Proponents of permitting living kidney sales often argue as follows. Many jobs involve significant risks; people are and should be free to take these risks in exchange for money; the risks involved in giving up a kidney are no greater than the risks involved in acceptable hazardous jobs; so people should be free to give up a kidney for money, too. This paper examines this frequently invoked but rarely analysed analogy. Two objections are raised. First, it is far from clear (...) that kidney sales and dangerous jobs involve comparable risks on an appropriately broad comparison. Second, and more importantly, even if they do involve comparable risks it does not follow that kidney sales must be permitted because dangerous jobs are. The analogy assumes that kidney sales are banned for paternalistic reasons. But there may be other, non-paternalistic reasons for the ban. And paternalists, too, can consistently defend the ban even if kidney sales are no riskier than occupations that they find acceptable. Soft paternalists may want to protect would-be vendors from harms that they have not voluntarily chosen. Egalitarian hard paternalists may want to protect already badly off vendors from further worsening their situation. For neither species of paternalist is the size of the risk prevented decisive. I conclude that the analogy with dangerous jobs, while rhetorically powerful, pulls little real argumentative weight. Future debates on living kidney sales should therefore proceed without it. (shrink)

The commercial trading of human organs, along withvarious related activities (for example, advertising)was criminalised throughout Great Britain under theHuman Organ Transplants Act 1989.This paper critically assesses one type of argumentfor this, and similar, legal prohibitions:commodification arguments.Firstly, the term `commodification' is analysed. Thiscan be used to refer to either social practices or toattitudes. Commodification arguments rely on thesecond sense and are based on the idea that having acommodifying attitude to certain classes of thing(e.g. bodies or persons) is wrong. The commodifyingattitude consists (...) of three main elements: denial ofsubjectivity, instrumentality, and fungibility.Secondly, in the light of this analysis, the claimthat organ sale involves commodifying the human bodyis examined. This claim is found to be plausible butinsufficient to ground an argument against organ sale,because the very same commodifying attitude is likelyto be present in cases of (unpaid) organ donation. Itis also argued that commodifying bodies per semay not be wrong.Thirdly, the view that organ sale involvescommodifying persons is examined. Although this andthe claim that it is wrong to commodify persons areprobably true, there is – it is argued – littlereason to regard organ sale as worse in this respectthan other widely accepted practices, such as thebuying and selling of labour.The conclusion is that although commodification is auseful ethical concept and although commodificationarguments may sometimes be successful, thecommodification argument against organ sale is notpersuasive. This is not to say, though, that thereare no arguments for prohibition – simply that thisparticular justificatory strategy is flawed. (shrink)

This paper argues that, if one thinks that the needy have a right to the material resources they need in order to lead decent lives, one must be committed, in some cases, to conferring on the sick a right that the healthy give them some of the body parts they need to lead such a life. I then assess two objections against that view, to wit: to confer on the sick a right to the live body parts of the healthy (...) violates the bodily integrity of the latter; and constitutes too much of an interference in their life. I conclude that although the sick sometimes have a right to some of the body parts of the healthy, the latter still retain a considerable degree of autonomy. (shrink)

Has not the time fully come to lift the prohibition on a regulated market in organs for transplantation? Is there a price for such a market that would be too high to pay? The author revisits the cases for and against organ markets in the light of cultural shifts in society and asks whether the traditional insistence on altruism represents a hindrance to much needed developments or a safeguard for much valued public goods.