From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Wed Sep 06 2000 - 15:12:40 MDT
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>
> > > In other words, I'm trying to address this at the level of 'How best to
> > > divide up finite resource XXX between agents A, B, and C under
> > > conditions YYY?' rather than 'Should ruthless sleazy factory owners be
> > > allowed to steal food from the mouths of unemployed single mothers with
> > > AIDS?'.
> >
> > Quite literally, that's the biggest problem.
>
> I sort of agree, but from the opposite point of view: the
> effectiveness of markets is predicated on the rationality of
> the actors, whereas real human beings are irrational and
> emotional. It matters little how solid the argument for a
> free market in, say, medical care would benefit the most
> people in the long run if we are emotionally unwilling to
> bear some of the short-term personal consequences. (E.g.,
> even if we know rationally that selling organs on a free
> market will result in saving the most lives, we are morally
> uncomfortable with the obvious result that the poor will be
> denied organ transplants in favor of the rich).
I was under the impression that the main opposition to legal organlegging was
that the list of offenses for which harvesting is a punishment would gradually
expand, as it apparently has in China. Niven lobbied about this back in the day
when people thought he was nuts to even think such a thing.
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