According to Nozick: ” What is the role of government/state? Three things that are illegitimate
1.Paternalist legislation. Passing laws that protect people from themselves. ( seat belt laws. Helmet laws) It may be a good thing, but it should be up to the individual. It’s not the governments business.
2.No morals legislation.
3.No redistribution of wealth from rich to poor. The libertarian says that amounts to theft.
You can’t look at the results (?) you look at how it was derived.
Two principles:
1.Justice in acquisition. (initial holdings) Did people get the things they use to make their money fairly? If they were entitled to the things they used, then the first principle is met.
2.Justice in transfer (free market)
I don’t hold a libertarian view. The most basic idea is that ; I own myself!
According to this logic, there is no reason why a person should not be able to sell his kidney or anything else in the open market, regardless of how extreme this might appear.
In pursuing this idea, it means that ones organs could be sold off to the highest bidder. Taken to its logical extreme, since only the wealthy could afford the price, which would be high because of the laws of supply and demand, it would systematically manipulate the population into extinction of the poor. It would probably take many generations to achieve this, but the direction is clear. There is no benefit to society as a whole, and that’s the problem. Should there be a benefit to society? In my view, any legitimate government must concern itself with the sustainability of society. That’s its responsibility assuming it’s an elected government that governs by consent of the governed.
In Locke's view; You can’t give up your own rights, because they aren’t actually yours. You’re a creature of God, and they don’t belong to you. Gods property right exists a priori to yours. So you have a natural right to your body, but as a natural right you cannot give it up. Locke's view is foundationalist which I reject. He bases his view on theistic grounds, which again I reject.
But, (everything before “but” doesn’t count)Locke also says this: “No legitimate government can violate our natural rights. However…what counts as life and liberty and respect for property…is defined by government. That there be property, that there be respect for life and liberty is what limits government, but what counts as respecting my life or my property…that is for government to decide and define.” According to Locke; A democratically elected government has the right to tax people. It involves taxation with consent. It requires consent of the governed, but not the consent of each individual. It requires a prior act of consent to join the society to take on the political obligations. Once you take on that obligation, you agree to be bound by the majority. What about the right to life? If the government has the authority to tax, it has the authority to make laws period. And it’s this point that stands out to me.
John Donne wrote in his Meditation XVII.
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
We exist in a society. We all certainly want to maintain as much of our freedom as possible, but we gave up certain things in order to thrive as a whole in a functional non-chaotic society. We live with stop lights, and speed limits, and restrictions on the kind of drugs or food are introduced into this society. We hold our government responsible for providing a framework that is sustainable for all the people in the society. For that reason alone, I would reject the idea of legalizing the selling of our kidney or any body part for individual profit. It doesn’t hold any sustainable benefit to the public at large. As commerce it would be regulated by government to insure the quality of the product being sold to the public for the sake of health and safety of the public that it answers to. I don’t think that the government should be in the business of regulating body parts that would be exclusive to one segment of the population.