Associate Professor Brian D. Earp, PhD, is director of the Oxford-NUS Centre for Neuroethics and Society (OCNS) and the EARP Lab (Experimental Bioethics, Artificial Intelligence, and Relational Moral Psychology Lab) within the Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS). Brian is also an Associate Professor of Philosophy and of Psychology at NUS by courtesy.
Brian holds degrees from Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge Universities and is a Research Associate of the Uehiro Oxford Institute at the University of Oxford, where Brian directs HOPE: The Hub at Oxford for Psychedelic Ethics. Brian is also Associate Director of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy at Yale University and The Hastings Center, and is an elected member of the UK Young Academy under the auspices of the British Academy and the Royal Society. See www.brianearp.com for more information.
Research
Brian works on relational moral psychology, including human-AI relationships; philosophy of science, technology, and medicine; research ethics, reproducibility, and open science; ethics of human enhancement, psychedelic-assisted therapy, and artificial intelligence; philosophy of love, sex and gender; bodily autonomy and integrity, intersex and children’s rights, among other areas. Brian helped to establish “experimental philosophical bioethics” as an area of research.
Current and recent research grants
Google DeepMind Level 2 GIG (Googler Initiated Grant), “Understanding Norms for Human-AI Relationships.” $60,000 USD. Principle Investigator, 2024-2026.
Joint Partnership Funding – Berlin University Alliance with National University of Singapore, “Psychedelics and Relationships.” €5,000 (about $5,440 USD). To organise an international workshop and lecture series in Berlin, locally hosted by Dimitris Repantis at The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Gerrmany. 2024.
Social Science Research Council: Social Science Research Thematic Grant Type B, “CREPSING: “Collective Reflective Equilibrium in Practice in Singapore.” S$3,254,342 (about $2,481,296 USD). Co-Principle Investigator, 2024-2027.
AISG (AI Singapore) Research Grant AISG3-GV-2023-012. “Developing a Trust Framework for Artificial Intelligence in Emergency Healthcare.” S$599,950 (about $467,278 USD). Co-Principle Investigator, 2024-2027.
British Academy: Knowledge Frontiers International Interdisciplinary Research Project (on gender bias in judgments of autonomy/capacity). £296,980.57 (about $374,650 USD). Co-Investigator (.2 FTE salary cover to October 2024 move to NUS). 2024-2026.
European Innovation Council. Counterfactual Assessment and Valuation for Awareness Architecture (CAVAA). £268,489 (about $339,400 USD) for Oxford-led component. Co-Investigator: Oxford lead (.2 FTE salary cover to October 2024 move to NUS). 2023-2024.
Selected Publications
Books
Earp, B. D., & Savulescu, J. (2020). Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Relationships. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
– Published in the UK by Manchester University Press as Love Is the Drug: The Chemical Future of Our Relationships.
– Published in Dutch translation as Liefdesdrugs: De chemische toekomst van relaties. Kalmthout, Belgium: Pelckmans Uitgevers.
Earp, B. D., Chambers, C., & Watson, L. (Eds.) (2022). The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
Recent and Representative Research Articles, from 2019 onward (selected first, co-first or corresponding [#], or senior author)
In press and forthcoming
Earp, B. D., Porsdam Mann, S., Liu, P., Hannikainen, I., Khan, M. A., Chu, Y., & Savulescu, J. (in press). Credit and blame for AI generated content: effects of personalization in four countries. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Preprint.
Voinea, C., Porsdam Mann, S., Register, C., Savulescu, J., & Earp, B. D. (in press). Digital duplicates, scarcity, and value. Philosophy & Technology. Preprint.
Gordon, E., Cheung, K., Savulescu, J., & Earp, B. D. (in press). Moral enhancement and cheapened achievement: psychedelics, virtual reality, and AI. Bioethics. Preprint.
Cheung, K., Earp, B. D.,# Patch, K., & Yaden, D. (in press). Distinctive but not unique: the risks of psychedelic ethical exceptionalism. American Journal of Bioethics. Preprint.
Iglesias, S., Earp, B. D.,# Voinea, C., Porsdam Mann, S., Zahiu, A., Jecker, N., & Savulescu, J. (in press). Digital doppelgängers and lifespan extension: What matters? American Journal of Bioethics. Preprint.
Walden R., Abdulcadir, J., & Earp, B. D. (in press). Labiaplasty in minors: medicalizing mutilation? Archives of Sexual Behavior. Preprint.
Earp, B. D., & The Brussels Collaboration on Bodily Integrity. (2024). Genital modifications in prepubescent minors: When may clinicians ethically proceed? American Journal of Bioethics. Preprint.
Calcott, R., & Earp, B. D. (in press). Relational moral philosophy needs relational moral psychology. Philosophical Psychology. Preprint.
2023-2024
Porsdam Mann, S., Earp, B. D.,# Nyholm, S., Danaher, J., Møller, N., Bowman-Smart, H., Hatherley, J., Koplin, J., Plozza, M., Rodger, D., Treit, P., Renard, G., McMillan, J., and Savulescu, J. (2023). Generative AI entails a credit-blame asymmetry. Nature Machine Intelligence, 5, 472–475.
Gruenbaum, E., Earp, B. D.,# & Shweder R. A. (2023). Reconsidering the role of patriarchy in upholding female genital modifications: analysis of contemporary and pre-industrial societies. IJIR [sexual medicine journal of Nature], 35(1), 202-211.
Earp, B. D., Porsdam Mann, S., Allen, J. W., Salloch, S., Suren, V., Jongsma, K., Braun, M., Wilkinson, D., Sinnott-Armstrong, W., Rid, A., Wendler, D., & Savulescu, J. (2024). A personalized patient preference predictor for substituted judgment in healthcare: technically feasible and ethically desirable. American Journal of Bioethics, 24(7), 13–26.
Toomey, J., Lewis, J., Hannikainen, I., & Earp, B. D. (2024). Advance medical decision making differs between first- and third-person perspectives. AJOB Empirical Bioethics, 15(4), 237–245.
Buyukbabani, M. B., Earp, B. D.,# Hannikainen, I., Barba, T., Mihailov, E., Yaden, D., & Savulescu, J. (2024). Moral attitudes toward pharmacologically assisted couples therapy: an experimental bioethics study of real-world ‘love drugs’. AJOB Neuroscience, 15(4), 239-243
Sandbrink, J. D., Johnson, K., Gill, M., Yaden, D. B., Savulescu, J., Hannikainen, I. R., & Earp, B. D. (2024). Strong bipartisan support for controlled psilocybin use as treatment or enhancement in a representative sample of US Americans: need for caution in public policy persists. AJOB Neuroscience, 15(2), 82–89.
2021-2022
Earp, B. D., McLoughlin, K. L., Monrad, J. T., Clark, M. S., & Crockett, M. J. (2021). How social relationships shape moral wrongness judgments. Nature Communications, 12(5776), 1-13.
Earp, B. D., Lewis, J., Hart, C. L., & Bioethicists and Allied Professionals for Drug Policy Reform (2021). Racial justice requires ending the war on drugs. American Journal of Bioethics, 21(4), 4-19.
Earp, B. D., Lewis, J., Dranseika, V., & Hannikainen, I. (2021). Experimental philosophical bioethics and normative inference. Theoretical Medicine & Bioethics, 42(3), 91-111.
Earp, B. D. (2021). Male or female genital cutting: why “health benefits” are morally irrelevant. Journal of Medical Ethics, 47(12:e92), 1-10.
Fish, M., Shahvisi, A., Gwaambuka, T., Tangwa, G. B., Ncayiyana, D., & Earp, B. D. (2021). A new Tuskegee? Unethical human experimentation and Western neocolonialism in the mass circumcision of African men. Developing World Bioethics, 21(4), 211-226.
Earp, B. D. (2021). Protecting children from medically unnecessary genital cutting without stigmatizing women’s bodies: implications for sexual pleasure and pain. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 50(1), 1875–1885.
Earp, B. D., & Johnsdotter, S. (2021). Current critiques of the WHO policy on female genital mutilation. IJIR [sexual medicine journal of Nature], 33(1), 196-209.
Earp, B. D. (2022). Meta-surrogate decision making and artificial intelligence. Journal of Medical Ethics, 48(5), 287-289.
Bruce, L., Hannikainen, I., & Earp, B. D. (2022). New findings on unconsented intimate exams suggest racial bias and gender parity. Hastings Center Report, 52(2), 7-9.
Earp, B. D. (2022). Against legalizing female ‘circumcision’ of minors. Global Discourse, 12(1), 47-76.
Brown, R. C. H., de Barra, M., & Earp, B. D. (2022). Broad medical uncertainty and the ethical obligation for openness. Synthese, 200(121), 1-29.
2019-2020
Earp, B. D. (2019). Psychedelic moral enhancement. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 83(1), 415-439.
Earp, B. D., & The Brussels Collaboration on Bodily Integrity. (2019). Medically unnecessary genital cutting and the rights of the child: moving toward consensus. American Journal of Bioethics, 19(10), 17-28.
Hodson, N., Townley, L., & Earp, B. D. (2019). Removing harmful options: the law and ethics of international commercial surrogacy. Medical Law Review, 27(4), 597-622.
Capraro, V., Everett, J. A. C., & Earp, B. D. (2019). Priming intuition disfavors instrumental harm but not impartial beneficence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 83(1), 142-149.
Earp, B. D., Monrad, J. T., LaFrance, M., Bargh, J. A., Cohen, L. L., Richeson, J. A. (2019). Gender bias in pediatric pain assessment. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 44(4), 403-414.
Earp, B. D., Skorburg, J. A., Everett, J. A. C., & Savulescu, J. (2019). Addiction, identity, morality. AJOB Empirical Bioethics, 10(2), 136-153.
Earp, B. D., and Darby, R. (2019). Circumcision, autonomy and public health. Public Health Ethics, 12(1), 64-81.
Heathcote, L. H., Goldberg, D. S., Eccleston, C., Spunt, S. L., Simons, L. E., Sharpe, L., & Earp, B. D. (2018). Advancing shared decision making for symptom monitoring in people living beyond cancer. Lancet Oncology, 19(10), e556-e553.
Earp, B. D., Demaree-Cotton, J., Dunn, M., Dranseika, V., Everett, J. A. C., Feltz, A., Geller, G., Hannikainen, I. R., Jansen, L., Knobe, J., Kolak, J., Latham, S., Lerner, A., May, J., Mercurio, M., Mihailov, E., Rodriguez-Arias, D., Rodriguez Lopez, B., Savulescu, J., Sheehan, M., Strohminger, N., Sugarman, J., Tabb, K., & Tobia, K. (2020). Experimental philosophical bioethics. AJOB Empirical Bioethics, 11(1), 30-33.
Earp, B. D., Karos, K., & Heathcote, L. C. (2020). Is conscious awareness required for facial pain detection? Journal of Mind and Behavior, 41(1), 39-52.
Earp, B. D., Latham, S. R., & Tobia, K. P. (2020). Personal transformation and advance directives: an experimental bioethics approach. American Journal of Bioethics, 20(8), 72-75.
Earp, B. D. (2020). What is gender for? The Philosopher, 108(2), 94-99.
Myers, A., & Earp, B. D. (2020). What is the best age to circumcise? A medical and ethical analysis. Bioethics, 34(7), 645-663.