S Matthew Liao
S. Matthew Liao
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Director of the Center for Bioethics
Arthur Zitrin Professor of Bioethics
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Professional overview
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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.
To learn more about Dr. Liao and his work, visit his website and blog.
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Education
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AB, Politics (Magna Cum Laude), Princeton University, Princeton, NJDPhil, Philosophy, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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Honors and awards
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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)
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Areas of research and study
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BioethicsEpistemologyMetaphysicsMoral Psychology
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Publications
Publications
‘Why Do You Ask?’ Revisiting the Purpose of Eliciting the Public’s Moral Judgments About Emerging Technologies
AbstractSmith, J. N., Barnhill, A., Savulescu, J., Liao, S. M., McCoy, M. S., & Blumenthal-Barby, J. (n.d.).Publication year
2025Journal title
AJOB Empirical BioethicsAbstractIt is increasingly common for bioethicists to consult with the public to solicit their judgments and attitudes about ethical questions and issues, especially ones that arise with new and emerging technologies. However, it is not always clear what the purpose of this engagement is or ought to be: do bioethicists seek the input of the public to help them arrive at a morally correct justified policy position, or do they seek this input to help them shape and frame their already-established moral position, or something else entirely? In this essay, we discuss four distinct possible functions of collecting moral judgments from the public: issue spotting, messaging for adherence and social stability, substantive moral guidance, and procedural fairness. For each function, we offer core examples from the literature before discussing the strengths and weaknesses attendant to each. We conclude with several preliminary questions bioethicists can ask themselves to clarify their own purpose for soliciting moral judgments from the public.Lives, Limbs, and Liver Spots: The Threshold Approach to Limited Aggregation
AbstractLiao, S. M., & Lim, J. E. (n.d.).Publication year
2024Journal title
UtilitasVolume
36Issue
2Page(s)
148-167AbstractLimited Aggregation is the view that when there are competing moral claims that demand our attention, we should sometimes satisfy the largest aggregate of claims, depending on the strength of the claims in question. In recent years, philosophers such as Patrick Tomlin and Alastair Norcross have argued that Limited Aggregation violates a number of rational choice principles such as Transitivity, Separability, and Contraction Consistency. Current versions of Limited Aggregation are what may be called Comparative Approaches because they involve assessing the relative strengths of various claims. In this paper, we offer a non-comparative version of Limited Aggregation, what we call the Threshold Approach. It states that there is a non-relative threshold that separates various claims. We demonstrate that the Threshold Approach does not violate rational choice principles such as Transitivity, Separability, and Contraction Consistency, and we show that potential concerns regarding such a view are surmountable.A Right Response to Anti-Natalism
AbstractLiao, S. M. (n.d.).Publication year
2023Journal title
Res PhilosophicaVolume
100Issue
4Page(s)
449-471AbstractMost people think that, other things being equal, you are at liberty to decide for yourself whether to have children. However, there are some people, aptly called anti-natalists, who believe that it is always morally wrong to have children. Anti-natalists are attracted to at least two types of arguments. According to the Positives Are Irrelevant Argument, unless a life contains no negative things at all, it is irrelevant that life also contains positive things. According to the Positives Are Insufficient Argument, while life does contain some positive things, as a matter of fact, almost everyone’s life contains more negative things than positive things. In this article, I first offer new reasons to reject these arguments. I then offer a positive, human rights account of why not only is it not wrong to bring people into existence, but parents in fact have a human right to do so.Editorial
Liao, S. M. (n.d.).Publication year
2023Journal title
Journal of Moral PhilosophyVolume
20Issue
1Page(s)
1-2Ethics of AI and Health Care: Towards a Substantive Human Rights Framework
AbstractLiao, S. M. (n.d.).Publication year
2023Journal title
TopoiVolume
42Issue
3Page(s)
857-866AbstractThere is enormous interest in using artificial intelligence (AI) in health care contexts. But before AI can be used in such settings, we need to make sure that AI researchers and organizations follow appropriate ethical frameworks and guidelines when developing these technologies. In recent years, a great number of ethical frameworks for AI have been proposed. However, these frameworks have tended to be abstract and not explain what grounds and justifies their recommendations and how one should use these recommendations in practice. In this paper, I propose an AI ethics framework that is grounded in substantive, human rights theory and one that can help us address these questions.Computational ethics
AbstractAwad, E., Levine, S., Anderson, M., Anderson, S. L., Conitzer, V., Crockett, M. J., Everett, J. A., Evgeniou, T., Gopnik, A., Jamison, J. C., Kim, T. W., Liao, S. M., Meyer, M. N., Mikhail, J., Opoku-Agyemang, K., Borg, J. S., Schroeder, J., Sinnott-Armstrong, W., Slavkovik, M., & Tenenbaum, J. B. (n.d.).Publication year
2022Journal title
Trends in Cognitive SciencesVolume
26Issue
5Page(s)
388-405AbstractTechnological advances are enabling roles for machines that present novel ethical challenges. The study of 'AI ethics' has emerged to confront these challenges, and connects perspectives from philosophy, computer science, law, and economics. Less represented in these interdisciplinary efforts is the perspective of cognitive science. We propose a framework – computational ethics – that specifies how the ethical challenges of AI can be partially addressed by incorporating the study of human moral decision-making. The driver of this framework is a computational version of reflective equilibrium (RE), an approach that seeks coherence between considered judgments and governing principles. The framework has two goals: (i) to inform the engineering of ethical AI systems, and (ii) to characterize human moral judgment and decision-making in computational terms. Working jointly towards these two goals will create the opportunity to integrate diverse research questions, bring together multiple academic communities, uncover new interdisciplinary research topics, and shed light on centuries-old philosophical questions.The Place of Philosophy in Bioethics Today
AbstractBlumenthal-Barby, J., Aas, S., Brudney, D., Flanigan, J., Liao, S. M., London, A., Sumner, W., & Savulescu, J. (n.d.).Publication year
2022Journal title
American Journal of BioethicsVolume
22Issue
12Page(s)
10-21AbstractIn some views, philosophy’s glory days in bioethics are over. While philosophers were especially important in the early days of the field, so the argument goes, the majority of the work in bioethics today involves the “simple” application of existing philosophical principles or concepts, as well as empirical work in bioethics. Here, we address this view head on and ask: What is the role of philosophy in bioethics today? This paper has three specific aims: (1) to respond to skeptics and make the case that philosophy and philosophers still have a very important and meaningful role to play in contemporary bioethics, (2) to discuss some of the current challenges to the meaningful integration of philosophy and bioethics, and (3) to make suggestions for what needs to happen in order for the two fields to stay richly connected. We outline how bioethics center directors, funders, and philosopher bioethicists can help.Ethics review of big data research: What should stay and what should be reformed?
AbstractFerretti, A., Ienca, M., Sheehan, M., Blasimme, A., Dove, E. S., Farsides, B., Friesen, P., Kahn, J., Karlen, W., Kleist, P., Liao, S. M., Nebeker, C., Samuel, G., Shabani, M., Rivas Velarde, M., & Vayena, E. (n.d.).Publication year
2021Journal title
BMC Medical EthicsVolume
22Issue
1AbstractBackground: Ethics review is the process of assessing the ethics of research involving humans. The Ethics Review Committee (ERC) is the key oversight mechanism designated to ensure ethics review. Whether or not this governance mechanism is still fit for purpose in the data-driven research context remains a debated issue among research ethics experts. Main text: In this article, we seek to address this issue in a twofold manner. First, we review the strengths and weaknesses of ERCs in ensuring ethical oversight. Second, we map these strengths and weaknesses onto specific challenges raised by big data research. We distinguish two categories of potential weakness. The first category concerns persistent weaknesses, i.e., those which are not specific to big data research, but may be exacerbated by it. The second category concerns novel weaknesses, i.e., those which are created by and inherent to big data projects. Within this second category, we further distinguish between purview weaknesses related to the ERC’s scope (e.g., how big data projects may evade ERC review) and functional weaknesses, related to the ERC’s way of operating. Based on this analysis, we propose reforms aimed at improving the oversight capacity of ERCs in the era of big data science. Conclusions: We believe the oversight mechanism could benefit from these reforms because they will help to overcome data-intensive research challenges and consequently benefit research at large.A critique of some recent victim-centered theories of nonconsequentialism
AbstractLiao, S. M., & Barry, C. (n.d.).Publication year
2020Journal title
Law and PhilosophyVolume
39Issue
5Page(s)
503-526AbstractRecently, Gerhard Øverland and Alec Walen have developed novel and interesting theories of nonconsequentialism. Unlike other nonconsequentialist theories such as the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE), each of their theories denies that an agent’s mental states are (fundamentally) relevant for determining how stringent their moral reasons are against harming others. Instead, Øverland and Walen seek to distinguish morally between instances of harming in terms of the circumstances of the people who will be harmed, rather than in features of the agent doing the harming. In this paper, we argue that these theories yield counterintuitive verdicts across a broad range of cases that other nonconsequentialist theories (including the DDE) handle with relative ease. We also argue that Walen’s recent attempt to reformulate this type of theory so that it does not have such implications is unsuccessful.Ethics of artificial intelligence
AbstractAbstractFeaturing seventeen original essays on the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) by today’s most prominent AI scientists and academic philosophers, this volume represents state-of-the-art thinking in this fast-growing field. It highlights central themes in AI and morality such as how to build ethics into AI, how to address mass unemployment caused by automation, how to avoid designing AI systems that perpetuate existing biases, and how to determine whether an AI is conscious. As AI technologies progress, questions about the ethics of AI, in both the near future and the long term, become more pressing than ever. Should a self-driving car prioritize the lives of the passengers over those of pedestrians? Should we as a society develop autonomous weapon systems capable of identifying and attacking a target without human intervention? What happens when AIs become smarter and more capable than us? Could they have greater than human-level moral status? Can we prevent superintelligent AIs from harming us or causing our extinction? At a critical time in this fast-moving debate, thirty leading academics and researchers at the forefront of AI technology development have come together to explore these existential questions.The moral status and rights of artificial intelligence
AbstractLiao, S. M. (n.d.). In Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (1–).Publication year
2020Page(s)
480-503AbstractAs AIs acquire greater capacities, the issue of whether AIs would acquire greater moral status becomes salient. This chapter sketches a theory of moral status and considers what kind of moral status an AI could have. Among other things, the chapter argues that AIs that are alive, conscious, or sentient, or those that can feel pain, have desires, and have rational or moral agency should have the same kind of moral status as entities that have the same kind of intrinsic properties. It also proposes that a sufficient condition for an AI to have human-level moral status and be a rightsholder is when an AI has the physical basis for moral agency. This chapter also considers what kind of rights a rightsholding AI could have and how AIs could have greater than human-level moral status.Designing humans: A human rights approach
AbstractLiao, S. M. (n.d.).Publication year
2019Journal title
BioethicsVolume
33Issue
1Page(s)
98-104AbstractAdvances in genomic technologies such as CRISPR‐Cas9, mitochondrial replacement techniques, and in vitro gametogenesis may soon give us more precise and efficient tools to have children with certain traits such as beauty, intelligence, and athleticism. In this paper, I propose a new approach to the ethics of reproductive genetic engineering, a human rights approach. This approach relies on two claims that have certain, independent plausibility: (a) human beings have equal moral status, and (b) human beings have human rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life. I first argue that the human rights approach gives us a lower bound of when reproductive genetic engineering would be permissible. I then compare this approach with other approaches such as the libertarian, perfectionist, and life worth living approaches. Against these approaches, I argue that the human rights approach offers a novel, and more plausible, way of assessing the ethics of reproductive genetic engineering.Do mitochondrial replacement techniques affect qualitative or numerical identity?
AbstractMatthew Liao, S. (n.d.).Publication year
2017Journal title
BioethicsVolume
31Issue
1Page(s)
20-26AbstractMitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs), known in the popular media as ’three-parent’ or ’three-person’ IVFs, have the potential to enable women with mitochondrial diseases to have children who are genetically related to them but without such diseases. In the debate regarding whether MRTs should be made available, an issue that has garnered considerable attention is whether MRTs affect the characteristics of an existing individual or whether they result in the creation of a new individual, given that MRTs involve the genetic manipulation of the germline. In other words, do MRTs affect the qualitative identity or the numerical identity of the resulting child? For instance, a group of panelists on behalf of the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has claimed that MRTs affect only the qualitative identity of the resulting child, while the Working Group of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCOB) has argued that MRTs would create a numerically distinct individual. In this article, I shall argue that MRTs do create a new and numerically distinct individual. Since my explanation is different from the NCOB’s explanation, I shall also offer reasons why my explanation is preferable to the NCOB’s explanation.Neuroscience and Ethics: Assessing Greene's Epistemic Debunking Argument Against Deontology
AbstractLiao, S. M. (n.d.).Publication year
2017Journal title
Experimental PsychologyVolume
64Issue
2Page(s)
82-92AbstractA number of people believe that results from neuroscience have the potential to settle seemingly intractable debates concerning the nature, practice, and reliability of moral judgments. In particular, Joshua Greene has argued that evidence from neuroscience can be used to advance the long-standing debate between consequentialism and deontology. This paper first argues that charitably interpreted, Greene's neuroscientific evidence can contribute to substantive ethical discussions by being part of an epistemic debunking argument. It then argues that taken as an epistemic debunking argument, Greene's argument falls short in undermining deontological judgments. Lastly, it proposes that accepting Greene's methodology at face value, neuroimaging results may in fact call into question the reliability of consequentialist judgments. The upshot is that Greene's empirical results do not undermine deontology and that Greene's project points toward a way by which empirical evidence such as neuroscientific evidence can play a role in normative debates.Précis for The Right to Be Loved
Liao, S. M. (n.d.).Publication year
2017Journal title
Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchVolume
94Issue
3Page(s)
738-742The ethics of memory modification
Liao, S. M. (n.d.). In The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory (1–).Publication year
2017Page(s)
373-382Acknowledgments
Liao, S. M., & O’neil, C. (n.d.). In Current Controversies in Bioethics (1–).Publication year
2016Page(s)
xAre Intuitions Heuristics?
Liao, S. M. (n.d.). In Moral brains (1–).Publication year
2016Bioethics
Matthew Liao, S., & O’neil, C. (n.d.). In Current Controversies in Bioethics: Current Controversies (1–).Publication year
2016Page(s)
1-11Biological Parenting as a Human Right
AbstractLiao, S. M. (n.d.).Publication year
2016Journal title
Journal of Moral PhilosophyVolume
13Issue
6Page(s)
652-668AbstractDo biological parents have the right to parent their own biological children? It might seem obvious that the answer is yes, but the philosophical justification for this right is uncertain. In recent years, there has been a flurry of philosophical activity aimed at providing fresh justifications for this right. In this paper, I shall propose a new answer, namely, the right to parent one's own biological children is a human right. I call this the human rights account of parental rights and I shall explain how this account is better than these other alternatives.Current Controversies in Bioethics
AbstractAbstractBioethics is the study of ethical issues arising out of advances in the life sciences and medicine. Historically, bioethics has been associated with issues in research ethics and clinical ethics as a result of research scandals such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and public debates about the definition of death, medical paternalism, health care rationing, and abortion. As biomedical technologies have advanced, challenging new questions have arisen for bioethics and new sub-disciplines such as neuroethics and public health ethics have entered the scene. This volume features ten original essays on five cutting-edge controversies in bioethics written by leading philosophers. I. Research Ethics: How Should We Justify Ancillary Care Duties? II. Clinical Ethics: Are Psychopaths Morally Accountable? III. Reproductive Ethics: Is There A Solution to the Non-Identity Problem? IV. Neuroethics: What is Addiction and Does It Excuse? V. Public Health Ethics: Is Luck Egalitarianism Implausibly Harsh? S. Matthew Liao and Collin O’Neil’s concise introduction to the essays in the volume, the annotated bibliographies and study questions for each controversy, and the supplemental guide to additional current controversies in bioethics give the reader a broad grasp of the different kinds of challenges in bioethics.Health (care) and human rights: a fundamental conditions approach
AbstractLiao, S. M. (n.d.).Publication year
2016Journal title
Theoretical Medicine and BioethicsVolume
37Issue
4Page(s)
259-274AbstractMany international declarations state that human beings have a human right to health care. However, is there a human right to health care? What grounds this right, and who has the corresponding duties to promote this right? Elsewhere, I have argued that human beings have human rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life. Drawing on this fundamental conditions approach of human rights, I offer a novel way of grounding a human right to health care.Human Rights and Public
Liao, S. M. (n.d.). In Oxford Handbook on Public Health Ethics (1–).Publication year
2016Moral brains: the neuroscience of morality
Morality and Neuroscience: Past and Future
Liao, S. M. (n.d.). In Moral brains (1–).Publication year
2016