Deciding through value judgements is hugely problematic because such judgements are entirely arbitrary.
Deciding based on egalitarian principles and abhorrence of slippery slopes
is deciding through value judgments.
Saying that everyone should have equal access is the exact opposite of deciding based on value judgements about a person's worth.
So when you said "Deciding through value judgements is hugely problematic because such judgements are entirely arbitrary.", you didn't mean what you said? What you actually meant was "Deciding through value judgements
about a person's worth is hugely problematic because such judgements are entirely arbitrary?
So what are you arguing here? Are you arguing that value judgments about topics other than a person's worth aren't entirely arbitrary? That to say "Alice is worth more than Bob" is entirely arbitrary, but to say "Equality is worth more than additional years of life for organ recipients" is not totally arbitrary? Or are you saying that deciding through value judgements about topics other than a person's worth are not hugely problematic, even though those value judgements are entirely arbitrary too?
If society can decide that people who'll probably live 2 weeks longer than the guy who'll flatline in the next hour don't get transplants, then they can decide that about anyone, for any reason.
False equivalency. In one situation society can and *does* decide who lives based on arbitrary value judgements of a person's worth. In the other situation, society follows a non-arbitrary non-value judgement driven ruleset.
Just as an intellectual exercise, put yourself, for a moment, in the position of a person who doesn't already subscribe to your idiosyncratic views. Do you have any idea how self-deluding what you just wrote sounds to unbelievers? How on earth do you figure the ruleset you're advocating is "non-value judgment driven"?!? It's ridiculous! The
only reason driving selection of that ruleset in place of alternative rulesets is that the people who advocate it
value it!
A ruleset that actively *prohibits* society from deciding who gets a transplant and who doesn't for "anyone, for any reason."
Oh, come on!
Every ruleset actively prohibits society from deciding who gets a transplant and who doesn't for "anyone, for any reason." Your own example, a ruleset that says serial killers don't get transplants, actively prohibits society from deciding a serial killer gets a transplant for any reason. You might as well claim basing law on the Bible is non-religion driven because it actively prohibits society from basing law on the Quran or the Bhagavad Gita.
No, they don't. One gets an organ and another doesn't. That's not treating them the same.
It is, since we're talking about a supposedly limited resource here. Both would-be recipients are regarded according to the exact same criteria.
So what? In the alternate scenario, serial killers and non-serial killers are regarded according to the exact same "No serial killers" criterion. Being judged by the same criterion is not the same thing as being treated the same.
Both have a more or less equal chance of receiving the transplant.
That's utter nonsense. People do not have equal chances of receiving an organ under a 'this person will flatline in the next hour, and this person might flatline in the next 2 weeks' policy. A friend of mine has been in dialysis for years. She's low down on the transplant list and will probably die without ever getting a realistic shot at a new kidney. She's 60 and most of the people who are sick enough to get a kidney under the "sickest go first" rules are over 70. People with kidney failure spend their lives playing Russian Roulette. The powers-that-be usually give the kidney to the guy who has to play with five bullets, rarely to people like my friend who only have to play with one bullet. Is it "egalitarian" to give a kidney to one-bullet-girl instead of to five-bullet-man? Maybe not. But my friend is playing with one bullet
over and over, year after year, always hoping the next depressingly predictable screw-up with her Heparin levels won't kill her. The cumulative odds that all her "might flatline in the next 2 weeks" chances will one day catch up with her without her ever being perceived as a five-bullet girl make a sick joke of your claim that both have a more or less equal chance of receiving the transplant.
This means there's no risk of people injecting their personal values different from mine into the decision making process;
FIFY.
You don't seem to understand the basic concept of egalitarianism. The scenario I describe is the opposite of injecting personal values into the decision making process.
Why, because your values aren't "personal"? Yes, I understand the basic concept of egalitarianism. The people who value equality above competing values get to have their way; and whenever actual equality is impossible, the people who value equality above competing values get to choose which of the alternatives to equality we'll all be required to use as a stand-in for equality; and regardless of how unequal that may be, they'll get to call their choice "equal".
When you treat everyone by the same standards, giving everyone an equal chance, you eliminate personal values from the equation. The only 'injecting' of personal values comes into play with the 'everyone should be treated equally' assumption at the base of the process, but it is eliminated *everywhere else*;
Exactly. You eliminate personal values by injecting personal values. Do you seriously expect people to just go along with that theory? How do you feel about "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."?
Why on earth would anybody decide to go with your values over his own merely on account of yours being put in at the base of the process instead of being put in somewhere in the "*everywhere else*" you've eliminated them from? What makes the beginning any better than the middle as a place to inject personal values? And even if that were a good idea, why on earth would anybody decide to go with your values over his own when setting up the base of the process? It's not as though there's anything stopping us from picking "expected number of years of life gained" as the base of the process, and thereafter treating everyone by that same standard with no further personal values injected.
"He lives, you die." is not an egalitarian distribution. "But that third party got an organ, and she's the same "kind" of person as you, so that's practically the same as you getting one." doesn't make it egalitarian.
Once again, you don't seem to understand the basic concept of egalitarianism. We're talking about a limited resource. So long as it remains a limited resource, someone *must* lose out. You can't divide a heart two ways and still make it work. So long as that is the case, it is egalitarian to ensure that everyone is treated the same when determining who ultimately winds up with the heart.
See? I do understand egalitarianism. It's exactly what I said it is. "Treating everyone the same is impossible; therefore do it my way and we'll call that treating everyone the same." Don't pee on my friend and tell her it's raining.