Main description:

Organs for Sale is a study of the bioethical question of how to increase human organ supply. But it is also an inquiry into public moral deliberation and the relationship between economic worth and the value systems of a society. Looking closely at human organ procurement debates, the author offers a critique of neoliberalism in bioethics and asks what kind of society we truly want.

While society has shown concern over debates surrounding organ procurement, a better understanding of the rhetoric of advocates and philosophical underpinnings of the debate might indeed improve our public moral deliberation in general and organ policy more specifically. Examining public arguments, this book uses a range of source material, from medical journals to congressional hearings to newspaper op-eds, to provide the most up-to-date and thorough analysis of the topic. Organs for Sale posits that deciding together on the limits of markets, and on what is and ought to be for sale, sheds light on the moral fibre of our society and what it needs to thrive.

Contents:

Acknowledgments

Section One: Morals, Markets, and Medicine

1. Organs for Sale? Normative Entanglements in the Public Sphere
2. Public Morality: Altruism, Rhetoric, and Bioethics

Section Two: The Rhetorical Positions, Arguments, and Justifications in Human Organ Procurement

3. The Case for an Altruistic Supply System
4. The Case for a Market-Based Supply System

Section Three: Morality, Neoliberalism, and the Prospects of Reasoning Together in a Democracy

5. The Neoliberal Graft: Medicine, Morality, and Markets in Liberal-Democratic Regimes
6. Good Reasons: Metanormativity and Categoricity
7. Weighing Reasons: Telic Orientation, Rhetorical Force, and Normative Force

Section Four: Weighing Reasons in the Organ Debate

8. The Scope of the Market: Exploitation, Coercion, Paternalism, and Legal Consistency
9. What Money Cannot Buy and What Money Ought Not Buy: Dignity, Motives, and Markets

Conclusion: What Kind of Policy for What Kind of Society?

Notes
Bibliography
Index