Arthur L. Caplan (born 1950) is an American ethicist and professor of bioethics at New York University Grossman School of Medicine. He is known for his contributions to the U.S. public policy, including: helping to found the National Marrow Donor Program; creating the policy of required request in cadaver organ donation adopted throughout the United States; helping to create the system for distributing organs in the U.S.; and advising on the content of the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, rules governing living organ donation, and legislation and regulation in many other areas of health care including blood safety and compassionate use. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he repeatedly stepped into controversy by universally criticizing those who were not fully vaccinated. Early life and education Born in Boston in 1950 to Sidney D. and Natalie Caplan, Arthur Caplan grew up in Framingham, Massachusetts. He has described his family as "Workmen's Circle, Zionist, and secular." He credits his background of Judaism with stimulating his interest in methods of inquiry and argument. At age six, Caplan was diagnosed with polio. He was successfully treated at Children's Hospital in Boston and went on to play sports at Framingham North High School. Caplan has stated that this life-threatening illness was a formative experience that influenced his later commitment to philosophy and bioethics. Caplan did his undergraduate work at Brandeis University, where he majored in philosophy. There he met his future wife Jane. Their son, Zachary, was born in 1984. Caplan's second wife, Meg O’Shea Caplan, is the medical center director of the Bronx VA Medical Center. Caplan did his graduate work at Columbia University, receiving an M.A. in 1973, an M.Phil. in 1975, and a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science in 1979. His dissertation, Philosophical Issues Concerning the Synthetic Theory of Evolution, was co-supervised by Ernest Nagel and Sidney Morgenbesser. Caplan worked with Nagel as a teaching assistant and was the final graduate student of Nagel's career. During his time at Columbia, Caplan met psychoanalyst and Dean of Education Bernard Schoenberg. Schoenberg allowed him to participate as both an observer and a medical student in clinical rotations in the university's medical college, first experiencing "ethics in action". Career In 1977, Caplan met Daniel Callahan, a philosopher who co-founded The Hastings Center (now in Garrison, New York) with psychiatrist Willard Gaylin. In 1977, Caplan joined The Hastings Center, first as a junior research