Instigator / Pro
4
1644
rating
64
debates
65.63%
won
Topic
#2701

THBT Regulated Markets for Human Organs Should be Legal in UHC

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
3
Better sources
2
2
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
1
1

After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...

whiteflame
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
7
1724
rating
27
debates
88.89%
won
Description

With a lot of interesting plans for the pro side, I’m curious if it’s enough to overcome the con case. Standard definitions from Merriam Webster apply to this topic. Burden of proof is shared. No new arguments in the final round.

The regulated market in economics is oversaw by the government. They need to make laws and restrictions about how to sell, what to sell, so on and so forth, in order to allow people to sell safely.

Organ: A relatively independent part of the body that carries out one or more special functions. Examples of organs include the eyes, ears, heart, lungs, and liver. (https://www.medicinenet.com/organ/definition.htm)

UHC: Universal Healthcare Countries [https://www.health.ny.gov/regulations/hcra/univ_hlth_care.htm]. This doesn't include Cuba.

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@Undefeatable

Really my main advice is twofold:

- Just to directly quote from my RFD: "What PRO really needed to do was beef up a utilitarian framework from a philosophical deontology vs utilitarian point of view and then really just try and dwarf CON’s impacts."

- But also, you really should've hit hard on CON's idea of loss of autonomy with some libertarian-style philosophy.. Just because you've been offered a sum of money for something doesn't mean you are incapable of making rational decisions, and even if you aren't, it's not the governments job to be your mother. To quote the RFD again: "Should the government treat adults like children who can’t understand things even when explained to them in detail? Why shouldn’t the government give the information necessary for someone to make a decision, and then allow them to make that decision for themselves? Personal responsibility eventually has to take the reins, or else there is no limit to what the government could forbid for “our own good.”

(Also, I should probably stop playing devil's advocate in a ranked debate. I think my arguments are not as strong when I'm researching the opposing side, lol. It was good to see how to argue Con side however).

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@whiteflame
@MisterChris

damn, looks like I was outdone despite my best efforts. Any additional advice, Mr. Chris?

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@MisterChris

Thank you for the thorough RFD! Glad someone got a vote up!

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@gugigor

I understand that you're trying to justify your perspective, and I'd be happy to engage with you on this via DM, but all I'll say here is that I still disagree with how you're portraying what happened in this debate, even with these additional specifications.

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@whiteflame

I understand what you're thinking. Informed Consent seems big on the theoretical idea especially since Pro admitted that freedom was as important as life. But he stressed how we gain that specific decision, despite lack of information. You say we can never give enough information, and Pro countered that if this is the case, then it would be likely they would go in donating for free without information, which means more compensation is better. You added upon money's "unique coercion" factor, but Pro asks a few reducto ad absurdum arguments that put a lot of doubt in your case: "is Con going to somehow shut down all the jobs with financial gain and also containing a certain amount of danger? So Con wants people never to do anything where they can die or suffer great harm?" He accused you that your plan has the same logic as punishing people for suicide (purposefully putting themselves in danger when they can't think clearly, for their personal gains), and you didn't counter his fallacious arguments. I know they're flawed, but you didn't tell me why they're different from Pro's portrayal of "Gov gets to decide".

Pro separated your financial coercion and your informed consent -- I feel like they only work when combined together. In round 4 you basically gave up on economic coercion and instead stacked upon the idea of family coercion. That makes me feel the financial devil + no information is much weaker. I can understand how your argument works, but he sneakily unlinked your arguments with two separate worlds, which obviously doesn't make sense considering your case, but your linking only felt like there was some non-unique coercion with pro's case.

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@gugigor

I appreciate the feedback, though this is one case when we're on pretty different pages about what happened in this debate. Maybe that's just because it's my argument, though as I do not wish to influence any potential voters, I'll abstain from providing specifics.

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@whiteflame
@Undefeatable

here's my personal thoughts, after reading it twice: Con's informed consent argument works very well combined with the idea that the regulation would still cause exploitation (though Pro seemed to desire to compare it to the status quo -- which completely illegalizes markets, so it's still freer). Pro has a lot of good impact negation because he highlighted that only those who wanted to donate, would be at risk. Then he noted your studies barely had any deaths or long term injuries, which you sadly mostly dropped at the end. The case still stands pretty strong if voters accept your framework, but it's hard to see why it defeats utilitarian/libertarianism. Pro didn't stretch it too far, and his framework put the market as a "win win" situation that seemed reasonable for the government. He kept trying to reason that "disability insurance" is even worse of a motivator than "$75,000" in terms of coercion. And I can't accept family because he states that honor pressuring will still exist in the no-compensation world, resulting in unsolved problems. In the end, if I had to vote it's extremely muddy in my opinion. Because you kind of gave up on the actual impacts, as ironic as that is, considering your voting is king of impacts. You didn't bother tackling how low the deaths were, which significantly weakens your case. And while Pro didn't outright say "we prevent people from getting another well deserved job", his question framed it in a way that infers "Con must somehow also prevent workers from going to hazardous construction sites". This is probably a tie for me.

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@Undefeatable

planning on voting. I'll get started today

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@blamonkey
@MisterChris

I know gugigor/seldiora already pinged you but there’s only four days left. Hurry hurry!

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@Barney

you voted on my other debate. Up for the challenge on this one?

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@blamonkey
@MisterChris
@Theweakeredge

feel free to take a stab at a vote. I have bias towards Pro (and likely jump to support many of his refutations) so I will probably not be voting on this one

After voting is done, I will post my thoughts on a good Pro stance here, especially as I think I've had a pretty productive discussion with Undefeatable about it. I find this to be a strong topic with decent balance, but I do think it skews Pro just a tad. Not that that changes my mind.

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@Undefeatable

Keeping it simple is the strategy for Pro (though no, I don't think that a free market system improves your case), while heaping loads of complicated on Con. We can get into how that works, but with people set to vote on this, I don't really want to influence their thinking by providing other potential strategies you could have used and how I would have tried to address them. How about we do this via DM?

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@whiteflame

BTW, what are the strategies for pro? I did some research into flaws of Con and the proposal given with government payment, but I know the problems of placing too many restrictions. Should the premise be "free market" instead to favor pro? Or is there another sneaky argument?

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@gugigor

I don't want to influence your vote, though some of this is starting to spin a little away from the debate we had. The "what if" scenario might have been interesting if it had been presented. I have responses, but I don't want to give them here as it's outside of what we discussed directly. I personally think my impact analysis is pretty good, though you're welcome to disagree. Appreciate your vote regardless.

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@whiteflame

I read it over but I'm going to put off a vote because I personally don't know about either side. I think "regulated" likely killed pro's case (his case was a bit more for generic sale of organs), though I'm still not 100% convinced about the hazardous job comparison negation at the very end. You say we shouldn't add fuel to the fire, but neither do you say anything about inhibiting dangerous jobs and actually reducing the coercion. So if Organ donation was an existing job (as in Iran), would you prohibit it? That's what makes me hesitate. And you say violation of bodily autonomy is unique, but pro keeps using words like back breaking labor and implies an image of greedy businessmen everywhere (especially in the black market) that makes it difficult for me to swallow your rebuttals. It's a bit weaker than your usual impact analysis, because your distributive justice just becomes really vague. What do you think?

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@Undefeatable

We can talk strategy after this is over for sure, if you're interested. Suffice it to say (at least for now) that while I side with Con personally, I think this is actually a Pro-slanted topic. If I was at a debate tournament and got this, I'd rather be Pro, though I'd certainly be happy to run Con and stand on my soapbox.

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@whiteflame

as I suspected, con has a slight edge in this debate topic. I was ready to toss in the towel but I really just needed to get the answers, in case a stronger Pro asked "exactly why do you allow hazardous jobs but not the organ donation?" -- because I don't have an answer to that, and you never answered it. Sorry about the weird structure. I was trying to pick apart worries I had in the future when doing Con side. I probably lost, but it was interesting to take apart the con side and try to argue the pro's benefits.

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@whiteflame

fair enough. I was kind of waiting for some implementation counter to my big point but your counter is interesting as well. I like to go big before going small. If I had more characters I could better demonstrate the contradiction, but I feel like it's important to ask tricky questions with only 10k characters.

(also bear in mind I am playing devil's advocate and hence don't know 100% the best way to argue Pro side :P)

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@Undefeatable

Also, just to be clear, I didn’t quote the article as saying “inherently coercive.” There were not quotes around those words, the article did mention coercion in the quote I used in R2, and I explained why it’s inherent. That’s not a mistake, nor was the Brookings quote. You’ll have to wait to see that one, though.

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@Undefeatable

All I’m going to say is that you’re not going to like my extensions on either one. I think you’re mishandling each.

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@whiteflame

man, you off your game? Why would you link the Stanford article to "innately coercive" when those words aren't even there? and that out of context quote from Brookings institute lol.

I noticed the last link (the study) doesn't work. The article can be found here: https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/57/6/1301/2623947?login=true

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@whiteflame

I'm beginning to connect everything together. I realize that the government corruption statistic makes it near impossible to actually implement the government sponsored market in most developing countries. Therefore, let's start one country at a time. Isolated so that it won't ruin other countries policies, check. Well informed citizens to battle exploitation, check. Lack of corruption, check. How's this look?

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@Undefeatable

I'm still recovering, and I need to do some research, but this looks like a compelling one