Events

A Lecture and Response
March 16, 7–9 pm
Sage Bistro @ UBC

We are experiencing a fundamental shift in public health policies. For several decades, medical ethicists and cultural philosophers have warned about the increasing medicalization of life and the politicization of health care.

The French philosopher Michel Foucault coined the term bio-politics to describe how human life becomes defined and controlled by the mechanisms of state authority. Governments increasingly utilize perceived crises to evoke states of emergency for curbing civil rights. Are these developments, which are advanced in the name of protecting health and security, compatible with traditional anthropologies that stress human freedom and responsibility? Are we witnessing the development of an Orwellian biomedical security state?

Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, clinical psychiatrist, ethicist, and author of The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State (2022) will address these questions by describing the origin and effects of novel biomedical technologies and public policy changes. Dr. Kheriaty critically evaluates digital technologies of population surveillance and control favoured by the emergent biosecurity model of governance. He explores the potential dangers to our human identity and well-being posed by biomedical security approaches to public health.

Dr. Douglas Farrow, Professor of Theology and Ethics at McGill University, is our respondent. He will reflect on how the Christian church should evaluate and respond to the diminishment of human identity that undergirds biomedical security. Farrow is the author of many books including Ascension Theology (T&T Clark, 2011), Desiring a Better Country: Forays in Political Theology (McGill-Queens, 2015), and Theological Negotiations (Baker Academic, 2018).

This event is open to the public and will be held off campus at Sage Bistro located on the UBC grounds at 6331 Crescent Road Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 Canada

About the Houston Centre

The Houston Centre for Humanity and the Common Good is a five-year initiative of Regent College, grounded in Dr. James M. Houston’s comprehensive vision of integrative scholarship. Its main task is to foster interdisciplinary and interreligious dialogue on the central question of the late-modern world: what does it mean to be human?

Inviting a range of philosophical perspectives through collaboration with the University of British Columbia and other institutions, the Centre explores a holistic understanding of humanity that accounts for the unique social, political, and theological issues of our time. Comprising a community of leading scholars, the Centre generates dialogue across disciplines—theology, philosophy, biology, cognitive science, political studies, and more—in order to navigate the mystery of the human person.

Through public lectures, seminars, and a variety of publications, the Houston Centre helps others engage theological questions of humanity for the common good.