S. Matthew Liao
708 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
P: (212) 998-3672
sjl14@nyu.edu
Dr. Matthew Liao uses the tools of philosophy to study and examine the ramifications of novel biomedical innovations. A speaker at TEDxCERN, Dr. Liao discussed whether it is ethical for someone to erase certain aspects of their memories and how doing so might affect that individual’s identity. He has also given a TED talk in New York and been featured in the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and other numerous media outlets. The author and editor of four books, Dr. Liao provides the academic community with a collection of human rights essays. In The Right to be Loved, he explores the philosophical foundations underpinning children’s right to be loved, and proposes that we reconceptualize our policies concerning adoptions so that individuals who are not romantically linked can co-adopt a child together.
Dr. Liao provides students with an education grounded in a broad conception of bioethics encompassing both medical and environmental ethics. He offers students the opportunity to explore the intersection of human rights practice with central domains of public health and regularly teaches normative theory and neuroethics. His courses address how the rightness or wrongness of an act is determined and ethical issues arising out of new medical technologies such as embryonic stem cell research, cloning, artificial reproduction, and genetic engineering; ethical issues raised by the development and use of neuroscientific technologies such as the ethics of erasing traumatic memories; the ethics of mood and cognitive enhancements; and moral and legal implications of “mind-reading” technologies for brain privacy.
Education:
AB, Politics (Magna Cum Laude), Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
DPhil, Philosophy, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Areas of Research and Interests:
Bioethics, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Moral Psychology
Honors and Awards:
Outstanding Academic Title, The Right to Be Loved, Choice Review (2016)
TEDx Speaker at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland (2015)
TEDx Speaker, New York, NY (2013)
Humanities Grant Initiative, NYU (2011)
Big Think Delphi Fellow (2011)
