What’s Wrong with Commodification?

By On October 18, 2012 · 8 Comments · In Announcements, Links

That’s the topic of a webcast coming up next Monday, October 22nd, at 7:00 EST. The lecturer is Chris Freiman, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the College of William and Mary and a friend of mine from my grad school days back at the University of Arizona.

The lecture is mainly for graduate students and faculty, but anyone interested in the topic is welcome. Find out more information and register here.

The topic of commodification is an interesting one. We’re allowed to give away certain goods, like sex and kidneys. But we’re not allowed to sell them for money. A number of philosophers have tried to justify such prohibitions by arguing that there is something seriously morally wrong with the “commodification” of good like these. But are they right? Chris will argue that the principles underlying anti-commodification arguments should be rejected. These arguments tend to overgeneralize, either implying that the good in question cannot be given away at all or that morally similar goods cannot be bought and sold despite it being uncontroversial to do so. He will also argue that  empirical work on the psychological processes generating anti-commodification intuitions casts further doubt on those intuitions.

 
  • http://www.facebook.com/les.nearhood Les Kyle Nearhood

    The primary opponents to the commodification of sex will always be wives or women who want to be wives. Just another case of wanting to stifle competition.

    • Sean II

      Don’t forget the males who unjustly benefit from the existing system, by gaining through sentimentality, good looks, or guitar prowess what they should damn well have to pay for in market price.

      Those bastards will always mobilize to defend the status quo sexual gift economy.

    • martinbrock

      Most feminists tell me that men force marriage on women. The only exceptions seem to be the feminists I marry, and they only make the exception for our marriage.

    • TracyW

      I’m guessing you don’t know many fathers of teenage girls.

  • martinbrock

    Arguments against selling sex and kidneys deny that exchanges for money and the like are strictly unforced, where “and the like” describes forcible propriety in resources other than one’s body. Opponents accept a certain amount of forcible imposition but draw the line at a person entitled to more force taking a kidney from a person entitled to less.

    This argument might be incoherent, but Chris must overcome it to be persuasive. He must either argue that forcible propriety is unforced (which isn’t true), or he must argue that forced exchanges are useful and that no system of unforced exchange is more useful than the system he advocates. I obviously prefer the latter approach.

    Ask a person objecting to these exchanges if s/he objects to exchanging a kidney for a lung, as when I need kidney and s/he needs a lung and each of us can only get what s/he needs from the other. Does s/he still object?

    Ask this person if s/he objects to an exchange of a kidney for title to a house. Does s/he answer differently? Does she suppose that the person with the kidney should be able to obtain title to a house otherwise? Does s/he suppose that persons with titles to houses hold these titles too forcefully, that any forcible possession of a house overcoming the force of kidney possession is too forceful?

    Chris must address differences between these exchanges to address the objection.

  • martinbrock

    How about this system of kidney sales? Everyone willing to sell a kidney registers with a kidney bank. The bank tests each donor for compatibility with recipients and matches donors with recipients.

    If many donors are equally compatible with a recipient, the bank chooses one donor from this group of compatible donors at random. The recipient may receive a kidney from this donor and no other donor.

    The donor and recipient then negotiate a price. The bank receives a percentage.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=68705279 Eric Bauer

    Will we be able to get a link to a video of this? I’m just finding the article now and would be very interested. Also since my GF is currently discussing this topic in her sociology classes.