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Moral authority. What is it, where does it come from, who's got it, and what guidance does it give on controversial issues besetting people today, such as the buying and selling of human organs?
According to four Harvard University professors who wrestled with the topic at the opening debate of Möbius Leadership Forum on April 11, all of the most difficult human decisions sit at the intersection of religion, science, law, and government. At the debate, titled "The Market as God, Science as God, Law as God, or God as God," the four professorsAlan M. Dershowitz of Harvard Law School, Harvey Cox of Harvard Divinity School, Stephen Kosslyn of Harvard's psychology department, and Herman "Dutch" Leonard of John F. Kennedy School of Governmentdemonstrated how their different disciplines offered angles for approaching thorny moral questions.
Quoting the religious reformer Martin Luther, Harvey Cox told the capacity audience, "That in which we put our highest trust is our God." Often, he contended, the market is in some ways our God. Though Cox does not think markets are bad as such, he said that the downside of markets is often overlooked. As a theologian, Cox said he is "constantly astonished" by the conventional wisdom that the market knows best, sees the future when we don't, and disciplines us "always for our own good." Like a god, the market makes something out of nothing and has the power to transform. When anyone questions the market's omniscience, he or she is considered a heretic, he said.
If we devalue human life, how motivated are we going to be to work together more effectively? |
Stephen Kosslyn |
"In most of our religious traditions, the human is the vessel of spirit, of the image of God. However, when it is touched by the mysterious power of the market, it is now an assembly of organs, all of which are salable for the right price," he said.
Referring to a course called Thinking About Thinking that he teaches with fellow panelists Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology at Harvard and author of numerous popular books, and Alan M. Dershowitz, Harvard Law professor, Cox said that when 280 students were asked if there should be an international prohibition on the sale of organs, half voted yes and half voted no.
"Is there no limitation to the appetite of the market god?" he asked the HBS audience. "We treat it as a god. Are there other setters of value and meaning to hold the market god in check?" The final contradiction between God and the market god, he said, is that God views human beings as finite, while "the logic of the market god is infinite: infinite growth, infinite expansion." The market is a human institution, he added. "It can serve both salutary and toxic purposes."
Nested social systemsScience is another valuable framework for considering moral authority, said Stephen Kosslyn, professor of psychology.
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As a specialist in visual mental imagery, perception, and communication, Kosslyn called on his field to support the view that individuals are deeply embedded in social systems. These systems regulate our emotions and extend our intelligence.
"Most people think brains are like blueprints," he complained. We are hard-wired only to avoid pain and seek pleasure, he said. His research persuades him that the world acts as a "prosthetic device" for each of us, where we rely on external stimuli to extend the capacities of our brains. People are always working with each other to accomplish tasks, he said, and the degree of the interaction summons different aspects of ourselves to the fore.
Therefore, buying and selling organs affects not only the individuals directly involved, Kosslyn told the audience. "What does it do to the rest of us?" The issue at heart is what it does to society to view other people that way, Kosslyn stressed. "If we devalue human life, how motivated are we going to be to work together more effectively?"
No right, no wrong, only lessons"The history of rights is the history of observing wrongs," said Harvard Law School professor Alan M. Dershowitz. A celebrated criminal lawyer whose client list has included O. J. Simpson and Claus von Bulow, Dershowitz has ignited controversy recently through his advocacy of "torture warrants": legal warrants that would be issued to permit the use of torture when lives are at stake.
On the question under debatethe buying and selling of human organsDershowitz contended that moral authority has two sources:
- Revelation and discovery. "Authority lies outside human experience. We have to discover what human nature is and what our values really are."
- Invention: law or human experience.
Donning his trial lawyer hat as well as his professorial hat, he offered the audience four proposals to ponder.
- Organ donation is immoral.
- Refusal to donate an organ is immoral.
- Organ donation is optional; but if you don't agree to be a donor you won't get an organ if you need one yourself.
- A law should be instituted that says your organ does not belong to you after death: "It reverts to the state. The state has the right to use it and to choose it."
"In debating organ donation, I submit that there is no right and wrong. But there are lessons that we can learn from the errors of the past," said Dershowitz.
Asked by a member of the audience whether too much popular attention has focused on extreme practices of the organ business, where the rich benefit from exploitation of the poor in third-world countries, rather than on ethical considerations of a medical procedure that may become more common as American "baby boomers" grow older, Dershowitz agreed in principle. However, he argued, our knowledge of practices in China, for example, where organs from executed prisoners are harvested, should have direct bearing on proposals to do the same in the United States with prisoners on Death Row. It is well known that the rate of Chinese executions goes up according to the demand for organs, Dershowitz said, and Americans should strongly consider the implications of that lesson.
Faith in democracyHerman "Dutch" Leonard, a professor of public sector financial management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, placed his faith in good government. He reminded the audience that putting the rights of the individual at the center of political institutions is a relatively recent idea and, for much of the world, a radical one. Free market capitalism, which he called "the engine of progress," is good for people so long as their first and most important protectionwell-functioning, democratic political institutionsis responsible, transparent, accountable, efficient, and effective.
Making the sale of organs illegal won't make the matter go away, Leonard said. An illegal market gives rise to safety issues, lack of accountability, and "really awful" exploitation of donors who have poor alternative choices. The best of all possible alternatives, Leonard said, would be to establish a voluntary system of organ donation. In the United States there should be a social and political campaign to get people to voluntarily donate organs, he saidan idea that was received with a smattering of audience applause.
Should such a campaign not yield enough organs in the geographical regions where they are most needed, however, difficult choices would still have to be made.
"Should you have a legal market or an illegal market?" Leonard asked the audience. Even if a perfect legal market should exist, there is no perfect law enforcement, he added.
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