The Ethics of Transplants: Why Careless Thought Costs Lives

by Janet Richards

Everyone knows that transplantation can save and transform lives, but thousands die every year on waiting lists because there are not enough organs available. If more people could be persuaded to donate, more lives could be saved. But is individual reluctance to donate the root of the problem? Individual choices are made against the background of prevailing laws, conventions and institutions, and many of those present direct or indirect obstacles to organ procurement, from both the living and the dead. If any of those cannot be justified, the deaths they cause are similarly unjustified.

In The Ethics of Transplants , Janet Radcliffe Richards, a leading moral philosopher and author of The Sceptical Feminist and Human Nature after Darwin , casts a sharp critical eye over these institutional barriers to organ procurement, and the logic of the arguments offered in their defense. Her incisive reasoning forces us to confront the implications of unexamined intuitions, leads to several unexpected conclusions, and in doing so demonstrates the crucial importance of clear thinking in public debate.

292 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2012

Reviews

[Ivars Neiders · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is applied ethics at its best.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Janet Radcliffe-Richards writes (and talks) on morality with tremendous clarity. This book is accessible to just about anyone. It lacks unexplained jargon and gets to the core points succinctly and elegantly.

And, I believe, she has a habit of being right. This is applied ethics. However, it requires explaining the general shortcoming on how we tend to form moral beliefs based on instinctive feelings. With careful thought, we might realise that these instincts are not faultless morality-detectors. While we put too much trust in them and are unwilling to reason, people suffer and die unnecessarily.

[mwr · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an introduction into how one might clarify thinking about practical ethics, this book is alright. It's written for a more popular audience, and her arguments don't hold up to more critical scrutiny, but the method she proposes at least enables one to begin to think about listening to and responding to objections.

[Sigrid Fry-Revere · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book for everyone. But if you like logical argumentation and thought games, you will like this book.