The devastation of Hurricane Ida and the global threats of climate change are not on the fringe of bioethics. They call to mind the language of priority-setting typical of bioethics discourse. Who lives and who dies? What can be accomplished with prevention and more levees? And if more are built, how do we set priorities with limited resources?

I have always wanted to see a woolly mammoth. From the time I first read about them up until, well, a few moments ago, I’ve fantasized about going back in time to see a herd shoving its way through an Ice Age snowstorm. Alas, it cannot be, even if George Church and a new company, Colossus, bend heaven and earth to make it happen.

What does it mean to live well on a warming planet? And as the climate changes, how might health care, education, and other sectors support, or obstruct, our ability to respond? The answers to these profound, and profoundly bioethical, questions will critically influence human well-being in this century and beyond. A group of scientists, educators, and bioethicists convened at The Hastings Center recently to consider these questions and begin an interdisciplinary conversation on how bioethics might address the challenges posed by climate change.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport has decided that female athletes with atypically high levels of testosterone must take testosterone-lowering medication in order to compete in certain events. I'm troubled by the precedent this sets.

If virtuous perfection of natural talents is what sports is all about, sports needs more people like Caster Semenya, the South African runner. But she is now ineligible for competing in middle distance events unless she takes medication to suppress her naturally high testosterone levels. Is this fair?

The new indie movie William explores the question, What would it be like if a Neanderthal were born and raised in a modern, industrialized society today?

On May 8, the New York Court of Appeals denied an appeal to have two captive chimpanzees, Kiko and Tommy, recognized as legal persons with the right to bodily liberty and released to a chimpanzee sanctuary. The Court of Appeals allows only about 5 percent of appeals, so the legal outcome was not surp...

Last month, a group of 17 North American philosophers (myself included) filed an amicus curiae brief with the New York State Court of Appeals on behalf of Kiko and Tommy, two captive chimpanzees. The brief, informally known as “Chimpanzee Personhood: The Philosophers’ Brief,” supports a legal a...

Possibly as many as half of the coral reefs that existed 100 years ago have been destroyed, sometimes by removing them, covering them up, or blowing them up, but mostly just because of climate change, which is gradually heating the water and making it more acidic. The solution everyone who cares abou...

After years of fluctuating and troubled efforts, the nations of the world in December of 2015 came to the remarkable agreement to work together to reduce global warming. On June 2, President Trump announced that our country will withdraw from that agreement.