I’m going to break my usual policy of not replying to comments anymore because I think this counts as a direct question.
So, my guess is that bioethicists, on average, believe similar things to what the general public believes, on average, but that either extreme is overrepresented (there will be more bioethicists in favor of a fully privatized kidney market, and also more bioethicists against all kidney donation), just based on my experience on other issues. I also suspect much of the controversy will be in the fine details rarely discussed by the public. As an example, if the purpose of payment is supposed to be reimbursement, should this be weighted by someone’s income in order to directly reimburse their lost wages, or should it be a flat rate to avoid the inherently regressive nature of the weighting policy? If the latter, how should one decide which flat rate counts as the correct one for “reimbursement”? That said, I really don’t know, the topic hasn’t come up much in conversation or readings, and I haven’t informally polled anyone in the way I did with challenge trials. I know someone currently working on trying to set up a philpapers-like survey of bioethicists, so I hope that will shed some more light on issues like this if/when it comes out. Still, I hope this helps.
What do real existing bioethicists think of compensation for kidney donors?
I’m going to break my usual policy of not replying to comments anymore because I think this counts as a direct question.
So, my guess is that bioethicists, on average, believe similar things to what the general public believes, on average, but that either extreme is overrepresented (there will be more bioethicists in favor of a fully privatized kidney market, and also more bioethicists against all kidney donation), just based on my experience on other issues. I also suspect much of the controversy will be in the fine details rarely discussed by the public. As an example, if the purpose of payment is supposed to be reimbursement, should this be weighted by someone’s income in order to directly reimburse their lost wages, or should it be a flat rate to avoid the inherently regressive nature of the weighting policy? If the latter, how should one decide which flat rate counts as the correct one for “reimbursement”? That said, I really don’t know, the topic hasn’t come up much in conversation or readings, and I haven’t informally polled anyone in the way I did with challenge trials. I know someone currently working on trying to set up a philpapers-like survey of bioethicists, so I hope that will shed some more light on issues like this if/when it comes out. Still, I hope this helps.