Can double‐effect reasoning justify lethal organ donation?

Bioethics 36 (6):648-654 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The dead donor rule (DDR) prohibits retrieval protocols that would be lethal to the donor. Some argue that compliance with it can be maintained by satisfying the requirements of double‐effect reasoning (DER). If successful, one could support organ donation without reference to the definition of death while being faithful to an ethic that prohibits intentionally killing innocent human life. On the contrary, I argue that DER cannot make lethal organ donation compatible with the DDR, because there are plausible ways it fails DER's requirements. A key takeaway is that the theories of intention and proportionality assumed in DER matter for its plausibility as a constraint on practical reasoning.

Other Versions

No versions found

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-03-07

Downloads
661 (#39,936)

6 months
134 (#37,152)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Adam Omelianchuk
Baylor College of Medicine

Citations of this work

Add more citations

References found in this work

Against the Right to Die.J. David Velleman - 1992 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 17 (6):665-681.
How (not) to think of the ‘dead-donor’ rule.Adam Omelianchuk - 2018 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 39 (1):1-25.
War and Massacre.Thomas Nagel - 1985 - In Lawrence A. Alexander (ed.), International Ethics: A Philosophy and Public Affairs Reader. Princeton University Press. pp. 53-75.

View all 9 references / Add more references