Caplan, Arthur L.

Caplan, Arthur L. (1950–  ) philosopher, biomedical ethicist; born in Boston, Mass. After taking his B.A. at Brandeis (1971), he took an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. (1979) at Columbia University. While at Columbia he served on the faculty of the university's medical school, school of public health, and journalism school. He also taught at the University of Pittsburgh (1986). He then joined the Hastings Center (Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.) as associate for humanities (1977–84), becoming associate director (1985–87). He became director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Minnesota, where he was also a professor of philosophy (1987–94). He went on to become director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania (1994). He has edited or written some 18 books and more than 300 articles on topics in biomedical ethics, health policy, and the history and philosophy of health care; among his best known titles are When Medicine Went Mad: Bioethics and the Holocaust (1992) and If I Were a Rich Man Could I Buy a Pancreas (1992). He served as a consultant to many organizations, including the National Institutes of Health, the Office of Technology Assessment, and the Clinton Health Policy Task Force Ethics Working Group (1993). His primary areas of research interest were in the use of new technologies in health care, transplantation, resource allocation, the termination of treatment, genetics, human experimentation, and long-term care. He wrote a syndicated column on bioethics, carried in some 40 newspapers in the U.S.A. and abroad, and was a frequent guest and much-quoted spokesperson in the national media whenever issues of bioethics came to the fore.