Xiang Yu

Welcome! I am an assistant professor and clinical ethicist at the Institute for Bioethics & Health Humanities at University of Texas Medical Branch.  Previously, I was a clinical ethics fellow at the Alden March Bioethics Institute at Albany Medical College. 

I completed my PhD in Philosophy at The Ohio State University in 2022, and my MA in Philosophy at Texas Tech University in 2016. 

My research focuses on well-being (especially issues relating to desires), medical decision making, and health policies for vulnerable populations. 

My CV is here. My email address is xiayu@utmb.edu.

Research

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Kim, D. T, & Yu, X. (Forthcoming). A Life Worth Sustaining? Bestowed Worth and the Meaningfulness of Continuing Life-Sustaining Treatments in Pediatric Care. Hastings Center Report.

Yu, X., Nelson, R. H., & Schuman, O. (Forthcoming). Grief and Decision-Making Capacity. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. 

Yu, X. (2025). Well-Being, Depression, and Desire. Journal of Value Inquiry.

Yu, X. (2022). Hidden Desires: A Unified Strategy for Defending the Desire-Satisfaction Theory. Utilitas, 1-16.

Editor-Reviewed Publications

Yu, X., & Kim, D. T. (2025). Impermissibility of Euthanasia and Self-Regarding Duties to Stay Alive. Journal of Medical Ethics, 51:243-244. 

Under Review

A paper on surrogate decision making for incarcerated patients.

A paper on the ethics of elective labor deliveries. 

A paper on why only autonomous desires are relevant to well-being. 

Works in Progress

"Why Is Ageing Undesirable? Limits of the Biological vs. Chronological Framework" (With Ginika Oguagha)

In recent years, biomedical interventions have been explored to promote healthy ageing. These interventions are motivated by the idea that ageing is undesirable and therefore ought to be minimized. However, the reason why ageing is considered undesirable is not obvious. It has been suggested that the explanation lies in the biological, rather than the chronological, dimension of ageing (Garcia-Barranquero et al. 2024). Biological ageing refers to the molecular and cellular damage that accumulates in the body over time. Chronological ageing refers to the mere passage of time. The idea is that biological ageing is what makes ageing undesirable due to the negative effects of physical and cognitive deterioration, while chronological ageing brings valuable goods such as experience, knowledge, and wisdom. 

In this paper, we argue that this dichotomy does not help explain the undesirability of ageing, because biological ageing can be desirable if it happens at a developmental stage and chronological ageing can be undesirable if it brings psychological bads such as regrets, loneliness, and fear of death, and social bads such as ageism. This mistake may result from a failure to recognize that biological ageing starts at the time of birth and that chronological ageing ends at the time of death. Our argument points out limitations of biomedical interventions for healthy ageing: 1) they reduce the human journey into a technical problem, and 2) they fail to address psychological and social issues that a person faces by being at an old age.