Ethics of Organ Donation and the Problem of the Sacred

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the interaction between relatives of potential donors and transplant professionals within the framework of a cultural sociological approach in order to develop valid bioethical recommendations. The key thesis of this article is the assertion that principalist ethical conflicts regarding the problems of organ donation, as well as the tools of narrative ethics, are not sufficient to reveal the motivation of agents. As part of the search for the origins of this, it is proposed to reconstruct the situation of moral choice of family members within the framework of E. Durkheim’s theory of the sacred. The concept of the sacred is revealed with the orientation on the given by P. Smith and D. Alexander. The concept of sacred is revealed with the orientation on the autonomous role of culture given by F. Smith and D. Alexander, oriented to the study of the emotional dimension of social life and the study of cultural structures as a social text. Based on the analysis of the category of the sacred in the context of social circumstances of organ donation in Spain, it is shown that the successful experience of the latter in the field of transplantology is connected with the desacralization of the body undertaken by the Catholic Church in Spain and the subsequent sacralization of the gift of life. The analysis of the narratives of donor relatives and medical professionals shows that the driving force behind the relatives’ motivation is often the sacralization of the deceased’s will, which implies the possibility of a posthumous gift and reinforces the solidarity of the deceased with the society experiencing a shortage of donor organs. Obstacles to successful transplantation are perceived by donor relatives as a possible desecration of the gift of a loved one’s life. Thus, on the way to creating valid bioethical recommendations for interacting with relatives of potential donors, it is recommended to focus on the study of pre-individual cultural and social constructs of the sacred that relate to situations of donation and death. In this case, the sacred is considered as an important constant of social life, not necessarily related directly to religion.