Persons and Their Bodies: Rights, Responsibilities, Relationships (Philosophy and Medicine Book 60)

Debate regarding organ sales is largely innocent of the history of thought on the matter. This volume seeks to remedy this shortcoming. Positions for or against a market in human organs are nested within moral intuitions, ontological or political theoretical premises, or understandings of special moral concerns, such as permissible uses of the body, which have a long history of analysis. The essays compass the views of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Mill and Christianity, as well as particular methodological approaches, such as the phenomenology of the body, natural law theory, legal theory and libertarian critique of legal theory. These discussions cluster a number of conceptually independent philosophical concerns: (1) What is the appropriate understanding of the relationship between persons and their bodies? (2) What does it mean to `own' an organ? (3) Do governments have moral authority to regulate how persons use their own body parts? (4) What are the costs and benefits of a market in human organs? Such questions are related by an urgent public health challenge: the considerable disparity between the number of patients who could significantly benefit from organ transplantation and the number of human organs available for transplantation. This volume explores the theoretical, normative, and historical foundations for alternative policies for procurement and transplantation of human organs. Persons and Their Bodies: Rights, Responsibilities, and the Sale of Organs....Pages 1-32 Body and Soul in Greek Philosophy....Pages 35-56 A Millian Perspective on the Relationship Between Persons and Their Bodies....Pages 57-72 What Does It Mean To Be Some body ? Phenomenological Reflections and Ethical Quandaries....Pages 73-94 An Orthodox Christian View of Persons and Bodies....Pages 95-108 Personal Responsibility and Freedom in Health Care: A Contemporary Natural Law Perspective....Pages 111-141 The Alienability of Lockean Natural Rights....Pages 143-176 Inalienable Rights in the Moral and Political Philosophy of John Locke: A Reappraisal....Pages 177-206 The Integrity of Body: Kantian Moral Constraints on the Physical Self....Pages 209-232 Whose Body? What Body? The Metaphysics of Organ Transplantation....Pages 233-264 The Impact of Biomedical Developments on the Legal Theory of the Mind-body Relationship....Pages 265-274 The Body for Fun, Beneficence, and Profit: A Variation on a Post-Modern Theme....Pages 277-301 Despair, Desire, and Decision: A Fugal Response to Engelhardt....Pages 303-330 The Sale of Organs and Obligations to One’s Body: Inferences from the Histoy of Ethics....Pages 331-350 The Integrity of the Body: Critical Remarks on a Persistent Theme in Bioethics....Pages 353-361 The Commercialization of Human Body Parts: Public Policy Considerations....Pages 363-383 "Debate regarding organ sales is largely innocent of the history of thought on the matter. This volume seeks to remedy this shortcoming. Positions for or against a market in human organs are nested within moral intuitions, ontological or political theoretical premises, or understandings of special moral concerns, such as permissible uses of the body, which have a long history of analysis. The essays compass the views of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Mill and Christianity, as well as particular methodological approaches, such as the phenomenology of the body, natural law theory, legal theory and libertarian critique of legal theory."--Jacket Debate regarding organ sales is largely innocent of the history of thought on the matter. This volume seeks to remedy this shortcoming. The essays included encompass the views of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, Mill and Christianity, as well as particular methodological approaches