “many people who

are in abusive relationships seem to believe they cannot leave them,

not because they have some kind of emotional attachment to their

abuser but because they are financially or otherwise economically

dependent on their partner. They may also be afraid of putting

their children in danger by leaving.”39

Finally, Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck stress that women

and men, on average, have an “unequal division of moral-cum-

social goods.”40 We agree with this, and we stressed this point as

37 In other work, we explore assisted decision-making for people whose

autonomy may not fit the rational stereotype implied by this language (e.g. Earp

and Grunt-Mejer 2021; Earp 2019).

38 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 120.

39 Ibid., 141.

40 From Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck 2020, 83.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

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well. For example, when considering arguments about whether a

couple should stay together for the sake of their children, we noted

that “women are usually expected to do the lion’s share of

childcare, typically without compensation or even decent social

assistance. This means that ‘do it for the children’-type arguments

tend to have asymmetrical implications for mothers versus fathers,

assuming a heterosexual couple.”41

Love as practice redux

Earlier we alluded to the fact that, like Spreeuwenberg and

Schaubroeck, we agree that love should be seen as a practice. We

also noted that, in the book, we don’t officially come down in favor

of any single normative account of love (although we do explore

various accounts, such as the care-based one we described in our

response to Arrell). That being said, we come pretty close to

endorsing the view of Erich Fromm, whom we quote in our

epigraph.42 According to Fromm, love is an art – or practice –

which requires agency, discipline, and effort. It is not something

that just happens to one, but is rather something one must work

on, in collaboration with one’s partner or partners, so as to actively

maintain or improve it. Near the end of the book, we ask: “What

if to love is to practice an art, as Fromm argued, which requires

conscious effort and discipline, as well as knowledge and therefore

understanding? What if knowing how love works, in other words,

right down to [i.e., including] the chemicals between us, could help

us be better at being in love?”43

Given the context, these questions translate as follows: What if

we could use a richer understanding of love that includes not only

41 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 79.

42 See Fromm 1956.

43 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 188.

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116

its psychosocial dimensions, as we discuss in the book, but also its

biological dimensions – only recently beginning to be revealed – to

make more fully-informed decisions about how best to ‘practice’

love with our partners?

Importantly, we stress that this will always be a context-

sensitive, couple-specific decision, and that neurochemical

interventions into love will often not be prudent or even ethical all

things considered. To explore these ethical issues further, we turn

now to the commentary by Allen Buchanan.

III

Regulating love drugs: Reply to Buchanan

Buchanan writes that he finds himself in a “difficult (and

unaccustomed) position: I agree with almost everything in a book

upon which I have been asked to comment.”44 As tempted as we

are to embrace this endorsement from one of our most

distinguished colleagues – and move right on – for the sake a

continued dialogue, we will instead home in on his one point of

substantive criticism. In a nutshell, Buchanan argues that we are

too cautious and conservative in drawing ethical boundaries

around the use of drugs in romantic relationships.

Buchanan begins by noting that, throughout the book, we

emphasize the limits of our proposal. We are not suggesting that

couples should run out and start experimenting with MDMA or

‘magic’ mushrooms, even if it becomes legal to do so; instead, we

call for research into MDMA and psychedelic-assisted

psychotherapy for couples in a controlled environment, building

on the research that has been done so far in individuals.

44 From Buchanan 2020, 61.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

117

Further, even assuming that the proposed couples-based

research yields promising results, we maintain that it would be

prudent to use MDMA or psychedelics for purposes of

relationship enhancement only under the guidance of an

appropriately trained therapist. In this way, risks would be

minimized, benefits maximized, and any drug-inspired insights

more likely to be properly integrated into ordinary waking

consciousness, as well as implemented in the couple’s habits and

plans. However, according to Buchanan, nothing in the actual

argumentation of our book “warrants this blanket constraint.”45

He continues:

It might be plausible to argue that in the case of chemical

interventions whose efficacy and safety are not well-confirmed,

there is a strong presumption that their use should be a last

resort, to be undertaken only after various more traditional

interventions have proved unsuccessful. But if a chemical

intervention has been shown to be effective and safe and if a

competent individual consents to its use under conditions of

informed consent, using it without any accompanying

nonchemical treatment will sometimes not only be permissible,

but even morally mandatory.46

Some clarifying remarks may be in order. First, a word about

the state of the evidence. As we were writing this response to the

commentaries, the very first study on MDMA-assisted ‘conjoint’

therapy for couples, in which one of the partners has been

diagnosed with PTSD, was published in a peer-reviewed journal.47

It was an open-label, unblinded, uncontrolled trial with only six

45 Ibid., 62.

46 Ibid.

47 See Monson et al. 2020.

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couples, with both partners in each couple administered MDMA

in two therapeutic sessions.

Moreover, as of writing, there have been no scientific studies,

controlled or otherwise, on couples in which neither partner has a

diagnosable mental problem, which is a further step that would

need to be taken before drug-assisted couples therapy for

enhancement purposes – as opposed to treatment-only purposes –

would start to have a direct-evidence base.

Nevertheless, we are glad to see this recent research. We think

it is incredibly important work, and it is exactly the sort of

relationship-oriented science we call for in our book. The results

seem auspicious, too: “there were significant improvements in

clinician-assessed, patient-rated, and partner-rated PTSD

symptoms … as well as patient depression, sleep, emotion

regulation, and trauma-related beliefs.” In addition, and here’s the

highlight for us, “there were significant improvements in patient

and partner-related relationship adjustment and happiness.”48

So, good. More of this. But in the meantime, the antecedent of

Buchanan’s conditional claim – “if a chemical intervention has

been shown to be effective and safe” – has not yet been fulfilled in

the case of drug-assisted interventions into relationships, especially

not for purposes of enhancement.

Now, Buchanan might object that we are splitting hairs. For

individuals, at least, as we review in detail in the book, both

MDMA and psychedelics have already been shown49 to be safe and

effective (or at least efficacious), both in people dealing with PTSD

among other conditions, as well as in so-called ‘healthy normals’ –

48 From Monson et al. 2020, 1.

49 We hesitate to use the word ‘shown’ in a definitive way, for Popperian reasons

we discuss elsewhere (Earp 2020). All the usual caveats apply.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

119

certainly when compared to many existing medications that are

regularly prescribed within psychiatry.50 Why should it be any

different for couples? In other words, why is further evidence of

safety and/or effectiveness required to fulfill Buchanan’s

antecedent premise?

We have two responses. First, we would qualify the above

assertions regarding safety and effectiveness for individuals, rather

heavily, as follows: “both MDMA and psychedelics [administered

at the right dose, by a trained therapist, in an enclosed, peaceful

setting, in the context of a well-established therapeutic protocol,

drug purity having been assured, with medical staff on hand to

monitor vital signs and be alert to any potential problems] have

been shown [physiologically] safe and effective [or rather,

efficacious, at reducing the symptoms of some well-defined

psychiatric disorders and/or increasing certain positive traits and

behaviors, such as resilience and psychological flexibility], in

[appropriately pre-screened and adequately prepared] individuals

[over the course of the study period, in some but not all cases with

long-term follow-up].”

Second, when it comes to effectiveness – in the case of couples

seeking to improve their relationship – we have to ask ourselves,

effective at what? The recent conjoint therapy study used

something called the Couples Satisfaction Index (CSI),51

a

reasonably well-validated measure of relational well-being. So,

‘increasing CSI scores’ is one plausible answer. But robustly

assessing interpersonal outcomes of these and other drugs is the

exception rather than the rule. More work, both empirical and

conceptual, is needed to assess the effects of the drugs along other

relational dimensions, as we argued in our response to Arrell.

50 See, for example: Feduccia et al. 2019; Romeo et al. 2020.

51 See Funk and Rogge 2007.

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Okay, Buchanan might say, suppose we get some high-quality

evidence that MDMA and psychedelics – ingested outside of a

therapeutic context, with greater uncertainty around dosing and

drug purity, less control over the environment, no medical staff on

hand to step in if there are problems, etc. – are safe and effective

(along relevant dimensions). Then if a competent individual or

couple consents to use these drugs without any accompanying

nonchemical treatments, might this then be permissible and even

desirable?

Perhaps. But now the argument starts to look a little strange.

First, we don’t have that kind evidence right now, and it isn’t clear

exactly how we could get it.52 After all, the less controlled the

setting of a study, the messier the variables become, and the harder

it is to interpret the evidence. Moreover, in the case of MDMA and

psychedelics in particular, ‘set and setting’ are absolutely central to

the outcomes, whether positive or negative.53 Loss of control over

the therapeutic parameters, therefore, both in preparing the user

for the experience (set) and ensuring an appropriate environment

(setting), means sacrificing a major part of what allows us to say,

insofar as we can, that these drugs are ‘safe and effective’ in the

first place.

Second, if the moral permissibility of using MDMA or

psychedelics turns on a competent individual giving informed

consent, it is not clear why the drugs would need to have been

shown safe and effective, whether in a clinical-like setting or out in

the wild. After all, in a liberal moral regime, competent individuals

are entitled to do all sorts of potentially (or actually) unsafe things,

52 One possibility is that observational studies could be pursued in semi-

controlled environments, such as retreat centers in jurisdictions where the drugs

have already been decriminalized.

53 See Yaden and Griffiths 2020.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

121

from smoking cigarettes to playing extreme sports, so long as they

don’t harm anyone else or violate others’ rights. So, there is

perhaps a libertarian argument to be made here for something like

“pharmaceutical freedom,”54

but that doesn’t appear to be

Buchanan’s position.

In other recent work, we – actually, all three of us, Buchanan

included – have called for the immediate decriminalization and

subsequent staged legal regulation of so-called ‘recreational’ drugs,

that is, all drugs currently deemed to be illicit for personal use or

possession.55 In effect, we call for an end to the War on Drugs. But

although there is now a wide consensus that decriminalization

should be pursued alongside increased healthcare access and

concomitant harm-reduction measures (the so-called Portugal

model), the legalization of drugs for personal use is much more

controversial. Moreover, even among those who support

legalization in one form or another, there is ample disagreement

about complex policy questions concerning which regulatory

levers should be pulled in which ways for which drugs under which

conditions. We decided against opening that can of worms in the

book.

But suppose these drugs are legally regulated in the reasonably

near future,56 so that couples can access them without too much

difficulty, and without worrying about breaking the law. We are

fine with saying that, so long as the participants are competent

adults making a sufficiently well-informed decision, it would be

54 See, for example, Flanigan 2017.

55 See Earp et al. 2021.

56 As of writing, the U.S. state of Oregon has in fact begun the process of

legalizing MDMA and psychedelics for therapeutic use as well as ‘personal

development’ in controlled, clinic-like settings, under the supervision of a

properly trained guide (Acker 2020). This is the sort of model we are currently

prepared to endorse.

Philosophy and Public Issues – Enhancing Love?

122

permissible for them to use the drugs. On that point, we agree with

Buchanan. Whether it would be prudent for them to do so, however,

is an open question, and it will depend on the details of their

situation. That is, it will depend on such factors as: what is going

on in their relationship, what do they hope to accomplish, how well

have they educated themselves about the drugs and their potential

effects, what setting have they chosen for the experience, how

much mental and emotional ‘prep work’ have they done,

individually and together, and so on.

Nevertheless, we see Buchanan’s commentary as opening the

door to an important conversation: the next frontier of the love

drugs debate. We won’t be stuck in clinical trials forever. At some

point, these drugs are going to leave the lab. The question now is,

who should have access to the drugs, with which restrictions, and

how is all this going to be managed – from a public policy and

public health perspective – so that the prospective benefits not just

at the level of the individual or couple, but also at the level of the

whole society, outweigh the potential harms.57

57 In his thought-provoking commentary, Buchanan also raises the issue of using

MDMA and psychedelics for purposes of moral enhancement, to deal with such

things as political polarization and toxic tribalism. Although we do not have

space to respond to this interesting proposal here, we are sympathetic to

Buchanan’s perspective. Indeed, we have explored the prospect of ‘psychedelic

moral enhancement’ in other work (Earp 2018; Earp, Douglas, and Savulescu

2017).

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

123

IV

Individual benefits and social harms:

Will love drugs lead to incest? Reply to Garasic

We turn at last to the commentary by Garasic. Garasic starts by

quoting the end of our first chapter, where we state that the goal

of the book is to “arm you [the reader] with the latest knowledge

and a set of ethical tools you can use to decide for yourself whether

love drugs – or anti-love drugs – should be a part of our society.”58

To Garasic, this quote implies that we think the ethics of love-

altering drugs starts and ends with each individual deciding for

themselves what is good or bad, permissible or impermissible, and

acting accordingly. By contrast, Garasic argues, “relying too much

on autonomous, individual choices might not be the best way to

go for both individuals and society.”59 To illustrate this risk,

Garasic notes that the apparently individually rational use of a

biotechnology may, in the aggregate, have disturbing society-wide

implications (a point we highlight and discuss at length in Chapter

11). For example, he suggests that the rational use of love drugs by

individuals may, at the level of society, result in such troubling

outcomes as a weakening of the taboo against incest between adult

siblings.

We found the incest argument hard to follow. Nevertheless, we

will try to reconstruct it in the following sub-section and reply to it

at least in part. Here, however, we would like to express our

agreement with Garasic that relying “too much” on autonomous,

individual choices – in whatever domain – is by definition not ideal.

It is similarly not ideal to rely “too much” on collectivist, group

58 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 15.

59 From Garasic 2020, 30.

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choices, or on too much of anything. It depends on the context,

who is involved, what is at stake, and additional factors.

That is why we gave a lengthy argument, in Chapter 5, for

autonomy as one ethical value among others, stressing that it

should be paramount in some circumstances (for example, when a

person decides to leave a toxic relationship, even if this may

conflict with perceived social obligations), but limited in others (for

example, when concerns about justice or community survival are

at stake). We also drew on the work of feminist philosophers such

as Carol Gilligan and Eva Feder Kittay, stating that “ethics is not

just about me, me, me.” Instead, we wrote, “we are all dependent

on others, to a greater or lesser extent, at different phases of our

lives and in different situations. Our ability to be autonomous at

all presumes that we have been cared for in a social environment

and provided with opportunities to develop our capacities.”60

In saying, therefore, that we wanted to equip readers with the

tools to think through the ethics of romantic biotechnology for

themselves, we were not thereby suggesting that the analysis could

be reduced to whatever each individual concluded. Far from it. We

were saying something much more mundane and almost entirely

unrelated. Something like this: “We, the authors, do not have all

the answers, and it is not our job to tell you what to think. Instead,

we are going to present some arguments for different views so that

you can evaluate the reasons and evidence in favor of one

perspective versus another. Ultimately, our goal is to empower you

to engage in bioethical reasoning of your own.”

Then, throughout the book, we refer to diverse stakeholders –

beyond individual readers – who will need to be involved in this

unfolding discussion. Indeed, our project is framed as a call to

public conversation. For example, in our chapter on anti-love

60 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 78.

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125

drugs, we write that such drugs could bring both benefits and

harms. We state that, although we have tried to think through some

of the main ethical factors involved, both at the individual and

social-structural levels, “this is only the beginning of the

conversation.”61 We then quote a colleague who notes that

“policymakers, doctors, and individuals will all have to make

judgments about the value of such drugs in various kinds of real-

world situations.”62

Elsewhere, we stress that ethical dilemmas concerning emerging

biotechnologies “cannot be resolved in an academic vacuum.” To

the contrary, we state, “a much wider debate is taking place in

society over what sorts of values we should hold in the first place

with respect to things like love, sex, and relationships.” We write

that “this broader conversation – between the insights of

progressivism and the insights of conservatism, as well as between

the forces of secularism and the forces of religion – will continue

to shape the moral ends toward which human beings collectively

and individually strive.” At the most fundamental level, we say, the

question for society is “how can we use new technologies for good

rather than ill, while simultaneously trying to reach a functional

consensus on what sorts of things actually are good or ill in the

first place?”63

Later, we state that “societies, through their policymakers

[should] consider medical interventions as complements to social

and political change, rather than as replacements … individual-

biological and social-structural factors interact with each other in

important ways.”64 We could go on, but the point has been made.

We do not suggest, and in fact repeatedly argue against the view,

61 Ibid., 147.

62 Ibid. Quoting McArthur 2013, 24.

63 All quotes in this paragraph from Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 170.

64 Ibid., 186.

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126

that the ethics of love drugs and anti-love drugs can be exhausted

by appeals to individual autonomy.

We turn now to Garasic’s argument about incest.

Will love drugs lead to incest?

The first thing to say about Garasic’s commentary, entitled

“Love in the Posthuman World,”65 is that it does not specifically

engage with the arguments we made in the book. Instead, it seems

to use the hypothetical idea of a ‘love drug’ that works nothing like

the substances we discuss, used in ways we explicitly reject, to

speculate about a ‘posthuman’ future that falls outside the scope

of our analysis. Nevertheless, we will try to convey the gist of his

argument and respond to it in part, mostly to show how his

discussion is either unrelated to, or expressly incompatible with,

the proposals we defend in the book.

Garasic puts forward the following thesis: “embracing love

drugs that could help us choose to love anyone, combined with the

possibility [of using] other advancements in medicine such as

Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) [could] ‘tempt’ us to

break one of the most shared global taboos: incest.”66 Noting that

we do not discuss PGD in the book and that we argue against the

idea that love drugs, as we conceive them, either could67 or should68

65 The subtitle is: “How Neurointerventions Could Impact on Our Societal

Values.”

66 From Garasic 2020, 30.

67 See Chapter 4 of the book for an in-depth discussion.

68 For example, in our chapter on MDMA, we argue that the drug should

preferably be used with already-established couples with an authentic

connection who have determined that their relationship is worth maintaining,

all things considered (see our response to Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck,

above).

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

127

be used to help individuals “choose to love anyone,” let us now try

to reproduce the ‘incest’ argument. It seems to proceed as follows:

(1) Exceptionally wealthy (‘rich’) people tend to be highly

motivated to preserve and consolidate their status and power in

society, as well as that of their offspring. In any case, it is

individually rational for rich people to try to do this.69 Let’s call

this their ‘goal’ for short.

(2) In order for rich people to maximize their goal, they must

only marry – and reproduce with – other similarly-rich people,

while trying to keep their wealth, as it were, ‘all in the family.’70

(3) The existing taboo against incest, even for (apparently)

consenting adults, presents a barrier to rich people maximizing

their goal. For example, it is currently considered a taboo for a rich

brother and sister to marry and reproduce with each other, thereby

limiting their romantic prospects and making it harder to keep

their wealth ‘all in the family.’ From now on, we will consider only

incest between consenting adult siblings.71

(4) Suppose that some sort of advanced medical technology

could be used to eliminate the genetic risks associated with

reproductive incest between siblings.72 In that case, the only73

remaining variables stopping rich siblings from marrying and

reproducing with each other (i.e., doing what Garasic suggests is

69 From Garasic 2020, 34.

70 Paraphrasing Garasic 2020, 34.

71 Garasic uses the example of the brother-sister pair ‘Mark’ and ‘Julie’ from

Jonathan Haidt’s well-known studies on moral dumbfounding (Haidt 2001).

72 From Garasic 2020, 36-38.

73 We are assuming Garasic has something like this constraint in mind, otherwise

we don’t see how his argument goes through. After all, one might think that

there are many factors apart from the Westermarck effect and the incest taboo

preventing rich siblings from (wanting to) marry and reproduce with one

another. But if that’s true, the ‘slippery slope’ from research into ‘love drugs’ to

weakening or abandoning the incest taboo gets a lot less slippery.

Philosophy and Public Issues – Enhancing Love?

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individually rational for them to do) would be (a) the taboo against

incest, and (b) the fact that siblings – especially if raised together

– rarely experience sexual feelings for one another or view each

other as potential romantic partners. This is due to something

called the Westermarck effect (described below).

(5) Suppose that rich individuals could use some kind of ‘love

drug’ to reverse the Westermarck effect, thereby enabling or even

causing them to have sexual feelings for, or fall romantically in love

with, their siblings. In that case, only the existing taboo against

incest would prevent them from maximizing their goal. This, in

turn, would incentivize rich people to weaken the taboo against

incest, so that nothing else stood in their way.

(6) Holding everything else in this argument constant, the

availability of a ‘love drug’ that allowed us to “switch on and off

our predisposition to love a certain someone that we would

rationally choose a priori”74 (which for rich people we are

assuming includes their own siblings) would incentivize rich

people to weaken the taboo against incest, in order to maximize

their goal.

(7) Therefore, research into ‘love drugs’ may “lead us to accept

one of the most globally accepted taboos in human history –

incest.”75

We do not find this argument plausible. Before we say why,

however, we will first try to identify some point of connection

between this argument and anything we wrote in our book.

Implying that there may be such a link, Garasic quotes us as

follows: “If we want a society where everyone, or even just most

people, can really flourish in their romantic lives, we should push

for a dominant social script that recognizes and allows for a range

74 From Garasic 2020, 39.

75 Ibid., 33.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

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of relationship norms, so long as these are based on mutual

consent and respect for others.”76

Garasic correctly assumes that “respect for others” does not

mean, as he puts it, simply “sticking to old fashioned (often

religious based) norms in the sexual sphere,”77 since we are

supportive of same-sex relationships. Well then, Garasic

concludes, it must logically follow from the rest of the quoted

material that mutually consensual incest between siblings should

be among the relationship norms that are tolerated within the

dominant social script.

That is not correct. The quote in question comes from a section

of the book in which we discuss ethical non-monogamy or

polyamory as a relationship norm for which there is growing

support in Western societies. We proposed that if this norm were

more widely tolerated, it would allow those who are strongly

disposed to desire physical and emotional intimacy with more than

one partner at a time to pursue this desire in a socially supported

way. We suggested that this, in turn, would likely increase their

ability to flourish without harming or disrespecting others, while

also avoiding any perceived need for heavy-handed suppression of

their seemingly deep-rooted preferences or desires.

To make this point, we drew an analogy with the benefits of

greater social acceptance of gay relationships for those who have a

same-sex sexual orientation: “If homosexuality is natural for some

people – that is, most consistent with their unchosen, innermost,

most stable, hard-to-ignore preferences and desires – then

polyamory is probably natural for some people, too, just as

76 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 43.

77 From Garasic 2020, 25.

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heterosexuality or monogamy may be for others.”78 Although we

acknowledged that something’s being ‘natural’ in this sense is not

sufficient to show it is good or desirable, we gave an extended

argument for why, if various other conditions are met (e.g., no one

is harmed by the concomitant behaviors), societies should adopt

social norms that are compatible with people’s ‘natural’ sexual

orientations.79

How does this map on to incest between siblings? It doesn’t.

First, sibling incest is not ‘natural’ in the above sense; and even if it

were natural, it is not obvious that the other conditions of our

extended argument (regarding lack of harm, etc.) would be met.

Due to the Westermarck effect, virtually nobody has a strong or

innate desire to have sex with their brother or sister, certainly not

one that is analogous to the desire that many people have for

multiple sexual partners or for partners of the same sex. Moreover,

it is implausible that there would ever be a large contingent of ‘rich

siblings’ who were so hell-bent on maximizing their wealth and

privilege – despite all countervailing considerations – that they

would want to use a technology to conjure up such a desire, even

assuming this were scientifically possible (which it isn’t).80

As we wrote in the book, in the late 1800s, the Finnish

anthropologist Edvard Westermarck “observed that people living

in close proximity during the first years of their lives – brothers

and sisters, cousins raised together for arranged marriages,

genetically unrelated kids growing up in tight quarters on Israeli

78 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 42. However, see Earp and Vierra 2018;

Savulescu, Earp, and Sch�klenk 2021.

79 Based on Earp, Sandberg, and Savulescu 2012.

80 Also assuming, implausibly, that society were arranged in such a way that

sibling incest actually would be the best way, all things considered, for them to

achieve such a monomaniacal goal.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

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kibbutzim – become desensitized to each other as potential sexual

partners.”81 The mechanism underlying the Westermarck effect is

not known, but it has been hypothesized to involve olfactory cues.

It leads to a kind of ‘negative sexual imprinting’ whereby a given

individual is tagged as not a potential mate, thereby precluding the

possibility of “romantic feelings for an otherwise eligible

partner.”82

We raised the Westermarck effect in the context of a discussion

about ways in which it might one day be possible to eliminate sexual

feelings for someone in cases where such feelings were

problematic (e.g., pedophilia). Garasic, by contrast, seems to be

thinking of the opposite possibility: some speculative future

technology that might reverse the Westermarck effect so that

siblings – who do not desire to have sex with one another – could

at least potentially find each other sexually attractive. But the

reasons we gave for why societies should consider expanding their

‘scripts’ for acceptable romantic arrangements to accommodate

gay or polyamorous relationships (including the existence of large

groups of people who seem naturally disposed to desire such

relationships) do not apply to incestuous relationships between

adult siblings.83

We also take issue with Garasic’s characterization of a ‘love

drug’ as something that would allow us to “switch on and off our

predisposition to love a certain someone.”84 We went out of our

81 Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 128.

82 Ibid., 129.

83 Of course, even if there were a large number of people who ‘naturally’ wanted

to have sex with their siblings, this wouldn’t entail that society would have an

all-things-considered good reason to accommodate such relationships. For an

in-depth discussion of multiple reasons why moral norms and laws against adult

consensual incest are reasonable and even necessary to secure certain special

goods of family life, see McKeever forthcoming.

84 From Garasic 2020, 39.

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way to make clear that this is not how we think of love drugs, that

there are no such technologies, and that it is unlikely that there ever

will be. For example, in Chapter 4 we argued that “most real-life

biochemical interventions into love and relationships, both now

and in the future [will not work like] magic potions [that can]

instantly transform your entire inner life, making you fall out of

love in a heartbeat with your spouse of thirty years, or in love, for

that matter, with every pizza guy who shows up at your door.”85

We go on to quote the anthropologist Helen Fisher:

As you grow up, you build a conscious (and unconscious) list

of traits that you are looking for in a mate. . . . Drugs can’t change

[this] mental template. Altering brain chemistry can [influence]

your basic feelings. But it can’t direct those feelings. Mate choice

is governed by complex interactions between our myriad

experiences, as well as our biology. In short, if someone set you

up with [someone you are not ultimately compatible with], no

“slipped pharmaceutical love potion” is going to make you love

him.86

“In other words,” as we put it, “the most likely scenario for the

foreseeable future, even as neuroscience progresses, will be more

or less powerful loadings of the dice – not sorcery.”87

Final thought

As we said, we agree with Garasic that individually rational

behavior may lead to wider social harms. We make that argument

ourselves over the course of several pages, using detailed case

85 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 54.

86 From Fisher 2016, 318-319.

87 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 55.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

133

studies, in Chapter 11. We also agree that individual autonomy is

not the be-all and end-all of ethical analysis. We argue for that

position, too, at multiple points throughout the book. While

Garasic’s argument about incest is certainly interesting, it strikes us

as unrealistic, and it unfortunately relies on a conception of ‘love

drugs’ that bears little resemblance to the one we adopted in our

work. Nevertheless, we are grateful for the opportunity to clarify

our position on these and other matters.

Conclusion

We will conclude by going back to where we started, to the

commentary by Arrell. Arrell writes that our book, in some ways,

feels “like the culmination of a fascinating philosophical debate the

authors set in motion more than a decade ago about the prospects

of using biotechnology to enhance love.” In other ways, though,

“the book marks a new beginning, which will hopefully see their

work break new ground and bring these ideas to wider audiences

than ever before.”88

We appreciate this way of framing things, as it reflects our

mission for the book. We wanted, in the first place, not only to

summarize our arguments from the past ten years or so, but to

systematically respond to our critics, acknowledging their

important insights and updating our conclusions along the way.

Readers, then, who are only familiar with our work on love drugs

from our early published papers may be surprised to see that we

have changed our minds about certain things and expanded our

perspective in various ways.

But we also wanted to bring this conversation out of the ivory

tower and into the public domain. Love drugs are no longer

88 From Arrell 2020, 45.

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theoretical, and the mandate to develop a socially responsible,

ethical policy to handle them can no longer be delayed. In the

book, we explore some of the most pressing philosophical and

ethical questions raised by these emerging biotechnologies, but we

have still only scratched the surface. As individuals, as partners,

and as members of society, we must all work together to decide

how this story should unfold.

Appendix

Did we fail to include a socio-historical dimension in our

notion of love? Further response to

Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck

In the course of their commentary, Spreeuwenberg and

Schaubroeck make a surprising number of false or misleading

statements about our concept of love, ranging from apparent

logical mistakes to more substantive errors and even fundamental

mischaracterizations. An overarching theme of their critique is that

we seem to treat love, not as a socially and historically situated

practice (our actual view) but rather as an individual-level

psychological condition or set of behaviors. In this Appendix, we

will address just a few of their most problematic assertions.

Love as a set of behaviors?

Let us start with the idea that, on our view, the existence of love

can be directly inferred from the presence or absence of certain

behaviors. For example, Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck attribute

to us the following claim: “displaying loving behaviors (like

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

135

wanting sex, sharing emotions) is sufficient to conclude there is

love.”89

That is incorrect. Unfortunately, Spreeuwenberg and

Schaubroeck seem to have mixed up the logical concept of a

sufficiency condition with that of a necessity condition, leading

them to seriously misrepresent our view. In the book, we made an

if-then argument about a feature of relationships that some people

regard as a necessary – not sufficient – condition for romantic love.

Specifically, we wrote that if one sees sexual desire, under certain

conditions, as a necessary feature of romantic love, then a drug that

removes such desire under the specified conditions would change

something often seen to distinguish romantic from so-called

platonic forms of love.90 It is therefore erroneous to conclude that

we “believe that if a drug makes you want sex, share emotions or

makes you want to behave in certain ways, then this is enough to

say that you love.” 91

Now consider the notion that a lack of love can be directly

inferred from the absence of certain behaviors. Here,

Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck not only incorrectly attribute this

claim to us, but they also suggest that we advanced the claim

without any argument: “the inference that there is no love when

there is no loving behavior needs an argument … without

argument the inference relies on an implicit normative

understanding of what love is.”92

Part of this criticism we found helpful. It suggests that, like

Arrell (see main text), Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck took us to

be referring to loving or caring behavior that might be diminished

89 From Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck 2020, 71.

90 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 61.

91 From Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck 2020, 71.

92 Ibid.

Philosophy and Public Issues – Enhancing Love?

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by a drug, when what we had in mind was a caring disposition (i.e.,

something that typically results in such behavior but is not identical

to it). So, it seems that we were not as clear about that distinction

as we might have hoped, and we are glad to have the chance to set

the record straight.

Another part of the criticism we found puzzling, however. The

authors seem to imply that we failed to argue for the claim that a

drug could alter love, so that our inference to that effect must have

been based on an “implicit” premise. That is not the case. Instead,

the normative understanding of love we invoked in this passage of

the book was prominently identified and used to ground a simple

modus ponens. In reduced form, we argued as follows:

Normative premise: Assume that love requires care.93

Conditional statement: If love requires care and a drug can

alter care, then a drug can alter love.94

Empirical claim: A drug can alter care.95

Conclusion: A drug can alter love.96

Now, it is conceivable that our presentation of this argument

was simply so convoluted that Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck

were not able to follow it. But that seems unlikely: in his

commentary, Arrell had no trouble reproducing the argument in

just a couple of lines, complete with its normative premise:

“Assuming that ‘true love … requires genuinely caring about (and

93 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 59, second paragraph of the section “Love

or something lesser.”

94 Ibid., 60, third full paragraph.

95 Ibid., first paragraph.

96 Ibid., third full paragraph.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

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trying to promote) the other person’s well-being’ [and] that being

on SSRIs [makes it so] that you don’t care about your partner’s

feelings, Earp and Savulescu’s argument looks about as watertight

as they come.”97 Of course, Arrell goes on to question certain

aspects of the argument, as we saw – in particular, he questions the

conditional claim – but whether we actually made an argument was

not at issue.

Love as socio-historical

Now we get to the more substantial misrepresentations.

Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck suggest that we failed to consider

such basic issues as the “historically contingent” social norms that

guide the interactions between lovers, or the “socially embedded”

values that shape dominant understandings of what ‘counts’ as love

in a given context.98 As Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck state, it is

“remarkable that [Earp and Savulescu] do not bring that social

dimension into their notion of love.”99

We agree that it would be remarkable, indeed, scandalous, if we

had failed to consider such important historical and social aspects

of love in our book. But in fact we centered those aspects in our

account of love, while also drawing out and exploring their

implications for – among other things – the very issues just

mentioned. Here are some examples:

* In Chapter 1, when first explaining how we will conceive of

love in the book, we present a ‘dual nature’ theory that we later

explicitly adopt, based on the work of Carrie Jenkins.100 We state

97 From Arrell 2020, 53.

98 From Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck 2020, 73. As they put it, the widely

held “correctness conditions” for applying the term ‘love’ to a relationship.

99 From Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck 2020, 72.

100 See Jenkins 2017.

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that, on this view, love has two dimensions, the first of which is

biological and the second of which “is psychosocial and historical.

It speaks to the cultural norms, social pressures, and ideological

constraints that exist at a given place and time and shape how we

think about, experience, and express romantic love in our daily

lives.”101

* The second time we give a theoretical account of love, in

Chapter 2, we explain that “beliefs, norms, and expectations about

love vary from culture to culture and may change over time; these

higher-level factors [can] affect our experiences and conceptions

of love.”102

* We then use an automobile analogy to explain the importance

of including psychosocial factors in any reasonable conception of

love: “Obviously, the way a car runs, including how and where it

moves through space, is not just a matter of internal mechanical

aspects (corresponding to brains and biology in this analogy) …

It’s also shaped by external factors, [like] the presence or absence

of pedestrians, the commands of traffic signals, and arbitrary,

which-side-of-the-road conventions (sociocultural norms and

physical environment).”103

* In the same way, we state, “the course and character of love

is not just a matter of neurochemicals, genes, and so on. Instead,

what love is in a given context is constrained and informed by a

complex set of outside forces that derive from history and society

and interact with individual minds and behavior. These forces

range from prevailing cultural norms and assumptions about love

[to] the explicit categories and language people use to describe

101 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 11-12.

102 Ibid., 20. See also Earp, Sandberg, and Savulescu 2016.

103 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 21.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

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love, to how people make sense of their experiences of love in

terms of those categories and norms.”104

* To illustrate this idea, we use a case study of a lesbian couple

in late-nineteenth century England. Given the historical

circumstances, we say, the lesbian couple’s “feelings for and

commitment to one another – as passionate and sincere and deeply

rooted as they are – might not be recognized as a true form of love

by members of the wider society. This lack of recognition, in turn,

could shape how they conceive of their own relationship, interpret

their own emotions, and behave even when they are alone, all of

which might [also] affect what is happening biochemically between

them.”105

* Over the ensuing pages we give two more extended analogies

– one involving the Mona Lisa and the other involving Star Trek –

both of whose explicit purpose is to explore in depth the complex

relationship between the biological and psychosocial/historical

aspects of love.

* We explain the upshot of this relationship for our thesis:

“Tinkering with biology [is] not the only way to modify love. Its

psychosocial aspects can be tinkered with as well. At a societal

level, people might try to challenge existing narratives about love,

including dominant norms for how love should manifest in

different relationships. [As] these norms and narratives change, so

too will the psychosocial side of love, including what counts as love

in a given social context.”106

* Still in Chapter 2, we stress that “the important point” for

readers to grasp is that “social, psychological, and wider historical

104 Ibid.

105 Ibid., 25. The lesbian couple example originally comes from Jenkins 2017.

106 Ibid., 22.

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factors cannot be discounted.”107 We then quote Lisa Diamond,

who writes: “Calling attention to the biological substrates of love

and desire [does not] imply that biological factors are more

important than cultural factors in shaping these experiences. On

the contrary, research across many disciplines has shown that

human experiences of sexual arousal and romantic love are always

mediated by social, cultural, and interpersonal contexts, and

ignoring these contexts produces a distorted account of human

experience.”108

* At the beginning of Chapter 3, we ask how biology and social

factors might conflict in modern relationships. Noting that it

depends on the type of relationship, we ask: “What are the

surrounding cultural expectations? What are the values of the

partners?” We go on to discuss monogamy, which we describe as

taken for granted in the prevailing social script for long-term

relationships in many societies. “But is this a good script?” It

depends, we say, “on the community, the couple, their beliefs and

values, the wider context, and many other factors.” We then

explore some of those factors in detail.109

* Later in the chapter, we criticize the idea that natural equals

good: “we need to be careful. What is natural for our species can

be maddeningly hard to disentangle from deep-seated cultural

expectations and psychological training. It is quite possible to feel

that something is ‘natural’ when really it’s been drilled into our

heads through oppressive socialization from when we were

young.”110

107 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 22.

108 From Diamond 2003, 174.

109 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 36.

110 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 41.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

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We could go on. The point is, Spreeuwenberg and

Schaubroeck are wrong to suggest that we represent love as an

individual-level “psychological condition” (that is, something that

can be meaningfully assessed without reference to interpersonal

dynamics or the background social norms). Rather, as we articulate

– and illustrate – throughout the book, we conceive of love as a

biopsychosocial phenomenon, whose psychosocial dimension

includes the very concepts and theories about love by which it is

commonly understood in a given historical context.

A striking example

Here is a striking example of the disconnect between what we

actually say about love in the book, and what Spreeuwenberg and

Schaubroeck suggest about our view. Consider their claim that

romantic love, as we think of it today, was in some sense ‘invented’

– that is, shaped by a particular set of social norms embedded in

historically contingent institutions and practices.111 Given the

preceding excerpts from the book, it should be clear that we are

sympathetic to this view. In fact, this is our view. However,

Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck suggest otherwise: they ascribe

to us the belief that romantic love, as that notion is currently

understood, must have always existed, having first evolved among

our distant ancestors. In this, they seem to portray us as having a

na�ve, ahistorical, bio-reductive view of love, for which their

commentary stands as a corrective. They warn us that our failure

to pay “close attention to the historical background of romantic

love as we know it, is not without risk.”112

What is going on here? If you look closely, you will see that

Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck have selectively cited, out of

111 From Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck 2020, 78.

112 Ibid., 79.

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context, a pair of sentences from our book, as follows: “Although

you may have heard that romantic love was invented in the West

in the last few hundred years, it wasn’t. It has been around … since

the dawn of our species, ingrained in our very nature.”113 On its

own, such a quotation may seem damning. But here it is in context:

the concept we are after cannot simply pick out a biological

phenomenon, as in theories that reduce love to some kind of

animalistic drive; but nor can it simply refer to a social or

psychological construct or something that exists in a disembodied

soul. Although you may have heard that romantic love was

invented in the West in the last few hundred years, it wasn’t. It has

been around (in one manifestation or another) since the dawn of

our species, ingrained in our very nature. But the particular forms

it has taken – as a result of the diverse ways people have

understood it, reacted to it, molded it, and tried to control it or set

it free – have indeed been different in different places and

throughout different periods of history.114

Right before this material, we had introduced the idea that love

has a dual nature – it is both biological and psychosocial/historical.

Here in the quote, then, we expand on what this means: it means

that a theory of romantic love that reduces it solely to a psychosocial

‘construct’ (i.e., something that could have been invented in the

West in the last few hundred years) is not going to be adequate;

but nor is a theory that reduces it solely to a biological phenomenon

(i.e., an animalistic drive as old as the species). So, when we say that

romantic love has been around “in one manifestation or another

… since the dawn of our species,” we are quite clearly referring to

its biological dimension. In the immediately following sentence,

however, we clarify that – on the psychosocial side – particular

113 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 19.

114 Ibid.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

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practices and understandings of romantic love are, by contrast,

culturally and historically contingent.

Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck ignore all this. At least, they

choose not to share it with their readers. First, they strongly imply

that we hold the following absurd position: that romantic love has

existed in its current psychosocial manifestation since time immemorial.

Then, they strike a posture of confusion. Isn’t it strange that when

Earp and Savulescu go on to list some specific features of romantic

love, “they come very close to the characterization of what

[scholars have identified as] Romantic Love as invented during

modernity?” 115

For example, they ask the reader to consider the feature of

‘being made for one another’ or being a ‘good match.’ Surely,

Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck advise, this feature “cannot have

been a feature of the social expression of lust, attraction and

bonding during the Middle Ages, where marriages were economic

transactions and there was no room to explore individuality and

autonomy in the same way as during modernity.”116

In short, by presenting certain features of romantic love as

timeless and ahistorical that are in fact expressions of modern

culture, Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck suggest that we have

failed to consider the relevant social context and historicized

background assumptions that shape how we think about love.

But that is not how we presented those features of love. To the

contrary. This is where we wrote that “beliefs, norms, and

expectations about love vary from culture to culture and may

change over time; these higher-level factors can also affect our

experiences and conceptions of love.”117 Then, to illustrate this

115 From Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck 2020, 78-79.

116 Ibid., 79.

117 From Earp and Savulescu 2020a, 20.

Philosophy and Public Issues – Enhancing Love?

144

point – i.e., the very point Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck raise

about the cultural and historical contingency of psychosocial

understandings of love – we wrote: “In contemporary Western

society, three main clusters of beliefs about love tend to show up

on the psychosocial side. These are the concepts and

representations of love that appear in art, literature, pop culture,

and everyday discussions.”118

One of those belief-clusters – which we explicitly identified as

belonging, not to the Middle Ages, but to contemporary Western

culture – has to do with being a ‘good match.’ And in a later

chapter, we give a detailed historical account of how and why

norms for love have changed over the past 150 years. There, we

note that, until the Industrial Revolution, marriages were not

primarily ‘love matches’ but were rather economic transactions –

just as Spreeuwenberg and Schaubroeck point out.

University of Oxford

118 Ibid.

Earp and Savulescu – Reply to commentaries

145

References

Acker, Lizzy. 2020. “Oregon Becomes First State to Legalize

Psychedelic Mushrooms.” OregonLive. November 4, 2020.

https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/11/oregon-

becomes-first-state-to-legalize-psychedelic-mushrooms.html.

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