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What Money Cannot Buy and What Money Ought Not Buy: Dignity, Motives, and Markets in Human Organ Procurement Debates

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Abstract

Given the current organ shortage, a prevalent alternative to the altruism-based policy is a market-based solution: pay people for their organs. Receiving much popular and scholarly attention, a salient normative argument against neoliberal pressures is the preservation of human dignity. This article examines how advocates of both the altruistic status quo and market challengers reason and weigh the central normative concept of dignity, meant as inherent worth and/or rank. Key rhetorical strategies, including motivations and broader social visions, of the two positions are analyzed and evaluated, and the separation of morally normative understandings of dignity from market encroachment is defended.

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  1. University of California, Los Angeles, 322 Humanities Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1511, USA

    Ryan Gillespie

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  1. Ryan Gillespie
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Gillespie, R. What Money Cannot Buy and What Money Ought Not Buy: Dignity, Motives, and Markets in Human Organ Procurement Debates. J Med Humanit 40, 101–116 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-016-9427-z

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