My Essay on Selling Organs
Posted on November 12, 2007 - Filed Under College, Philosophy |
Here it is, shorn of its footnotes and bibliography, with the paragraph indentation messed up (meaning that you can’t easily tell whether or not I am continuing a paragraph or starting a new one after I quote someone). I’m only going to leave it up for a few days because I don’t want people ripping me off. I don’t know whether it’s any good (I’ll have to reread it in a few days to determine that), but it doesn’t strike me as the greatest thing I’ve ever written. Anyhow, at least it’s finished with.
Question: Should there be a legal market for human body parts? Should people be allowed to sell parts of their body to the highest bidder? You must justify your answer by using arguments from one of the following moral theories: natural law theory; ethical egoism; utilitarianism; Kantian ethics; social contract theory.
There was an essay here, but it’s been taken down. Nobody references stuff they read on blogs, so why should I leave it up here? Try jstor.
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6 Responses to “My Essay on Selling Organs”
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i cant read all that. but i already explained that this essay gets 0%. Ultilitarianism says its a stupid idea as the risk to benefit ratio is ridiculously high and its not worth it. Science says no. Science is the ultimate in utilitarianism. I cant believe you wrote the opposite of what we discussed. shame.
If it was legal then it would be well regulated, and if it was well regulated then the risks would be no greater than those involved in kidney donations as they occur today. The second last paragraph addresses the concerns you raised.
no. if it was legal it would suck. e.g. America. When comparing legalised market for blood(and thus organ) donation it is a mess, and too risky, which is why intelligent countries dont do it.Epidemiology of these issues show that those countires who do it, spend more trying to solve the problems than they make, and create a net gain of problems and deaths. Only america and godknows who.
and the problem is baddies trying to sneak in bad blood/organs. Its people who need cash, are more likely to have diseases. If you can fix the social issues that cause poverty to be a risk factor for most diseases, and can then erase the connections between ill health and poverty and perhaps just erase poverty alltogether, then it would work.
i ment the problem “isnt” baddies…
Well look. This is a philosophy essay, not a medical essay. Nothing I say has to be applicable to real life. What matters is that the underlying principles are sound, as you yourself seem to acknowledge (”If you can fix the social issues that cause poverty to be a risk factor for most diseases, and can then erase the connections between ill health and poverty and perhaps just erase poverty alltogether, then it would work.”) It’s a little sad to admit, but philosophical positions aren’t really judged on the basis of how practical they are.
Anyway, we can all rest assured that there is no fear of some country’s health service finding my essay online and thinking, “By golly, this fellow’s really onto something!” The only worry I have is of intellectual bandits pilfering my ideas, for which reason I’ll take this down after the post drops off the front page.