I’m surprised you didn’t mentioned one of the potent effects of altruistic kidney giving which is kicking off donation chains!
There are many people who would donate a kidney to a loved one, but are not a match with their loved one. But they are a match to someone else. So if their loved one gets a kidney if they donate a kidney elsewhere, they are willing to make that trade.
So one altruistic kidney donation kicks off a domino chain of enabled donations magnifying its positive effects. (I think this is what you allude to with the orgs formed to encourage altruistic donation).
On the other hand, as you point out technology gives us new possibilities to act well, and I think part of the solution here is that the moral quandary will be solved when we can just grow personalized organs for people.
I often feel that making the good solution economically favorable is a much better path than moral argument for many problems.
(To your initial point - yes, kidney chains are a fascinating and remarkable thing! But there are many fascinating and remarkable things that could have been in the essay, but weren’t :-)!)
I wonder if one extra heuristic (maybe falling under expanding the circle of concern) is particularly moral duties that apply to enemies.
Thinking over your essay, I thought of Joseph Rotblat resigning from the Manhattan project. (In my head, he resigned in protest against using it on Japan.) There was a lot of military and societal pressure to justify shortening the war (or win the war, more generally). But that’s when we’re most likely to commit atrocities.
So supporting rights like due process for terrorists, criminals, enemies of war may also surface new moral principles or problems.
And this gets into things like Laws of War, the Geneva Conventions, etc, which on one hand feel a bit silly as you’re still killing people during war, but at least are perhaps grappling in this area of rights of enemies.
Loved this essay/excursion on moral imagination, Michael.
It reminded me (I‘m hoping I‘m not stretching the connection too much) of this conversation on Dialectic between @Jackson Dahl and Nan Ransohoff about philanthropy:
I’m surprised you didn’t mentioned one of the potent effects of altruistic kidney giving which is kicking off donation chains!
There are many people who would donate a kidney to a loved one, but are not a match with their loved one. But they are a match to someone else. So if their loved one gets a kidney if they donate a kidney elsewhere, they are willing to make that trade.
So one altruistic kidney donation kicks off a domino chain of enabled donations magnifying its positive effects. (I think this is what you allude to with the orgs formed to encourage altruistic donation).
On the other hand, as you point out technology gives us new possibilities to act well, and I think part of the solution here is that the moral quandary will be solved when we can just grow personalized organs for people.
I often feel that making the good solution economically favorable is a much better path than moral argument for many problems.
Both changing values *and* changing technology matter - it's not a dichotomy. And very often both are needed.
(To your initial point - yes, kidney chains are a fascinating and remarkable thing! But there are many fascinating and remarkable things that could have been in the essay, but weren’t :-)!)
I wonder if one extra heuristic (maybe falling under expanding the circle of concern) is particularly moral duties that apply to enemies.
Thinking over your essay, I thought of Joseph Rotblat resigning from the Manhattan project. (In my head, he resigned in protest against using it on Japan.) There was a lot of military and societal pressure to justify shortening the war (or win the war, more generally). But that’s when we’re most likely to commit atrocities.
So supporting rights like due process for terrorists, criminals, enemies of war may also surface new moral principles or problems.
And this gets into things like Laws of War, the Geneva Conventions, etc, which on one hand feel a bit silly as you’re still killing people during war, but at least are perhaps grappling in this area of rights of enemies.
Sorry I posted this halfway through and I see you do mention technology easing some problems and creating or increasing others.
Loved this essay/excursion on moral imagination, Michael.
It reminded me (I‘m hoping I‘m not stretching the connection too much) of this conversation on Dialectic between @Jackson Dahl and Nan Ransohoff about philanthropy:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3gYUZhPB2oUUdgBbLP1hZa?si=bU5uds8eSpm9Tu95le7Oow&utm_source=copy-link&t=8&pi=O1dUiA4WRy6zd