July 23, 2019

In Memoriam: Daniel Callahan, 1930-2019

Daniel Callahan, who pioneered the field of bioethics and was cofounder and president emeritus of The Hastings Center, died last Tuesday, two days before his 89^th birthday. “Upon hearing the news of Dan Callahan’s death, one word kept appearing in my thoughts: gratitude,” writes Hastings Center president Mildred Solomon. “Gratitude for his prodigious thinking, his commitment to listening across difference, his use of accessible language to illuminate complexity, his more than 47 books that advanced the parameters of debate, and his generous mentorship of generations of scholars. Over nearly five decades, Callahan advanced new foundational ideas, offered practical wisdom, influenced international health and science policy, stimulated the creation of the interdisciplinary field of bioethics, and supported its growth across the United States and the world. Perhaps most importantly in this era of polarization and hyper-individualism, he called on us to work together to discuss vying notions of the good and build solutions to promote human flourishing.” Read more of Solomon’s tribute. Read more about Callahan in The Hastings Center’s obituary.

University of Pennsylvania President, Hastings Center President Emeritus Pay Tribute to Callahan

“I will say it: Dan Callahan is the most important person in bioethics,” writes Hastings Center president emeritus Tom Murray. “For his ideas; for his role in creating and nurturing The Hastings Center; and for his ability to spot, encourage, and motivate talent.” Read Murray’s essay. And each and every bioethicist today can cite a direct link to Dan Callahan, writes Amy Gutman, president of the University of Pennsylvania and a Hastings Center Fellow. “He inspired me—and so many others—with his determined ethical vision, his personal humility, and his creation of an institution that builds on his unique legacy far into the future. He will forever be an inspiration and a model for us all.” Read Gutman’s tribute.

Callahan’s Legacy: Prodigious Author, Thinker, and Bioethicist

Callahan’s 47 books and countless articles covered a wide range of topics, from the promise and peril of new technologies to dilemmas raised by decision-making near the end of life. In fall 2018, Callahan wrote about “momentous changes” that will change the future of aging, including increasing burdens of chronic illness and low birth rates that may squeeze the availability of elder care. His essay is part of What Makes a Good Life in Late Life? Citizenship and Justice in Aging Societies, a special report of the Hastings Center Report, supported by the Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust. Read the essay (open access).

“If everything else is distilled out, what my career in bioethics comes down to is simple and enduring,” Callahan wrote in his memoir, In Search of the Good: A Life in Bioethics. “It is an abiding fascination with the nature, scope, and validity of ethics as part of human life, and a similarly strong interest in the ways that scientific knowledge and technologies of medicine influence how we think about our health and morality and shape the ways we live our lives. Along the way, that means thinking about human finitude; about illness, suffering, aging, and death; and about the place of health in our individual and collective lives. It no less requires a recasting of our ethical traditions and ways of thinking about them.”

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