{"title":"Hastings Conversations: Working with Erik Parens","authors":"Gregory E. Kaebnick","doi":"10.1002/hast.70094","DOIUrl":"10.1002/hast.70094","url":null,"abstract":"<p><i>However helpful have been the papers, reports, and books Erik Parens has produced while at The Hastings Center, conversation with him has always been even better. In both his writing and conversation, he goes to core values. As Erik departs Hastings—retiring as of the end of June 2026 to commit himself more fully to teaching, his original professional love—the loss of these conversational interactions will be felt profoundly, not just at Hastings but in bioethics broadly</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":55073,"journal":{"name":"Hastings Center Report","volume":"56 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148521425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Issue Information and About the Cover Art","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/hast.70086","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.70086","url":null,"abstract":"<p><b>On the cover:</b> <i>Family Illness</i>, by Robert Pope, acrylic on paper. Courtesy of the Robert Pope Foundation.</p>","PeriodicalId":55073,"journal":{"name":"Hastings Center Report","volume":"56 4","pages":"1-4"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/hast.70086","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148533643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Susan M. Wolf, Gillian H. Roehrig, Timothy L. Pruett, Korkut Uygun, Adam Koch, Claire Colby McVan, Evelyn Brister, Shawneequa L. Callier, Alexander M. Capron, James F. Childress, Rosario Isasi, Andrew D. Maynard, Kenneth A. Oye, Paul B. Thompson, Terrence R. Tiersch
{"title":"Filling the Network Gap in Research Ethics: Analyzing Ethical Issues at Scale in Big Team Science","authors":"Susan M. Wolf, Gillian H. Roehrig, Timothy L. Pruett, Korkut Uygun, Adam Koch, Claire Colby McVan, Evelyn Brister, Shawneequa L. Callier, Alexander M. Capron, James F. Childress, Rosario Isasi, Andrew D. Maynard, Kenneth A. Oye, Paul B. Thompson, Terrence R. Tiersch","doi":"10.1002/hast.70046","DOIUrl":"10.1002/hast.70046","url":null,"abstract":"<p><i>Scientific research increasingly involves large, multidisciplinary teams networked across multiple institutions to develop new technologies. Despite the rise of complex research networks and big team science, there has been too little analysis to date of the ethical challenges facing these networks. The extensive literature on the ethical issues confronting individual researchers and small teams (the microlevel) and on the larger societal challenges flowing from research and new technology (the macrolevel) leaves a troubling gap in between, at the mesolevel of the research network involved in big team science. Yet the ability of complex networks to conduct research ethically—which is essential if the results are to be deemed reliable and trustworthy—depends on recognizing the ethical issues that emerge at this intermediate network level, identifying the values that should guide networks in addressing those issues, and equipping research leaders to build a culture supporting the ethical conduct of research across the laboratories and institutions that comprise the network. This paper calls out the problem, analyzing the gap and recommending next steps</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":55073,"journal":{"name":"Hastings Center Report","volume":"56 4","pages":"32-43"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/hast.70046","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148521332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby, Trevor M. Bibler, Holland Kaplan, Adam Omelianchuk, Joanna Smolenski
{"title":"Can I Get a Witness? The Ethical Dimensions of Family Presence in Patient Suffering","authors":"Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby, Trevor M. Bibler, Holland Kaplan, Adam Omelianchuk, Joanna Smolenski","doi":"10.1002/hast.70037","DOIUrl":"10.1002/hast.70037","url":null,"abstract":"<p><i>For patients who are suffering, the bedside presence of a family member can provide comfort, and many people hold that there is moral value in being present with a conscious, suffering patient. Yet what is the moral significance of the absence of family members when a patient is minimally conscious or unconscious and not aware of their absence? Clinicians are often troubled when family members and surrogate decision-makers who are able to spend a significant amount of time at an unconscious, seriously ill patient's bedside do not do so. Clinicians feel frustrated that they must bear the burden of witnessing the patient's actual or perceived suffering while the family escapes this burden and therefore appears to fail to uphold a duty to the patient. What are we to make of this point of view? What is the source of this frustration? What is the nature of the perceived duty? Is it morally defensible to request or require family members to be present with an unresponsive patient to bear witness to their actual or perceived suffering? If so, on what grounds?</i></p>","PeriodicalId":55073,"journal":{"name":"Hastings Center Report","volume":"56 4","pages":"19-24"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/hast.70037","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148521339","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Whose Responsibility? Research Ethics, Integrity, and Governance in Networked Science","authors":"Clement A. Adebamowo","doi":"10.1002/hast.70078","DOIUrl":"10.1002/hast.70078","url":null,"abstract":"<p><i>Large, multi-institutional research networks pose genuine challenges for accountability, authorship, data sharing, mentorship, reproducibility, trust, and governance. In responding to the article “Filling the Network Gap in Research Ethics: Analyzing Ethical Issues at Scale in Big Team Science,” by Susan Wolf et al., this commentary welcomes attention to those challenges but argues that labeling them as a new domain of research ethics requires more conceptual and normative precision. The article moves unevenly among research ethics, responsible conduct of research, bioethics, organizational theory, and responsible innovation while offering a definition of network ethics that is insufficiently differentiated from existing frameworks. Many examples cited are better understood as responsible conduct of research and research integrity problems amplified by scale, institutional plurality, and network topology. A persuasive account of network ethics must specify its unit of analysis, distinguish ethical from managerial and procedural problems, and identify the principles, duties, and accountability structures that justify a distinct framework. This commentary therefore recommends reframing the agenda as ethical governance and responsible conduct of network research at scale</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":55073,"journal":{"name":"Hastings Center Report","volume":"56 4","pages":"43-46"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148521397","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Anne E. Clinton replies","authors":"Anne E. Clinton","doi":"10.1002/hast.70085","DOIUrl":"10.1002/hast.70085","url":null,"abstract":"<p><i>This letter responds to the letter “Reexamining the UDDA: Are We Ready for Significant Change?,” by Paul T. Menzel, in the same, July-August 2026, issue of the Hastings Center Report</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":55073,"journal":{"name":"Hastings Center Report","volume":"56 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148521268","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.1002/hast.70087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.70087","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":55073,"journal":{"name":"Hastings Center Report","volume":"56 4","pages":"53-54"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148533644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Robert D. Truog replies","authors":"Robert D. Truog","doi":"10.1002/hast.70084","DOIUrl":"10.1002/hast.70084","url":null,"abstract":"<p><i>This letter responds to the letter “Reexamining the UDDA: Are We Ready for Significant Change?,” by Paul T. Menzel, in the same, July-August 2026, issue of the Hastings Center Report</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":55073,"journal":{"name":"Hastings Center Report","volume":"56 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148521336","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reexamining the UDDA: Are We Ready for Significant Change?","authors":"Paul T. Menzel","doi":"10.1002/hast.70081","DOIUrl":"10.1002/hast.70081","url":null,"abstract":"<p><i>This letter responds to the article “Defining Death Anew: Reexamining the Twentieth-Century Brain Death Debates and the Uniform Determination of Death Act,” by Anne E. Clinton, and the responding commentary, “The Enigma of Brain Death,” by Robert D. Truog in the November-December 2025 issue of the</i> Hastings Center Report.</p>","PeriodicalId":55073,"journal":{"name":"Hastings Center Report","volume":"56 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148521353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Preventing Diffusion of Moral Responsibility in Big Team Science: Taking an Ecosystem Approach","authors":"Mildred K. Cho","doi":"10.1002/hast.70076","DOIUrl":"10.1002/hast.70076","url":null,"abstract":"<p><i>Long-standing frameworks for the ethics of biomedical research are being challenged on multiple fronts by seismic shifts in the way science is practiced. One such shift, which is the focus of “Filling the Network Gap in Research Ethics: Analyzing Ethical Issues at Scale in Big Team Science,” by Susan Wolf and colleagues in this issue of the</i> Hastings Center Report, <i>is the evolution of biomedical research toward very large scientific teams. The authors seek to fill a gap in research ethics frameworks that arises with the conduct of big team science, at the mesolevel of research networks. However, I suggest ways that their focus on the ethical issues of traditional science such as authorship and data sharing and their confining of the concept of</i> big teams <i>to multiple but similarly constituted groups at research labs or institutions limit the scope of ethical inquiry in ways that potentially diminish the future utility of their analysis</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":55073,"journal":{"name":"Hastings Center Report","volume":"56 4","pages":"46-48"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2026-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148521385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}