A Kantian argument for a duty to donate one's own organs. A reply to Nicole Gerrand.

ABSTRACT

Nicole Gerrand is right to criticize Munzer for not connecting a person's dignity to the "capacity to exhibit humanity by acting rationally." However, connecting these does not mean that they are one and the same concept. Gerrand fails to make two distinctions that are decisive in the context of Kant's ethics. First, she does not distinguish between vital organs, integral organs and mere "accumulations", each of which requires a specific moral argument. Second, she does not distinguish between human rational nature in itself, or the capacity to have free will, and the possibility of action rationally, or freedom of choice. Having drawn these distinctions, I argue that Kant's own principles fully allow certain kinds of organ transplants such as blood, skin and marrow transplants from living bodies as well as the transplantation of both vital organs and essential organs from fresh corpses. In fact, Kant's own moral principles should make of these an enforceable duty of right. Unlike Gerrand, then, I think that the question of whether or not donors should be paid--and the patient should pay--is a key issue even in a Kantian context.