Brian Earp

Dr Brian David Earp
Born	1985
Occupation	Philosopher, Bioethicist, Cognitive Scientist
Education	Yale University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge
Notable works	Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Relationships
Website
www.brianearp.com

Brian David Earp is an American philosopher, biomedical ethicist and cognitive scientist.

Earp's philosophical stances include support for transgender rights and access to gender-affirming care. He is an intactivist who opposes routine circumcision and has also written critically about the influence of religion in bioethical debates, arguing that the same rules of ethical and philosophical discourse should apply to all participants, whether religious or non-religious. His writings have also examined the ethics of relationship enhancement using drugs or other neurotechnologies, as in the example of psychedelic-assisted couples therapy. Earp has also written other topics, including free will, sex and gender and the replication crisis in psychology.

Early life

Earp grew up in a conservative evangelical Christian household. His mother was a stay-at-home mother, while his father was a X-ray technician.

Professional roles

He is Director of the Oxford-National University of Singapore (NUS) Centre for Neuroethics and Society and the EARP Lab (Experimental Bioethics, Artificial Intelligence, and Relational Moral Psychology) within the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. Earp is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and of Psychology at NUS by courtesy. He is Associate Director of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy at Yale University and The Hastings Center. He is a Research Fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. He is an elected member of the UK Young Academy under the auspices of the British Academy and the Royal Society.

He has also worked on relational moral psychology, human enhancement, philosophy of love and children’s rights. Brian helped to establish "experimental philosophical bioethics" (bioXphi) as an area of research.

In 2019, Earp wrote his first book (co-written with Julian Savulescu), published in the UK as Love Is the Drug: The Chemical Future of Our Relationships and in the United States as Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Relationships).

Work and views

Religion

Earp was initially an evangelical Christian in his youth but no longer considers himself to be religious. He is critical of many mainstream religious practices, as well as its influence in the bioethical field, and has spoken at events hosted by the National Secular Society, including its 2019 Secularism Conference.

Relationships and drugs

His first book, Love Is the Drug: The Chemical Future of Our Relationships, was written jointly with Julian Savulescu. He has argued that certain forms of medications can be ethically consumed as a "helpful complement" in relationships. Both to fall in love, and, to potentially fall out of it.

Opposition to circumcision and intersex surgeries

Earp is an intactivist and rejects the scientific consensus surrounding voluntary medical male circumcision against HIV transmission. In 2012, he supported a Cologne court ruling that briefly criminalized the religious circumcision of minors, including the Jewish Brit Milah and Islamic Khitan. He wrote that religious freedom claims should not serve as exceptions from criminal prosecutions of parents as it is "no excuse for mutilating your baby's penis". Later, he stated that he did not support criminalizing circumcision, as a pragmatic measure, until there was a change in public perception about the procedure. In 2024, Earp stated that he no longer believed that circumcision is inherently mutilative.

Earp is opposed to the large majority of intersex medical interventions on minors. He has compared both male circumcision and intersex genital alterations on minors to female genital mutilation and claims that there is ongoing ethical inconsistency among both medical organizations and the global general public on the matter.

Transgender rights movement

Earp supports transgender rights and access to gender-affirming care. He argues that restrictions on the practice are primarily from comservatives and are fundamentally about policing gender roles rather than protecting individuals.

Reception

The philosopher Wesley J. Smith has criticized Brian Earp's paper “Male or Female Genital Cutting: Why ‘Health Benefits’ are Morally Irrelevant as blurring the "crucial moral distinctions" between circumcision and female genital mutilation. Smith argues that Earp's arguments are "aimed, ultimately, at attacking religious freedom and imposing a utilitarian secularist cloak over all of society." Earp has rejected this characterization of his beliefs. Earp was nominated for the 2020 John Maddox Prize for a paper that was critical of routine circumcision. His work on the subject was praised by the judges; Anthony Fauci was the winner of the prize.

Bibliography

• Earp, Brian D.; Savulescu, Brian D. (2020). Love is the Drug: The Chemical Future of Our Relationships. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-1-5261-4541-3.
• Earp, Brian D.; Chambers, Clare; Watson, Lori, eds. (2022). The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality. Routledge. ISBN 9781138370678.