Abstract

The overall aim of this paper is to argue that the permissibility of a policy of cadaveric organ conscription is compatible with a desire-satisfaction principle according to which all desire frustration is harmful. David Boonin suggests that the contrary may be true in his book Dead Wrong: The Ethics of Posthumous Harm. Put simply, the cases offered by Boonin to support that suggestion are not morally parallel with a policy of cadaveric organ conscription such that one may concede that he has offered cases of wrongful desire frustration without conceding that desires frustrated by a policy of cadaveric organ conscription would constitute wrongful harms. Finally, I will offer a tentative defense of the permissibility of cadaveric organ conscription that is compatible with the desire-satisfaction principle.