Collegium Institute's Magi Project is pleased to invite you to an evening lecture by Rev. Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P. entitled “Defining Death in a Technological Age: The Scientific, Moral, and Philosophical Debate about the Legal End of Life.” In this lecture, we will explore the philosophical, ethical, and medical frameworks that are currently being used to answer a fundamental question: When can we know that an individual is dead?
Despite innovations in medical care and technology over the past several decades, little progress has been made to grow medical consensus and update government legislation related to the definition of death. The Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) was written in 1981 to establish the two criteria for the determination of death: death by circulatory-respiratory criteria and death by neurological criteria, also known as brain death. Forty years later, an attempt to revise the UDDA was paused in 2023 after no universal medical consensus emerged about brain death. Instead, it became clear that there is an ongoing dispute about whether the brain-dead person is truly dead. That dispute now has profound implications not just for global healthcare but for the laws and social structures that shape our understanding of what it means to be human.
Rev. Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P. is a Professor of Biological Sciences & Professor of Sacred Theology at the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines. One of the leading Catholic public intellectuals from our own university community, Fr. Austriaco received his BSE in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. He holds multiple doctorates, including a PhD in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a SThD from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. Fr. Austriaco taught at Providence College from 2005 to 2022 before moving to the Philippines where his UST lab is developing a yeast delivery platform for vaccines. His first book, Biomedicine and Beatitude: An Introduction to Catholic Bioethics, was recognized as a 2012 Choice outstanding academic title by the Association of College and Research Libraries. He has served as a founding board member of the Society for Catholic Scientists and as the Director of ThomisticEvolution.org.
Date: Tuesday, October 29, 7:45 PM - 9:15 PM
Location: Penn Newman Center, University City
To register, click the button below. Please direct any questions to Quinn Shepherd (qshepherd@collegiuminstitute.org).
This event was made possible through the support of ‘In Lumine: Supporting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Campuses Nationwide’ (Grant #62372) from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in any publications, videos, lectures, etc. associated with this project are those of the author(s) or speaker(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.