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Why Organ Conscription Should Be off the Table: Extrapolation from Heidegger’s Being and Time

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Abstract

The question, what measures to address the shortage of transplantable organs are ethically permissible? requires careful attention because, apart from its impact on medical practice, the stance we espouse here reflects our interpretations of human freedom and mortality. To raise the number of available organs, on utilitarian grounds, bioethicists and medical professionals increasingly support mandatory procurement. This view is at odds with the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2003, p. 2296), according to which ‘[o]rgan donation after death is a noble and meritorious act’ but ethically impermissible absent consent. Those who concur with this position, but would oppose conscription on independent philosophical grounds, have not yet found a voice in the Western tradition comparable in strength to the utilitarian basis of the policy’s support, for Kantian and Aristotelian ethics, too, lend themselves to a requirement that we make our organs available to others when they can no longer serve ourselves. One finds an ethical wedge against conscription in an unexpected philosophical locale: the ‘fundamental ontology’ of Heidegger’s Being and Time, where pertinent individual choices arc protectively over what happens post mortem. Heidegger’s perspective on this issue thus meshes, not with other philosophical voices, but with Catholic doctrine—a surprising convergence of atheistic and theistic approaches to our flourishing whose ground I address in the article’s conclusion.

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Notes

  1. On this topic, see Hatab (2000, pp. 99–115, 130). In addition, Kisiel (1993, pp. 248–306) has shown how Heidegger’s earlier engagement with Aristotle, especially his view of phronêsis, significantly impacted Being and Time. Consideration of how Aristotle’s virtue-based view relates to natural law ethics, including the extent to which it anticipates the position of St. Thomas Aquinas, falls outside the scope of this project. For discussion, see Irwin (2006); Murphy (2001, pp. 212–219).

  2. On his atheistic vantage point, see Heidegger (1962, pp. 74–75, 272, 313); Kisiel (1993, p. 259).

  3. Although the post-mortem faring of family and friends can slightly diminish one’s flourishing retroactively, eudaimonia itself does not depend on chance (Nicomachean Ethics I 10–11, e.g., one who is eudaimôn ‘cannot become wretched’ [1100b34]).

  4. Precedents for gleaning ethical import in Being and Time include Hatab (2000); Vogel (1994).

  5. Translations of ‘Letter on Humanism’ are by Capuzzi (Heidegger 1993), with minor changes.

  6. Cf. 1962, pp. 228, 269, 272. Translations of Being and Time are Macquarrie and Robinson’s, with certain adjustments; all italics are Heidegger’s. For quotations from the German text, I use the 15th edition (1984) of Sein und Zeit.

  7. Trans. Lovitt (Heidegger 1977a).

  8. The term derives from Plato scholarship, applying specifically to the claim of Shorey (1903, p. 88) that Plato belongs in that group of thinkers ‘whose philosophy is fixed in early maturity…rather than to the class of those who receive a new revelation every decade.’

  9. Cf. Nussbaum’s (1990, p. 16) list of questions that she takes ancient philosophers from Socrates through the Hellenistic period to have addressed.

  10. For extensive discussion of Plato’s engagement with poetry and medicine, see Levin (2001) and (2014), respectively; concerning rhetoricians, see Levin (2017).

  11. These perspectives are not mutually exclusive, of course, since one and the same person could find herself in both positions at different times.

  12. My translation. ‘Wenn etwas fehlt, dann ist das Fehlende zwar weg, aber das Weg selbst, das Fehlen bringt uns gerade auf und beunruhigt uns deshalb, was alles das “Fehlen” nur kann, wenn es selbst “da” ist, d.h. ist, d.h. ein Sein ausmacht. Sterêsis als Abwesung ist nicht einfach Abwesenheit, sondern Anwesung’ (Heidegger 1976c, pp. 296–297).

  13. The fact that das Man is an existentiale (Heidegger 1962, p. 167) means that Dasein can never wholly liberate itself from prevailing norms. The goal regarding authenticity is therefore not unqualified self-definition apart from the setting into which one has been thrown (geworfen), but rather existing as far as possible in line with unflinching, thoughtful examination of one’s own motives and aspirations.

  14. In my view, Vogel’s ‘cosmopolitan’ extension of Being and Time (1994, pp. 69–102) overstates the strength and scope of our obligations to others (e.g., ‘the free individual is, from the start, answerable to other persons for the effects of his choices on their well-being,’ p. 92) and has, at times, a too-Kantian ring (pp. 88, 105–106), notwithstanding Vogel’s distinction of Heidegger from Kant due to his focus on moods instead of reason (p. 102).

  15. It remains to be seen, for instance, whether future developments in the capacity for 3D printing of organs will satisfy the optimistic prediction of Bajaj et al. (2014, p. 267) regarding scientists’ eventual ability ‘to develop organs on demand in vitro, thereby lowering or completely eliminating the need for organ donation from individuals.’

  16. Kant rejects Aristotle’s definition of time as ‘a measure of motion and being moved’ (Aristotle, Physics IV 12, 220b32-221a1), hence as real independently of humans’ constitution, and inclusion of time among his ten categories, alongside substance, quality, quantity, and so on (Categories 4; Kant 2001, pp. 27, 60–63, 120). For present purposes, however, these points of divergence are irrelevant.

  17. For exploration of these questions, see, e.g., Feinberg (1974, 1984); Partridge (1981); Pitcher (1984); Callahan (1987).

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Jay Garfield, Tom Koch, Marianna Mapes, Ellina Nektalova, and Katie Wing for feedback on earlier versions of the article.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Smith College, Dewey Hall, 4 Neilson Drive, Northampton, MA, 01063, USA

    Susan B. Levin

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Levin, S.B. Why Organ Conscription Should Be off the Table: Extrapolation from Heidegger’s Being and Time. SOPHIA 58, 153–174 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-017-0589-6

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