Judgments of moral responsibility in tissue donation cases

Bioethics 32 (2):83-93 (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

If a person requires an organ or tissue donation to survive, many philosophers argue that whatever moral responsibility a biological relative may have to donate to the person in need will be grounded at least partially, if not entirely, in biological relations the potential donor bears to the recipient. We contend that such views ignore the role that a potential donor's unique ability to help the person in need plays in underwriting such judgments. If, for example, a sperm donor is judged to have a significant moral responsibility to donate tissue to a child conceived with his sperm, we think this will not be due to the fact that the donor stands in a close biological relationship to the recipient. Rather, we think such judgments will largely be grounded in the presumed unique ability of the sperm donor to help the child due to the compatibility of his tissues and organs with those of the recipient. In this paper, we report the results of two studies designed to investigate the comparative roles that biological relatedness and unique ability play in generating judgments of moral responsibility in tissue donation cases. We found that biologically related individuals are deemed to have a significant moral responsibility to donate tissue only when they are one of a small number of people who have the capacity to help.

Similar books and articles

The Ties that Undermine.John Beverley - 2015 - Bioethics 30 (5):304-311.
Ethics briefings.M. Davies, S. Brannan, E. Chrispin, S. Mason, R. Mussell, J. Sheather & A. Sommerville - 2010 - Journal of Medical Ethics 36 (7):447-449.
The moral complexity of sperm donation.Rivka Weinberg - 2008 - Bioethics 22 (3):166–178.
Anonymous Sperm Donation.Shari Collins & Eric Comerford - 2012 - International Journal of Applied Philosophy 26 (2):213-230.

Analytics

Added to PP
2017-11-24

Downloads
344 (#55,654)

6 months
106 (#34,798)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

John Beverley
University at Buffalo
James R. Beebe
University at Buffalo

References found in this work

Famine, Affluence, and Morality.Peter Singer - 1972 - Oxford University Press USA.
Famine, affluence, and morality.Peter Singer - 1972 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (3):229-243.
Famine, Affluence, and Morality.Peter Singer - 1985 - In Lawrence A. Alexander (ed.), International Ethics: A Philosophy and Public Affairs Reader. Princeton University Press. pp. 247-262.
Moral intuition.Jeff McMahan - 2000 - In Hugh LaFollette - (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory. Blackwell. pp. 92--110.
The moral complexity of sperm donation.Rivka Weinberg - 2008 - Bioethics 22 (3):166–178.

View all 8 references / Add more references