https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs 1. What does Harris mean by the term "Survival Lottery”? What exactly is the policy regarding organ transplant which he discusses? 2. What would be the costs and benefits if this lottery policy was adopted? 3. What is the author's (Harris's) position? Does he support the policy or does he object to it? Do you agree with his view? en-us 2016-10-04 07:43:28 UTC 2016-10-21 17:48:00 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/Doubleheart.png s1112914 https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/128078238 2016-10-04 07:59:42 UTC https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/128078238 s1112914 https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/128105904 In response to the forum chair, I understand their viewpoint in which they object Organ Lottery because they think that Morality (to not kill a person) is more important than the total well-being of the society (maximization of happiness), which is closer to a Deontologist point of view. However, I may like to challenge their idea of Morality. If the moral value of not killing a person is central in Humanity, than what about letting die? Shall letting die be less morally deficient than killing a person? If the value of life for every individual is equally important, then letting the patients in need of organs die is no difference than killing a person, in the sense of both intention and consequence. In this sense, Organ Lottery may be a more reasonable option to be chosen. 

About the point that Organ lottery may cause anxiety to citizens of the public, I do agree that it is very likely to happen in the present society where people seems unable to find balance between personal interests and interest of others. Many societies encourage Individuality, where each individual shall have their own human rights (equal right to live) , however it is always put under the criteria that they can 'contribute' to the society through different talents of 'individuals', that means every individual is important  in the sense that it helps the development of the 'society' as a whole. It is unavoidable that some perople's interest are to be sacrificed for the further development of the society and flourishing of the human race. However it is difficult to balance the both, where Individualism is always to be opposed to Socialism. However,  it is a fact that the values of Heroism, that one person who sacrifice for the well-being of a larger population of people is considered as a Hero by others, is often upholded in our present society, and it is seen as the ultimate virtue for mankind to achieve. Then doesn't it imply that the person who sacrificed for saving others have a higher value of life than a person who let the two person die just for his own interest? Shall contributing to the society not be the meaning of Life?

Angel Li Huiping]]> 2016-10-04 10:20:59 UTC https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/128105904 s1116911 https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129321622 I generally agree the points in question 2 by the forum chair. I also think that the costs of having organ lottery includes morality problem and social stability problem. Besides, I would like to add two points about the social stability cost of implementing organ lottery in society.
 
To start with, healthy people may overlook their own safety problems due to organ lottery. For people who match the requirements of organ lottery welfare services, particularly youngsters,  they may see organ lottery as a back-up and do much more risky, dangerous actions. They may have a wrong point of view like: it is fine for me to have faulty and risky actions because I get the 'second chance' that somebody will help me to survive by contributing organs to me in case I need the organs. People may not care their lives as much as before, when there is no organ lottery. Therefore, the demand of organs and contributors probably increase and eventually affect social stability.

In addition, social stability may be affected by the unstable birth rate ,marriage rate and the rate of single parent family . In the concept of organ lottery, everybody who meets the criteria, has equal opportunity to contribute their organs and lives. It is a random process and we do not know the identity and status of each contributors. Some unfortunate situations can cause the birth rate decrease, like the husband is chosen to be the contributor, then how can the wife born a child by herself? There are other examples such as the mother is chosen to be the contributor and the family becomes broken. These situations can make the society unstable and chaotic in both short-term and long-term.

In my opinion, the costs of adopting organ lottery are far more than the benefits that it brings.]]> 2016-10-09 10:08:57 UTC https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129321622 s1116911 https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129332336 In this comment, I would like to talk about one of the points from the forum chair. They mentioned that elderly may make use of this policy to prolong their lives. Certainly, it can be a possible situation which is unsatisfactory and harmful to the society. 

Here is my idea to try avoiding the problematic situation if we must adopt the organ lottery. According to Harris's organ lottery, for sure elderly have their right to do organ transplant. However, I do not think elderly are suitable for transplant at all. I judge this not only because they have rather less contribution to the society than the teenagers and the working class, but also concerning their health and the risk of having surgeon. Health of most elderly are weaker than people in their twenties or forties, they are extremely weak at the time they need organ transplant. Having surgeon on them may expose them to a higher risk. Therefore, I think elderly should be abandoned to have organ transplant or an age limit should be set to reduce the number of elderly who can have organ transplant. These may help avoiding the negative impact expressed by the forum chair.]]> 2016-10-09 13:58:41 UTC https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129332336 s1116707 https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129428925 I see your points that set an age limit to reduce the number of the elderly to having the surgery but is it fair to elderly? Every surgery may have its own risk, it is the responsibility of patients themselves whether to take these risk or not. Not only elderly, even some teenagers may have higher risk of doing organ transplant  due to their own body health status, it is hard to set a limit to those guys who also need other organ to make their life. ]]> 2016-10-10 08:09:47 UTC https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129428925 s1112902 https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129674715 I generally agrees with what the forum chair mentioned about organ lottery. Viewing from the Utilitarian point of view, organ lottery seems to be posing more good than harm as more people will be saved from the donor - a healthy person to be sacrificed. However, while this phenomenon may be regard as a heroic action, there are more negative consequences associated with the whole system. The most crucial one is morality issue. 

In our present society, everyone is responsible for his/ her life, whether or not one chooses to harm himself/herself is always the choice of one person only. It is also the law of nature that when a person is born, he/ she is going to die sometime later. With this organ lottery system, the life and death situations are problematically presented, that even if a person is healthy and is willing to live longer according to his/ her health status will never be the determining factor of his/ her destiny. Instead, everyone's life is subject to the result of the lottery. As mentioned by the forum chair, it undoubtedly would create social instability followed by thousands of social movements. After all, will it actually harm the social order and thus the total happiness of the society would be challenged? I believe it is one of the way to evaluate the acceptability of organ lottery.

In addition, when the organ lottery is adopted, another negative impact is that people may think negatively, or even do harm to themselves even before the lottery result is out. As they are living in terror all day that they will eventually be chosen and sacrificed. For some people, they may even do harm to themselves. Therefore, while we are looking at the positive acts posed by organ lottery, does it mean that we can neglect the follow-up consequences? If one is to sacrifice, will there still have meanings in life? Are we growing up just to fulfill this unfair lottery? I believe whether or not to adopt this policy is really subject to how to evaluate the benefits and the costs, which is very difficult to determine.

Siu Chi Ying Jenny]]> 2016-10-11 02:24:59 UTC https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129674715 s1116911 https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129688777 Thank you for your comment and some thoughtful points for me to review the age limit suggestion. I see your point that people have the autonomy to choose whether do the surgery and bear risk or not. Also the point that some teenagers also face extremely high risk to have organ transplant. 

However, I think setting age limit is a possible measure to adopt. The function and efficiency of elderly's organs decline as time past. If they want to have some well-function organs and prolong their lives by organ transplant, it will be an abuse to the transplant service. How about setting the age limit with some exception criteria? For instance, elderly who only have declined organs and no other health problems can not have organ transplant. And for elderly who unfortunately have accident or some illness like cancer that harm their physical health, they can make an option of joining organ transplant or not. Considering the reason of having organ transplant and eliminating candidates may be a more reasonable way to set age limit. ]]> 2016-10-11 05:11:09 UTC https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129688777 s1116911 https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129690795 I have similar point of view with the forum chair in question 3. I think people are not born to sacrifice their lives in organ lottery. The true meaning of life includes not only social contribution, but also pursuing values we believe and experiencing  people, the society and the world. 

If I have the opportunity and power to choose to have organ lottery or not, I will oppose to the implementation of this project.]]> 2016-10-11 05:38:32 UTC https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129690795 s1116877 https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129700161 Utilitarianism considers the total happiness of a community. It takes the total number of participants who benefit from a policy into account. Under this measurement, organ lottery should be adopted in the society as it could save more people's lives.
Besides the total number of people, I think social stability is another cause of total happiness. Take World War as an example. In that period, residents were facing death everyday. They needed to escape in order to prevent being killed. A lot of innocents were dead and injured. The society became unstable and the social harmony was lacked.
It is quite similar to organ lottery. People are lived under fear as they are the possible candidates to denote their organs to other victims. The vicious effects of social instability is far more than the benefits. Brought by organ lottery. The productivity of the community would sharply reduce and the social harmony would be hindered. These would disadvantage the development of a society.
When imposing a policy, it is better to take multi-perspectives into account but not a single measure.]]> 2016-10-11 06:58:27 UTC https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/129700161 s1112914 https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/131455426 It would seem that in one of your arguments opposing the organ lottery, you mentioned that youngsters may see organ lottery as a back-up since they would be sure that someone would have to donate an organ for them when they are injured, they would be more keen to engage in dangerous actions, is not persuasive enough in a sense that teenagers nowadays, when they engage in dangerous acts, they would not even think of their well-being or the possible consequences that will happen. To say it another way, they will not simply do the action just because they have a higher chance of survival under the organ lottery system. 

Angel Li Huiping]]> 2016-10-18 13:27:32 UTC https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/131455426 s1112914 https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/131464315 I understand your view that if the number of Elderly is reduced in the selection for the chance of being donated a organ in Organ Lottery, that both the Elderly and teenagers bear the same risk in the surgery. However, there is support for setting as age limit . As we know the older the age, the more chance sickness may immerse, such as heart diseases or cancer that may lead to the failure of organs, therefore there will be a larger demand of organs in the group of Eldery. It would then be unfair to youngsters since in general, they have a lesser chance to need an organ transplant, and the young ones would in most cases sacrificed to prolong the life of the Elderly. One major social problem of not setting age limit will then be Aging Population, which may not be able to maximize the overall benefit of the society.

Angel Li Huiping]]> 2016-10-18 13:47:00 UTC https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/131464315 s1112902 https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/132419063 I see your point that no matter a 20-year-old or a 80-year-old may bear certain level of risk in the process of organ transplant, it is really difficult for us to evaluate the fairness of the lottery, will anyone be permissible to withdrawn from the lottery due to some specific reasons? Like his/her social status, or his/her importance to a community?

Siu Chi Ying Jenny]]> 2016-10-21 17:39:31 UTC https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/132419063 s1112902 https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/132420377 It is true that with organ lottery, people will live under pressure and fear as they may be chosen at anything when organ transplant is to be carried out. What if the person who needs the organs is the president of a country? If no one is going to participate in the mandatory organ lottery, the president may lose his/her life and that would also negatively affect the development of the whole society as a whole, thus the total happiness will also decline and resulting in the decreasing total happiness.

Siu Chi Ying Jenny]]> 2016-10-21 17:44:19 UTC https://padlet.com/s1112914/ztw5q22s41rs/wish/132420377