Callahanian Bioethics

For someone with an outsized influence on a field he helped to create, Dan Callahan was anything but overbearing. Physically compact, thin, and wiry in older age, he spoke at the rapid speed of his mind. Soon after I met him—when I was on the cusp of what would become a year-long residency at The Hastings Center—I found myself seated in his decidedly quaint living room. Dan told a story that evening, one of many that has stuck in my head. It seemed to encapsulate his moral mindset and, in a way, his broader vision for bioethics. I am sure he has told the story many times to many people, but here it is as I recall it.