Survival lotteries reconsidered.
Author
Øverland, GDate
2007-09Source Title
BioethicsPublisher
WileyUniversity of Melbourne Author/s
OVERLAND, GERHARDAffiliation
Philosophy, Anthropology And Social InquiryMetadata
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Journal ArticleCitations
Øverland, G. (2007). Survival lotteries reconsidered.. Bioethics, 21 (7), pp.355-363. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00570.x.Access Status
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C1 - Journal Articles Refereed
Abstract
In 1975 John Harris envisaged a survival lottery to redistribute organs from one to a greater number in order to reduce number of deaths as a consequence of organ failure. In this paper I reach a conclusion about when running a survival lottery is permissible by looking at the reason prospective participants have for allowing the procedure from a contractual perspective. I identify three versions of the survival lottery. In a National Lottery, everyone within a jurisdiction is a candidate for being a donor for everyone else, disregarding all differences between individuals' eventual possibility of needing an organ. In a Group Specific Lottery, it is a question of running a lottery among members of a specific group who share the same probability of getting organ failure. In a Local Lottery one randomises among individuals who are already in need of a new organ but who happen to be compatible and in need of different organs. While the first is vulnerable to considerations of fairness, it is difficult to perceive a feasible way to implement the second option that does not come with a host of unwelcome consequences. I argue, however, that it is permissible to run Local Lotteries.
Keywords
Applied Ethics (incl. Bioethics and Environmental Ethics); OtherExport Reference in RIS Format
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