Commitment to justice; flourishing for all; ethics at the hinge; enhanced games
Latest News
June 26, 2025
Bioethicists Must Push Back Against Assaults on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Hastings president and other bioethics leaders call for bold, collective response
Nine leading bioethicists, including Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky, call for bioethics to affirm its core commitment to justice and act against the dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In an editorial published in the American Journal of Bioethics, they highlight the current administration’s broadside attack against diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education, the federal government, and the private sector. “Years of research and data gathering have shown that removing barriers facing marginalized groups improves population health and promotes health justice,” they write. Read the editorial.
The Art of Flourishing: Conversations on Disability New book builds on Hastings Center public events series
Hot off the press: The Art of Flourishing: Conversations on Disability includes essays by scholars, artists, writers, and thought leaders with disabilities about what it means for them to “flourish” in a world that is not built for them. Their essays grew out of presentations that they made during a series of public events hosted by The Hastings Center and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Editors are Liz Bowen (SUNY Upstate Medical University and former Hastings postdoctoral fellow), Joel Michael Reynolds (Georgetown University and Hastings Center Fellow), Rosemarie Garland-Thomson (Hastings senior advisor and Fellow), and Erik Parens (Hastings senior research scholar and Fellow). Learn more.
A timely message. “At a time when support for humanistic inquiry is under siege in the United States, we insist that critical thinking about human flourishing and difference is essential to a flourishing society,” the editors write in Hastings Bioethics Forum. Read their essay, “Flourishing for All.”
"Ethics at the Hinge" Doing right by family caregivers during discharge planning
“Ethics at the hinge” refers to ethical issues that arise during the hospital discharge process—at the hinge between hospital and home—when the patient and family caregiver must make decisions with incomplete knowledge about their care options. Hastings Center senior research scholar Nancy Berlinger and Alison Reiheld of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville explore these issues in a Hastings Bioethics Forum essay and in a recent journal article in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. Read their Forum essay. And read their journal article. (Subscription required for full text.)
In the Media Tom Murray comments on the Enhanced Games
The Enhanced Games—a competitive event with athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs—is scheduled for next May in Las Vegas. In an interview with Wired, Hastings President Emeritus Thomas Murray, who has studied ethical issues in sport, raised concerns. “There’s going to be enormous ripple effects that will certainly have destructive implications in people,” he said. Read the article.
GSA Arts and Humanities Forum: Humanistic AI and Humanistic Gerontology. Hastings Center senior research scholar Nancy Berlinger will lead this webinar for the Gerontological Society of America. July 22.
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