[MUSIC PLAYING]
I. GLENN COHEN: So in the last segment, we
heard about a hypothetical about selling embryos.
And I asked you to tell me what you think.
Well, now we're going to hear a little about what my students think.
Now that we've discussed a little bit about hypotheticals in this area,
we're going to really delve into better understand what
are the moral limits of the market.
What things should or should not be sold?
So today, we're going to be joined by a bunch of my students
who are going to tell you a little bit of what they think about these issues.
SPEAKER 1: I'm [INAUDIBLE].
LUKE: I'm Luke.
TORI: I'm Tori.
DOROTHY: I'm Dorothy.
NATE: And I'm Nate.
I. GLENN COHEN: Let's start with a list of things
that in a just society people debate whether they should or should not
be sold.
And you've often hear these discussed probably in the media.
These are things like surrogacy, sperm, eggs, babies, kidneys, ICU beds, votes,
Nobel prizes, sexual services, something like prostitution, and the ability
or the obligation to serve in the military.
So I'm going to start by asking my students to pick one of these
that they think shouldn't be sold.
And we'll hear what they think.
OK, so who wants to start?
Who can tell me something on this list that you think shouldn't be sold?
Yeah, please.
SPEAKER 1: I don't think Nobel prizes should be sold.
I. GLENN COHEN: OK.
SPEAKER 1: Because doing so I think would take away
the inherent value that we put.
I. GLENN COHEN: The idea is that a Nobel Prize has a certain value.
What's that value like?
SPEAKER 1: I think the value is that it comes from merit.
So if somebody wins a Nobel Prize, it's because we think that they deserve it.
And if they're able to buy or sell it, then that takes away the merit.
I. GLENN COHEN: Exactly.
So the idea is that if a good has a certain value,
a certain social meaning, and we might corrupt that social meaning
by making it buyable or sellable.
Who can take another one on the list and give me
an argument why they think it shouldn't be sold?
Yeah?
DOROTHY: I don't think ICU beds should be sold.
I. GLENN COHEN: Great.
So why shouldn't ICU beds be sold?
DOROTHY: I would be concerned about whether the beds would
be available for the people who actually need them if they're being
sold to the highest seller or bidder.
I. GLENN COHEN: Great.
So you're concerned with the distribution.
And the claim is that there'd be an unfair distribution of the good
if we allow it to be sold.
It would be sold and allocated based on ability to pay
rather than based on a more moral form of allocation.
Excellent.
Anyone else have one they want to pick out?
Please, Luke.
LUKE: Yes, I'd be very concerned about votes being sold.
I. GLENN COHEN: And why would you be concerned about votes being sold?
LUKE: It seems like that would open the door to corruption
in the democratic process where whoever had the money
to buy an election essentially could.
I. GLENN COHEN: So kind of an externalized cost, right?
An externality here, but also a corruption of the meaning of the good.
A vote is meant to be a registering of one's preference
or one's belief in a candidate.
But instead, it would become a chip to be traded.
And that would corrupt the way in which we think elections ought to be handled.
Other ones.
What about prostitution for example?
NATE: I was actually going to talk about babies.
So that's a little different.
I. GLENN COHEN: No, please.
NATE: I don't feel comfortable with selling babies
both because of the sense of kind of monetizing a baby.
It seems difficult to swallow.
And also it would create a situation where people who can pay for babies
would then have the babies.
And that doesn't seem like that's the way
that we want to allocate who gets to have babies in our society.
I. GLENN COHEN: So one perspective is that it
would corrupt the social meaning of how a child is valued.
A child should be valued not as a commodity, but something else.
The other claim is one about unfair allocation and distribution.
But focusing on babies again, are there any other kinds
of objections we might have to the buying and selling of babies?
Do we worry about exploitation, for example?
Is anybody worried about that when it comes to babies?
Please.
DOROTHY: Well, I would be worried that the babies that are bought and sold
would be different than in like a non-market scenario.
And what babies were most desirable would
be different from the babies who are available for adoption now.
I. GLENN COHEN: Excellent.
So the idea would be a market for babies might attach certain value.
Some babies would be worth more than others.
You might say that's a kind of eugenic concern, right?
A concern about valuing people based on their traits,
and going for kind of perfectionism, rather than giving them
the kind of respect they're due merely as a person.
What about prostitution?
Let's return to this example for a moment.
What, if anything, is wrong with prostitution?
Yeah.
SPEAKER 1: I would be concerned with prostitution
that poor women would be forced into it because they
have no other alternative economically.
And that would seem wrong.
I. GLENN COHEN: Excellent.
Right, so the idea that the seller-- a lot
of these objections that we've talked about so far
have focused on the good itself.
It's being corrupted.
It's being unfairly allocated.
Now we've shifted our focus to look a little bit more at the seller.
And the idea is that the seller is being wronged or harmed in such a way.
And in your mind, is this about exploitation?
Is it about coercion?
Is it about undue inducement?
Tell me a little bit more about what you are afraid of in this situation.
SPEAKER 1: I think it's both coercion and exploitation.
I think that a circumstance could arise where
a woman would be forced into prostitution because a deal is
too good for her.
She could be paid too much.
In the alternative, it could be that a woman needs money and therefore will
accept a very low amount of money to be a prostitute.
I. GLENN COHEN: So the concern about too low an amount of money
is a little bit about exploitation.
She's paying too little.
When you're talking about being paid too much, you're thinking a little bit more
about undue inducement, or kind of overcoming her sense of what
her desires are or should be.
You wanted to say something.
TORI: I just wanted to say that as we think about prostitution, shifting
the focus to the seller, I also wonder whether there's
the potential that there's actually somebody
else selling-- we're saying women here, it could in theory
be men as well-- into prostitution.
So that's to say that the person whose entering into prostitution
can actually be simply the commodity as opposed to also being the seller.
I. GLENN COHEN: And the idea here would be that there is someone like a pimp--
TORI: That's right.
I. GLENN COHEN: --who's pushing them.
And that may be a little bit more like coercion, right?
Someone else forcing them to do something
that may not be in their interest.
TORI: Right.
I. GLENN COHEN: What about surrogacy?
So this is something we'll actually talk about in the course.
And all the things you've said, all these arguments, we'll see shortly
are perfectly applicable in this context as well.
But what about surrogacy specifically?
If you think about surrogacy, what worries you
about a market for surrogacy?
In the United States, in many states, we permit
people to sell surrogacy services.
Elsewhere in the world, that's a big no no.
In much of Europe, that's forbidden.
Is there anything that concerns you about selling surrogacy services?
DOROTHY: I think I would be concerned with rights that the seller has.
I guess there's different kinds of surrogacy.
If you're like biologically related to the child, if you're not biologically
related, and what rights you have as that gestational carrier with
regards to the child after they were born, or even with regard to actions
you take for your health while you're carrying the child.
I. GLENN COHEN: So the concern here is that being in a market relationship
might alter the way in which you think about your relationship to the child,
right?
One famous article suggest that we're asking women
to basically repress their feelings of maternal attachment
and love for the child they're gestating.
But you also suggested that it may alter your behavior
in ways that are different.
If you're carrying your own child, you might behave in one way.
Whereas if you're caring for profit, you might behave in a different.
Yeah, please.
LUKE: With respect to surrogacy, you might
think that putting a price tag on this service
would actually cause some people to react negatively to it
and not want to participate in the process.
I. GLENN COHEN: Exactly.
So the idea is we currently have a certain distribution, a certain level
of the good or service provided.
When you attach a price tag to it, there is a concern
that you might crowd out people.
People might be turned off knowing it's for sale,
and therefore no longer provide it.
In this case, the idea is we've got a pool of altruistic surrogacy going on.
And the concern is that there may be individuals
that if we allow for sale surrogacy, they would no longer participate.
Yeah, Nate.
NATE: And also, I think that it would create a situation where people would
have a reason to kind of look out and rule over,
in a way, the autonomy of other people.
Because for those nine months, the person
with the long term interest in the child is not
the person making the short term interest that would affect the child.
I. GLENN COHEN: Yeah, so one way of characterizing this--
there's many ways of characterizing that point.
And one way is to say that you think this woman is making a decision
to be a surrogate.
She's being shortsighted.
She thinks she knows what she's getting into.
But she doesn't.
And this is a concern about justified paternalism.
The idea is that we need to help her not make a bad choice.
And for that reason, we're going to prohibit
the buying and selling of the good.
Although notice that that objection might say,
well, isn't that true of altruistic surrogacy as well?
Maybe we should forbid all of surrogacy.
Well now that you've heard from my students about the kinds of objections
that people might raise to the buying and selling of a number of goods
and services, including those relevant to this course,
now we're going to take a step back and look at those objections a little more
formally.