Francesco D'Agostino (9 February 1946 – 3 May 2022)[1] was an Italian jurist, who specialised in philosophy of law and bioethics.

Francesco D'Agostino
Born(1946-02-09)9 February 1946
Died3 May 2022(2022-05-03) (aged 76)
Rome, Italy
Alma materTor Vergata University
OccupationJurist

Biography

edit

D'Agostino graduated from the University of Rome in 1968 with a degree in jurisprudence.[2] He continued his legal and philosophical studies at the University of Bonn and University of Fribourg,[3] before obtaining a doctorate in jurisprudence at the University of Catania.[4] He would hold professorial positions at the University of Catania until 1990.

He began as professor in 1974[2] at several Italian universities, namely the University of Salento,[2] and University of Urbino,[2] and was a visiting professor in France, Spain and the United States, notably in the New York University School of Law.[5]

D'Agostino presided over the Union of Italian Catholic Jurists[2] and was the emeritus president of the National Committee of Bioethics of Italy. He was a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life and a consultant for the Pontifical Council for the Family. Since 1988, he had been the head director for the International Magazine of Philosophy of Law and New Politics Studies (Rivista internazionale di filosofia del diritto) in Rome.[6]

Additionally, he authored more than three hundred publications, including many monographs.[2] D'Agostino was a frequent contributor to prominent bioethics publications,[7] newspapers like Avvenire[8] and L'Osservatore Romano.

edit

D'Agostino commented on euthanasia, ostensibly opposing its usage for terminally ill patients.[9][10]

He stated that "the right response to all tragic situations of chronic invalidating diseases and illnesses that inevitably lead to death does not consist in the interruption of treatment (of which euthanasia is an extreme form), but in the therapist's warm and compassionate closeness to the patient".[11]

Furthermore, he opposed divorce,[12] and particularly, homosexuality. He argued that homosexuality is "a problem".[13]

In 1999, D'Asgostino stated that "homosexual communication cannot have juridical recognition because it is not communication; or better and more precisely, it is not communication in the sense, the only sense, that can have relevance for the law".[13] He characterised any argument for homosexual relationships in equality with those of heterosexual relationships as "objectively groundless", and that this is "all the jurist needs to regard the communicative nature of a homosexual relationship as juridically irrelevant and therefore as incapable of formalization".[13]

Publications

edit
  • La dignità degli ultimi giorni, 1998.[14]
  • Elemento para una filosofía de la familia. Ediciones Rialp. 2002. ISBN 978-84-321-2811-0.
  • Filosofía de la familia. Ediciones Rialp. 2007. ISBN 978-84-321-3620-7.
  • Bioética, estudios de filosofía del derecho. Ediciones Internacionales Universitarias. 2003. ISBN 978-84-8469-075-7.
  • La bioéthique dans la perspective de la philosophie du droit, 2005[15]
  • Introduzione alla biopolitica. Dodici voci fondamentali, 2009.

Awards

edit
  • III Premio Internazionale "Mons. Pompeo Sarnelli" (2006).[16]
  • Western Prize for Bioethics, Jesi (2009).[17]
  • Saint Benedict Prize of the Sublacense Foundation.

References

edit
  1. ^ La morte del filosofo. Addio Francesco D'Agostino, maestro della bioetica italiana (in Italian)
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Francesco D'Agostino". Università degli studi di Genova (in Italian). Archived from the original on 2005-02-09. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
  3. ^ "Francesco D'Agostino" (PDF). Italian National Bioethics Committee (in Italian).
  4. ^ Letelier Widow, Gonzalo (2009). "Lessons in theory of Law". Revista Chilena de Derecho. 36 (1): 189–192. JSTOR 41625291.
  5. ^ Parisi, Francesco (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics: Volume 2: Private and Commercial Law. Oxford University press. ISBN 978-0-19-968420-5.
  6. ^ d'Agostino, Francesco (2019-08-09). "Rivista internazionale di filosofia del diritto". Revue Interdisciplinaire d'Études Juridiques (in French). 21 (2): 57–61. doi:10.3917/riej.021.0057. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
  7. ^ "Francesco D'Agostino". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-01-09.
  8. ^ "Riserca Francesco D'Agostino". Avvenire. January 2001. Retrieved 2020-01-10.
  9. ^ D'Agostino, Francesco (2017-03-30). "Non tutto è eutanasia. La storia chiede coraggio" (in Italian). Avvenire. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
  10. ^ D'Agostino, Francesco (2017-08-14). "Il coraggio di fermare l'arroganza della tecnologia" (in Italian). Avvenire. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
  11. ^ "EWTN Global Catholic Television Network: Catholic News, TV, Radio | EWTN". EWTN Global Catholic Television Network. Retrieved 2020-09-02.
  12. ^ Quirk, Patrick (2002-01-12). "Marriage, Divorce, and the Catholic Lawyer". Bond Law Review, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2002: 12. SSRN 1741302. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  13. ^ a b c D'Agostino, Francesco (1997-05-21). "Should the law recognize homosexual unions?". L'Osservatore Romano - Weekly Edition in English. p. 9. Archived from the original on 2016-03-22. Retrieved 10 January 2020.
  14. ^ Pieretti, Antonio (2000). "Review of La dignità degli ultimi giorni". Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica. 92 (3/4): 669–672. JSTOR 43063253.
  15. ^ Beauvais, Chantal (2006). "La bioéthique dans la perspective de la philosophie du droit". Revue canadienne de science politique. 39 (1): 213–214. doi:10.1017/S0008423906379991. JSTOR 25165941. S2CID 154868229.
  16. ^ "Premio Internazionale "Mons. Pompeo Sarnelli"" (PDF) (in Italian). 2006. Retrieved 1 September 2020.
  17. ^ D'Agostino, Francesco (2020). "Francesco D'Agostino". Retrieved 1 September 2020.
edit