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The "spare parts person"? Conceptions of the human body and their implications for public attitudes towards organ donation and organ sale
BACKGROUND: The increasing debate on financial incentives for organ donation raises concerns about a "commodification of the human body". Philosophical-ethical stances on this development depend on assumptions concerning the body and how people think about it. In our qualitative empirical...
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Formato: | Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2009
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2669094/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19226449 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1747-5341-4-4 |
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author | Schweda, Mark Schicktanz, Silke |
author_facet | Schweda, Mark Schicktanz, Silke |
author_sort | Schweda, Mark |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The increasing debate on financial incentives for organ donation raises concerns about a "commodification of the human body". Philosophical-ethical stances on this development depend on assumptions concerning the body and how people think about it. In our qualitative empirical study we analyze public attitudes towards organ donation in their specific relation to conceptions of the human body in four European countries (Cyprus, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden). This approach aims at a more context-sensitive picture of what "commodification of the body" can mean in concrete clinical decisions concerning organ donation. RESULTS: We find that moral intuitions concerning organ donation are rooted in various conceptions of the human body and its relation to the self: a) the body as a mechanical object owned by the self, b) the body as a part of a higher order embodying the self, and c) the body as a hierarchy of organs constitutive of the self. CONCLUSION: The language of commodification is much too simple to capture what is at stake in everyday life intuitions about organ donation and organ sale. We discuss how the plurality of underlying body-self conceptions can be taken into account in the ethical debate, pointing out consequences for an anthropologically informed approach and for a liberal perspective. |
format | Text |
id | pubmed-2669094 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2009 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-26690942009-04-15 The "spare parts person"? Conceptions of the human body and their implications for public attitudes towards organ donation and organ sale Schweda, Mark Schicktanz, Silke Philos Ethics Humanit Med Research BACKGROUND: The increasing debate on financial incentives for organ donation raises concerns about a "commodification of the human body". Philosophical-ethical stances on this development depend on assumptions concerning the body and how people think about it. In our qualitative empirical study we analyze public attitudes towards organ donation in their specific relation to conceptions of the human body in four European countries (Cyprus, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden). This approach aims at a more context-sensitive picture of what "commodification of the body" can mean in concrete clinical decisions concerning organ donation. RESULTS: We find that moral intuitions concerning organ donation are rooted in various conceptions of the human body and its relation to the self: a) the body as a mechanical object owned by the self, b) the body as a part of a higher order embodying the self, and c) the body as a hierarchy of organs constitutive of the self. CONCLUSION: The language of commodification is much too simple to capture what is at stake in everyday life intuitions about organ donation and organ sale. We discuss how the plurality of underlying body-self conceptions can be taken into account in the ethical debate, pointing out consequences for an anthropologically informed approach and for a liberal perspective. BioMed Central 2009-02-18 /pmc/articles/PMC2669094/ /pubmed/19226449 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1747-5341-4-4 Text en Copyright © 2009 Schweda and Schicktanz; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Schweda, Mark Schicktanz, Silke The "spare parts person"? Conceptions of the human body and their implications for public attitudes towards organ donation and organ sale |
title | The "spare parts person"? Conceptions of the human body and their implications for public attitudes towards organ donation and organ sale |
title_full | The "spare parts person"? Conceptions of the human body and their implications for public attitudes towards organ donation and organ sale |
title_fullStr | The "spare parts person"? Conceptions of the human body and their implications for public attitudes towards organ donation and organ sale |
title_full_unstemmed | The "spare parts person"? Conceptions of the human body and their implications for public attitudes towards organ donation and organ sale |
title_short | The "spare parts person"? Conceptions of the human body and their implications for public attitudes towards organ donation and organ sale |
title_sort | "spare parts person"? conceptions of the human body and their implications for public attitudes towards organ donation and organ sale |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2669094/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19226449 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1747-5341-4-4 |
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