The book opens by unpacking the 2018 CRISPR baby scandal and its global impacts. Jiankui He’s experiment was a perfect example which exposed the multi-layered ambiguities and contradictions in the realpolitik of the Global South’s drive for influence in frontier research and how power struggles are enmeshed with subaltern anxieties. More importantly, it illuminates why some of the ‘deviance’ manifested by China and India are not country-specific, but underlie shared challenges brought on by a growing diversity of ways of doing research outside of conventional institutions. The chapter demonstrates that bottom-up brokerage, de-territoriality of science and cosmopolitanised civic epistemology are three key trajectories of contemporary science which necessitate us to de-colonise our approach to governance. By the word ‘decolonise’, this book not only refers to the existing epistemic project of decolonial theorisation but also stresses a more fundamental meaning of being able to think outside of scientific ‘colonies’. That is, established social space and interactive order that govern a group of individuals with similar interests or are committed to a certain type of behaviour. The chapter introduces ‘national habitus’ as an analytical tool to substantiate what decolonial theorists have called the capacity to ‘think from and with’ global others.

Various conflicts and contradictions in China’s rise in the life sciences are best understood as a ‘struggle for recognition’ both domestically and globally. It first sets out the basic governing structure and major policy initiatives in China. But such structures should not be seen as static. In fact, through examination of critical events such as China’s joining of the Human Genome Project, hybrid embryo research, the Golden Rice controversy and the COVID pandemic, the chapter demonstrates that even in an authoritarian country, the national habitus of science is constantly challenged and reshaped by bottom-up initiative from scientists, bioethicists and the general public. More importantly, it highlights the de-territorised nature of these initiatives. It debunks the erroneous impression that researchers in China are passive ‘state scientists’. Rather similar to bioethicists, they actively draw on resources transnationally to establish their professional autonomy and authority within and outside of China. In cases such as the International Association of Neurorestoration, the rise of Chinese-led but transnationally organised science has formulated alternative ways of validating knowledge within contemporary Western science. By reviewing critical events Chinese life science experienced in the past 20 years, this chapter effectively examines five sets of key relations (e.g. scientist-state relation, bioethics-state relation, public-science relation, science-science relation and state-science relation) that have shaped its national habitus of science. Key themes of this chapter are further developed in the examination on India.

To comprehend the co-dependence and rivalry between China and India and their global implications, this chapter invites and enables readers to think from and with the two countries by pointing to the often ignored leftist science populism that underlines Global South societies’ management of the dual-task of modernisation and globalisation. This helps to identify the latent effects in the two countries’ selective global outreach and to understand their limits in leading South-South collaboration. The chapter first elucidates the concept of leftist science populism and its political logic. This helps to contextualise the gap between the two countries’ official views and actual practices in R&D exchanges and the latent effect of the two countries’ global expansion, which is discussed in the second section. Finally, the COVID vaccine diplomacy exhibits the two countries’ latest struggle to gain a better position in the global epistemic hierarchy. Whereas China’s vaccine diplomacy can be summarised as ‘contrast, collaborate and calumniate’, India adopted an approach that resembled ‘contest, convert and control’. Yet they both experienced some setbacks due to a deficiency in soft power, which is necessary to bring quality change in how science is applied and evaluated.

Anti-love drugs could easily be misused. They bring to mind disturbing parallels with sexual orientation conversion therapies and other attempts to coercively intervene in the biology of vulnerable minorities, such as LGBTQ children and adolescents. This chapter explores the dangers of making certain biotechnologies available under oppressive conditions or in societies characterized by widespread intolerance or injustice. It also questions the logic of the ‘born this way’ movement for LGBTQ rights, which is premised on the idea that sexual orientation is not a choice. If high-tech conversion therapies are ever developed that can in fact change sexual orientation, the intellectual foundation for the movement would collapse. The chapter therefore argues for the movement to be placed on stronger footing, and suggests how this might be done.

Why are there are so many couples looking for help with their relationships in the first place? Why is it so hard to make long-term, romantic partnerships work, much less flourish, in the modern world? This chapter argues that at least part of the explanation may lie in a disconnect between our ancient, evolved dispositions for mating and attachment and the social and physical environment we have created for ourselves through culture and technology. In short, our capacity for love did not evolve to support life-long relationships in contemporary societies. Rather, it evolved to support the reproductive success of our ancestors under social conditions that, for the most part, no longer exist. In addition, the place of love in marriage—and the institution of marriage itself—has undergone a whiplash-inducing transformation over the past 200 years, leaving us ill-equipped to fit the pieces all together. Might there be a role for chemical treatments in strengthening the bonds of attachment directly?

Why might tensions arise between love and well-being? Sometimes, there can be painful inconsistencies between our conscious values surrounding love, the prevailing cultural norms or social scripts for romantic partnerships in our environment, our subjective experiences of attachment and desire, and our underlying biological natures. Which of these dimensions can be altered? Which of them should be altered, and under what conditions? Many societies hold up monogamous marriage as the ideal for committed relationships. Is this ideal consistent with human nature? This chapter argues that there is no single answer to that question: natural variation among individuals and at the level of the species confounds such one-size-fits-all thinking. Accordingly, if biological interventions—in addition to psychosocial ones—will ever help love and happiness coincide, it will depend on the specific issues facing a given couple.

If love drugs become more widely available, who should use them? This chapter introduces Stella and Mario, a married couple with dependent children who are in a ‘gray’ relationship—that is, a relationship that is not violent, abusive, or otherwise clearly dysfunctional, but which has lost its romantic spirit, despite many earnest attempts to keep it alive. The couple are unhappy. They are considering a divorce. They worry about how this might affect the children. They do still care about each other and value what they have built together. But they’ve run out of places to look for a shared sense of joy. The chapter argues that this is a very common situation for long-term partners, and that love drugs may soon be a viable option for supporting couples’ mutual well-being within such relationships.

Instead of trying to strengthen a relationship, what if the relationship needs to end? This chapter discusses existing drugs that may be capable of diminishing love, lust, attraction, or attachment to a current romantic partner. It also raises concerns about possible negative outcomes and points to the limits of what is likely to be possible. Given that drugs or medications used for other purposes may have anti-love side-effects, what would be the ethics of prescribing them off-label as a way of assisting with a difficult breakup or healing a broken heart? The chapter concludes by acknowledging the risk of ‘pathologizing’ love and romantic relationships by intervening in them with medical substances, and suggests a way to avoid this particular worry.

One of the most hyped possibilities for chemically strengthening love and attachment is the hormone oxytocin. This chapter surveys the evidence on oxytocin-enhanced relationships and identifies a number of gaps in the literature that would need to be filled before oxytocin could be used as a love drug. If stronger evidence comes out supporting real-world effectiveness of oxytocin in a relationship context, clear guidelines would need to be put in place to ensure that it was used responsibly and ethically. Building on this insight, the chapter concludes with an outline of key ethical constraints that should apply to any drug-assisted mode of couples therapy.

Who could benefit from using anti-love drugs, and what are the most serious ethical concerns raised by the prospect of a chemical breakup? This chapter identifies several cases where the use of a drug—in combination with appropriate psychosocial measures—might be justified as a way of blocking or degrading love, lust, attraction, or attachment: for example, victims of intimate partner violence who want to sever a feeling of addiction to their abuser; individuals with pedophilia who risk causing harm to children and who need help to control their urges; people suffering from unrequited love leading to suicidal thoughts or tendencies. By working through these and other case studies, the chapter develops a set of ethical conditions for the responsible use of anti-love biotechnology.

This chapter gets specific about the kinds of biological interventions into love that are currently possible—and those that may exist in the future. It shows how love can be affected by certain chemicals through a variety of different pathways, depending on the psychosocial context. It also discusses common medications that may already be influencing love and relationships, such as hormonal birth control and anti-depressant pills, and argues for a shift in scientific research norms: away from an exclusive focus on individuals and clinical symptoms, toward a more inclusive, relationship-oriented paradigm that considers the interpersonal and social implications of drug-based medical treatments.