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Teaching ethics and trading organs
Sayeed, Sadath A
Sayeed, Sadath A
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"The buying and selling of human organs bothers many people these days, and for good reasons. As an academic teacher in the US who tries to help students test their moral intuitions in bioethics, I resist reflexive claims that the creation of a market for organs is simply wrong. To serve my students best, I feel obligated to push back−to figure out more precisely what bothers them so much. As a thought experiment, I like to borrow an apt question often posed by a colleague of mine: What’s wrong with me (a physician, lawyer, and ethicist all rolled up into one with no outstanding debt or desperate need for money) accepting 5 million US dollars for one of my kidneys? If one accepts that society is made up of individuals with a plurality of acceptable values, and one takes seriously the notion that we ought to respect informed choices when it doesn’t obviously harm others, it becomes trickier to find moral fault in this voluntary transaction. For one thing, it seems implausible to suggest that I am being unfairly treated in agreeing to such an arrangement. Moreover, being of sound mind, am I not allowed to do with my body as I please
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2009-01
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With permission of the license/copyright holder