Moral attitudes toward pharmacologically assisted couples therapy: an experimental bioethics study of real-world ‘love drugs’
Bahar Buyukbabani M., Earp BD., Hannikainen I., Barba T., Mihailov E., David B Y., Savulescu J.
In a recent study, Lantian and colleagues (2024) measured public attitudes toward the use of ‘love drugs’ as introduced through the work of Earp, Savulescu, and their collaborators. Use of a “revolutionary pill” (described as “100% reliable”) to bring about love is seen as less morally acceptable than psychological therapy toward the same end, and this is partly explained by perceptions that the pill-induced love is less authentic. However, the “pill” in question bears little resemblance to the real-world uses of love drugs discussed by Earp and Savulescu, such as MDMA-assisted couples therapy. In this partial replication and extension study, we show that more ecologically valid ‘love drugs’ scenarios lead to much higher ratings of moral acceptability and perceived authenticity of the resulting love.