International management ethics and values

International Management Ethics & Values

Last month, a Brooklyn man was arrested for his role in brokering the sale of a kidney from an Israeli man to an American recipient, in direct violation of the National Organ Transplant Act (Mullen, 2009). The case has cast a spotlight on the laws prohibiting the sale of donor organs in the United States. Despite these worries in the U.S., the sale of organs is thriving around the world. According to the Organ Watch program at the University of California, Berkeley, some 5-10% of kidneys transplanted worldwide last year involved purchased organs (Ibid). In some societies, there is a high degree of moral outrage against organ sales, but when the issue is viewed objectively, it is clear that the sale of organs should be allowed.

In the United States today, there is a chronic shortage of donor organs. Part of the problem is the opt-in organ donation system, but evidence from New Zealand shows that a more significant contributor to the problem is that death needs to occur from catastrophic consequences, and incidents of such are too low to meet the demand for organ donation (MacDonald, 2005). Given this, the pendulum of the moral argument against live donation swings the other way. By prohibiting live donation, we are in essence condemning to death thousands of Americans every year. We as a people are aware of the organ shortage and we are aware of its consequences and yet, because of moral outrage, we willing choose to allow our friends and neighbors to die. The moralists among us are more outraged about the donation of a kidney than they are about the death of the potential recipient. By the standards of result-based consequentialist ethics, this is a moral fallacy.

There is also the question of the individual rights. Kant would view this issue in terms of the categorical imperative, which is the standard of rationality based on the law of autonomous will (Johnson, 2008). This has direct implications for live organ donation. We as Americans have built our nation on the notion that the government should be as little involved as possible in our lives and affairs, to the extent that we do not harm others (Holcberg, 2008). As many forms of live donation do not cause harm to others, and as we allow the donation of blood for payment, we violate the categorical imperative by banning the sale of human organs.

It has been argued by some that banning organ donation is within the bounds of Kantian ethics because we have collectively agreed to the conviction that "such a practice would diminish human dignity and our sense of solidarity" (Cohen, 2002). Yet, we do not prohibit the donation of blood or of bone marrow. Indeed, most among us would agree that such donations are necessary and beneficial. Lives are saved. There is nothing morally wrong about saving lives -- indeed live donations today are conducted voluntarily and without any moral consequence.

Allowing live organ donations is ethically consistent with our established principles regarding blood donation and voluntary, unpaid live organ donation. It will increase the supply of organs, allowing thousands to survive who otherwise would not. Live organ donation is consistent with the American concept of individual rights -- we all have the right to sell an organ the same as we have the right to sell our blood. Moreover, because thousands die each year for lack of donor organs, it is morally reprehensible to continue the prohibition on live organ sales. Forcing those people to die for our sense of moral outrage is not consistent with our ethics, the morals upon which this country was founded or our sense of duty to our fellow Americans.