Is there a moral obligation for live organ donation?

[fuzzymillipede]

This is inspired by the Japanese earthquake thread, in particular the notion that there is a moral obligation for nuclear plant workers to sacrifice themselves to save the lives of other people. I have been thinking about this subject and I have came up with a moral dilemma that has me stumped. So maybe someone here can clear this up.

Due to the insufficient number of organ donors, someone could potentially save many lives by donating as many organs as they could, especially if it is a live organ donation because organs from a dead donor could be unusable due to the cause of death and/or old age.

So, assuming that nuclear plant workers are morally obligated to sacrifice themselves to save lives, is there a moral obligation for healthy individuals to sacrifice their organs to save lives? Is this even a valid comparison to make?

[Alyrium Denryle]

So, assuming that nuclear plant workers are morally obligated to sacrifice themselves to save lives, is there a moral obligation for healthy individuals to sacrifice their organs to save lives? Is this even a valid comparison to make?

No, because your underlying assumption is false. Sacrificing yourself in the manner of those workers is not morally obligatory, it is morally praiseworthy--not doing so is not morally blameworthy.

Even if it is obligatory, it does not follow from that that it is obligatory to sacrifice one's organs while said individual is still alive.

The only way those workers sacrificing themselves could possibly be obligatory is if they were going to die from radiation poisoning (and many were) anyway. However, your organs are just as useful with you dying from natural causes (other than the failure of that organ) and then donating them. It also lacks the negative utiles of you dying prematurely.

[Broomstick]

Oh, nicely put!

I'll add some more - you are not obligated to donate an organ while you are alive, either, even if the donation would live you still alive. It's because of the risk to the donor. It does little good for one person to receive a partial liver transplant if the donor dies due to complications of the donation, for example, and even under the best circumstances live donation carries risk

[open_sketchbook]

But wouldn't a person be of greater overall utility if, at a young age, they sacrificed themselves so that their young, healthy, intact organs could save multiple lives?

(Not saying I believe this, but I think it's an interesting question.)

[Broomstick]

We need the young, healthy people to stay intact and alive so they can do the work of civilization and produce the next generation. They have greater utility for society in that role than as spare parts for people who are terminally ill otherwise and most likely older and less able bodied. Even if their sacrifice saved other young people, the organ recipient's utility is offset by the expense of surgery, follow up anti-rejection drugs, increased rates of things like diabetes and cancer (both side effects of organ donation0, and the face that most transplanted organs won't last past 10 years. So they'd need yet another organ in a decade (on average).

Nope, much better to leave the young and healthy ones intact.

[General Zod]

But wouldn't a person be of greater overall utility if, at a young age, they sacrificed themselves so that their young, healthy, intact organs could save multiple lives?

(Not saying I believe this, but I think it's an interesting question.)

Only if you believe that people are worth the meat in their bodies and nothing else.

[HeadCreeps]

We need the young, healthy people to stay intact and alive so they can do the work of civilization and produce the next generation. They have greater utility for society in that role than as spare parts for people who are terminally ill otherwise and most likely older and less able bodied. Even if their sacrifice saved other young people, the organ recipient's utility is offset by the expense of surgery, follow up anti-rejection drugs, increased rates of things like diabetes and cancer (both side effects of organ donation0, and the face that most transplanted organs won't last past 10 years. So they'd need yet another organ in a decade (on average).

Nope, much better to leave the young and healthy ones intact.

I pretty much completely agree with that, although reading that first sentence conjured up the fact that our workforce is continuously growing older and we have "lost generations" in many societies. Of course, there is absolutely no way that this can justify harvesting the young any more than the more common kill the poor mentality is justifiable.

[Eternal_Freedom]

If you want to argue that the youth has a moral obligation to donate organs to help the sick and old, surely you could make an equal case that the sick and old have the moral duty to donate their remaining healthy organs to the ones available for the young so they can stay healthy, productive and reproducing longer?