Rights, Nudging, and the Good of Others
Luke Gelinas, the Petrie-Flom/Harvard Catalyst Fellow in Clinical Research Ethics, has a new article commentary out in the American Journal of Bioethics responding to a new article (in the same issue) on The ethics of organ donor registration policies: Nudges and respect for autonomy by Douglas McKay and Alexandra Robinson. From the article:
As MacKay and Robinson rightly note, determining the ethical status of different approaches to default setting is necessary but not sufficient for settling the debate over which organ donation policy is all-things-considered ethically permissible or best. Even if a particular organ donation policy infringes autonomy and is to some extent ethically objectionable, it may (on all but the most austere of ethical theories) nonetheless be justifiable or best, as long as the badness of the autonomy infringement is offset by the goods it makes possible.
In this light there are two important questions. First, are any of the more objectionable approaches to default setting—and, let us assume, an opt-out approach in particular—likely to result in more organ donations than less objectionable approaches like MAC or VAC? If so, and second, would the increased goods of organ donation under a more objectionable opt-out strategy (more lives saved, suffering averted, and so on) justify it over a less objectionable approach?
Read Luke's commentary - and the original article - online!
Read the Full Article
Tags
bioethics health law policy human rights human tissue public health regulation