Suicide, organ donation, and meaning in life: Some disturbing reflections

This chapter tries to connect the issues of suicide, organ donation, and meaning in life and suggests novel and somewhat extreme ways of dealing with them. It offers, first, a 'Modest plan' (MP) for publicly connecting organ donation with meaning in life. This would involve donating, for example, a kidney when alive. Second, an 'Ambitious plan' (AP) focuses on potential suicides. It explores whether these plans ought to be applied, and it considers the dangers. The chapter then looks at what our likely resistance to these proposals indicates. There are reasons for pragmatic pessimism for whether anything like the MP or AP will be seriously considered. This seems to tell us disappointing things about our rationality and social motivation, as well as our commitments to enhancing personal virtue, public discussion, and meaning in life. It also firmly embeds us even further in paradoxical territory, highlighting absurdity. This chapter ends by briefly exploring some further bold possible implications of the discussion, for current organ allocation particularly with respect to opportunities and dangers opened by future technology.