WHEN GOOD ORGANS GO TO BAD PEOPLE

A number of philosophers have argued that alcoholics should receive lower priority for liver transplantations because they are morally responsible for their medical conditions. In this paper, I argue that this conclusion is false. Moral responsibility should not be used as a criterion for the alloca...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ho, Dien (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Wiley-Blackwell 2008
In: Bioethics
Year: 2008, Volume: 22, Issue: 2, Pages: 77-83
Further subjects:B Alcoholism
B ARESLD
B Moral Responsibility
B liver transplantation
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:A number of philosophers have argued that alcoholics should receive lower priority for liver transplantations because they are morally responsible for their medical conditions. In this paper, I argue that this conclusion is false. Moral responsibility should not be used as a criterion for the allocation of medical resources. The reason I advance goes further than the technical problem of assessing moral responsibility. The deeper problem is that using moral responsibility as an allocation criterion undermines the functioning of medicine.
ISSN:1467-8519
Contains:Enthalten in: Bioethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00606.x