Dr Anthony McCarthy is a philosopher and the Founder and Director of the Bios Centre in London. He is also Visiting Scholar in Moral Philosophy at the International Theological Institute in Austria.

This in-depth and wide-ranging interview explores the ideas behind Dr McCarthy’s book, Ethical Sex: Sexual Choices and Their Nature and Meaning, which focuses on the profound cultural shifts that have shaped attitudes toward sex, relationships, and responsibility since the 1950s.

Dr McCarthy reflects on what motivated him to write the book and examines whether the so-called sexual revolution truly delivered the liberation it promised, particularly for women, or whether it instead produced new forms of vulnerability and instability.

The pair discuss how liberalisation and modern, casual approaches to sex may have weakened expectations of responsibility among young men, contributing to a growing reluctance to commit to long-term relationships, marriage, and fatherhood.

They ask whether increasing numbers of women are finding themselves raising children alone, dependent on the state, facing midlife childless, delaying parenthood in favour of a career, or unable to find a committed partner.

The conversation also moves into more controversial moral and social issues, including the normalisation of abortion as a matter of convenience, the erosion of the sanctity of life, and the wider cultural impact of pornography, consent, and LGBTQ politics.

Throughout the interview, Dr McCarthy places these debates within a deeper philosophical framework, asking what happens to individuals and society when sexual ethics are detached from meaning, commitment, love, and moral limits.

Dr McCarthy argues society appears to be facing a choice: either it continues along the path of fragmentation and moral confusion, or it reclaims the enduring value of marriage, family, and ethical frameworks that foster meaningful relationships and provide children with stability, identity, and a secure foundation for life.

He can be reached at [email protected].

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