The Ethics of Prositution

Prostitution. Few other words have such a heavy, negative stigma attached to them. The concept of offering sexual services in exchange for money seems extremely unsavory to say the least, but is it truly unethical?

In theory, prostitution does not immediately run into major ethical obstacles. The idea of two consenting adults exchanging money for a service is the basis for many other legal enterprises such as eyebrow waxing and theater performances. In this case, the service being exchanged is sex, which is also not unethical in itself. Therefore, arguably, putting these two together should not immediately cause any ethical complications. In fact, prostitution is legal in several countries including Germany and Hungary.

However, prostitution in practice creates several issues that are unarguably unethical, such as the sex trade, where people are unwillingly kidnapped from their homes and families and forced to prostitute themselves to the financial benefit of an employer who exploits them. Even in places where prostitution is illegal, underground sex trade markets exist and are creating huge problems for law enforcement authorities who are trying to shut them down. In many places, especially where prostitution is underground and unregulated, it is nearly impossible to ensure the fair and equitable treatment of the prostitutes, which leads to unfair and sometimes dangerous conditions for employees. All of these unethical phenomenon are tried-and-true consequences of the current prostitution environment, and many argue that the only way to eliminate these serious concerns is to eliminate prostitution itself.

However, Many argue that many of the problems of prostitution, including the underground sex trade, could be eliminated or significantly reduced through legalization which would allow for regulation of the practice. Therefore, the legalization issue of prostitution remains a highly relevant and extremely concerning ethical dilemma.

Shakespeare's Hamlet as an Ethical Dilemma

            As of late, I’ve had the pleasure of reading Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark in my English class. This play has prompted me to consider an ethical dilemma of a different nature than I normally think about, namely, about the ethical and unethical qualities of the main character of the play, Hamlet.

           Hamlet is clearly established to be the “good guy” in this play. For those of you rusty or unfamiliar with the plot of Hamlet, it basically follows the plot Hamlet carries out to revenge the death of his father, King Hamlet, who was murdered by Hamlet’s uncle Claudius. In the play, Hamlet’s quest for revenge can certainly be seen as a noble act against an unethical character. However, certain aspects and consequences of Hamlet’s elaborate scheme also lend themselves to a more unethical interpretation.

            For the Hamlet-as-ethical argument, there is the perspective that Hamlet is doing a very honorable thing for his father to his own detriment. The picture of a Hamlet as a restorer-of-justice is a valid one in that he seeks to punish a man who has done something unethical by poisoning his own brother. Hamlet could just as easily have ignored his ghost-father’s plea for vengeance with no harm to himself. In fact, it can certainly be argued that without the vengeance plot and the consequential madness, Claudius would never have arranged for Hamlet’s death. However, to do so would be choosing to essentially ignore a highly unethical act (murder) as well as the final wish of his father. In this way, he has punished the unethical treatment of another character and avoided the unethical treatment of his own father at the consequence of losing his own life. Perhaps one of the best examples is Hamlet’s choice to not kill Claudius while he is praying and vulnerable.  Arguably, a completely unethical character would have taken that opportunity.

            However, Hamlet’s character is far from perfect, which is why he makes such a good ethical dilemma. Although he is the clearly established “hero” figure of this play, Hamlet’s direct actions and the indirect consequences of them have very unethical effects on the people around him. For example, in the bedroom scene with his mother, Hamlet stabs Polonius and kills him. Although Hamlet did not intend to kill Polonius, and instead believed that he had stabbed Claudius, his intention was murder either way which is far from ethical. Furthermore, his response to Polonius’ death is hardly remorseful: “Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell./ I took thee for thy better” (Act. 3 Sc. 4 Line: 32-33).Another unethical consequence of Hamlet’s actions in the play is the death of almost every other character. Hamlet personally kills Laertes and Claudius and his plot/feigned madness is indirectly responsible for the deaths of Ophelia, Gertrude, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. Finally, in response to the argument that not killing Claudius immediately, it is important to note than in the actual scene Hamlet’s reasoning for restraint is not honor but the fear that if killed during prayer Claudius would go to Heaven instead of Hell. In this way, Hamlet’s actions arguably cause much more harm than good, and therefore, arguably, his character has a very unethical aspect as well.

  

          The fact that Hamlet’s character is so controversial from an ethical standpoint speaks to the skill of Shakespeare as a playwright. Characters with ethical ambiguity have more depth and complexity than characters clearly fall into a good/bad category, and in this particular play, Hamlet’s ambiguity is what helped to this play one of Shakespeare’s most loved and well-known works. 

The Ethics of Human Organ Markets

As I have already brought up before, I have a strong interest in the medical field, and therefore I would like to spend this post discussing one of the most controversial issues in medicine: the purchase and sale of human organs.

When people mention human organ “markets”, they’re usually talking about the secretive, underground trade where people sell the rights to a non-vital organ, most commonly a kidney, in exchange for money. The process is notoriously risky and unsavory, and highly illegal almost everywhere (a notable exception being in Iran). Is it no surprise therefore, that organ trading is widely considered dubious at best by ethical standards. However, it is important to note that the consequences of organ selling are not exclusively negative, and that the amount of good an organ can do for a patient desperately in need of a transplant arguably lends it some ethical qualifications as well.

To start off with an argument for why the organ trade could be at least partially ethical, I point immediately to the over 80,000 Americans who are currently awaiting a kidney transplant. Most people know of the grueling waiting process that a transplant patient must go through to even hope of getting lucky enough to receive an available (not to mention compatible) organ. The bottom line is that the current supply of donated kidneys is not nearly enough to satisfy the current demand, and many people are dying not from medical inability (a kidney transplant surgery is hardly a new or uncommon technique) but from the more simple and tragic absence of an available kidney. Most people simply aren’t motivated to donate a kidney unless prompted by the sickness of a loved one. An organ market, which motivates people through currency, is what many people argue is the solution to this problem. Organ trading could vastly increase the supply of kidneys and other transplantable organs available, potentially saving thousands of lives every year, clearly an ethical result.

However, those who oppose organ trading from an ethical standpoint are still numerous for several reasons. The key argument they reference is that the people who are providing the organs for sale are almost exclusively the extremely poor. Kidney markets are thriving in impoverished areas such as in India, where kidneys can net their previous owners around $3000. That rate is twice as much in slightly better off Iran, where a kidney goes for around $6000.  In this way they argue that any ethical benefit to the wealthy transplant patients is offset but the coercion and sacrifice of the poor. People in poverty without other sources of income or who otherwise struggle to make ends meet could be forced into a situation where selling an organ becomes the only way to make some money. Furthermore, experts argue that allowing organ trading would increase the amount of organ theft that already occurs in some impoverished areas, where people are kidnapped and killed for their organs. In this way, it is easily arguable that although in theory organ trading is perfectly ethical, in practice it has much darker and more unethical consequences.

Many people are searching for a way to ensure that any potential organ market would be forced to operate ethically, but currently there are no viable suggestions. What do you guys think? Is there a possibility for a more ethically-operated organ market in the future?