Michael Dominic Taylor

Biography

Dr. Michael Dominic Taylor grew up in rural Connecticut, where he was an active outdoorsman. He spent his summers sailing and lobster fishing on the coast of Maine. In 2007 Michael earned a B.A. in Biology and Environmental Studies from Bowdoin College, writing his honors thesis on the ecology of steelhead trout in Alaska, where studied throughout the summer of 2006 on a Hollings Scholarship. After graduation, he moved to Lima, Peru where he served as a missionary with a Catholic Society of Apostolic Life for three years before continuing his service in Chile for another two. In 2013 he moved to Rome to begin his studies in philosophy, where he earned a B.A. from the Pontifical Gregorian University. He then moved to Madrid to pursue a Master’s degree in Bioethics. In 2016 Michael married his wife, Cassandra, and they moved to Granada, Spain, where he worked for the Archdiocese as the Executive Secretary of the Laudato Si’ Institute, meanwhile completing his doctoral studies. These studies culminated in the publication of The Foundations of Nature: Metaphysics of Gift for an Integral Ecological Ethic (Cascade, 2020), which, in 2021, was a recipient of the Expanded Reason Award given by the Joseph Ratzinger Foundation (the Vatican) and the Francisco de Vitoria University (Madrid). 

Michael’s intellectual interests have always centered on the illumination of the beauty and wonder of Creation as expressed through ecology, anthropology, ethics, and metaphysics, specifically the participatory “metaphysics of gift.” He writes on bioethics, environmental ethics, transhumanism, solidarity, economics, integral ecology, theology of the body, Dante, and Thomistic metaphysics. He also loves sailing, hiking, camping, farmers’ markets, and good conversation. 

Michael Taylor CV