James Stacey Taylor is an assistant professor of philosophy at The College of New Jersey. He has published widely on issues in ethics, applied ethics, and action theory, in journals such as the American Philosophical Quarterly, Social Philosophy & Policy, Public Affairs Quarterly, and Philosophia. He is the editor of Personal Autonomy: New essays (Cambridge University Press, 2005), and the author of Stakes and Kidneys: Why markets in human body parts are morally imperative. He currently serves as the Senior Associate Editor of the Journal of Value Inquiry.

Presentation: Personal Autonomy, Organ Sales, and 'Coercive' Markets

A common ethical complaint leveled against markets in human organs is that certain persons who would participate in them are coerced insofar as certain offers that they receive within such markets for goods that they possess are offers that they could not reasonably reject. Since this is so, the proponent of this complaint continues, such offers are functionally equivalent to coercive threats, and so should be considered to be coercive offers. I respond to this objection to markets in human organs. I first show that the proponents of this objection are correct to hold that in many cases offers are functionally equivalent to threats, insofar as they affect the autonomy of the person presented with them in the same way. However, this does not show that the offers that are functionally equivalent to threats are themselves threats, and nor does it show that these are morally equivalent, for other factors besides their effects of personal autonomy can be used morally to judge them.