Assignment Task: Commodification and Kantian Ethics
Immanuel Kant offers a clear, powerful way to define human worth. In one of his major works (Groundwork on the Metaphysics of Morals), he states:
Everything has either a price or a dignity. What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what on the other hand is above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity.
Following this line of argument, persons have dignity, because there is no price that can compensate for them. But according to Kant, this also implies that we should be forbidden from commodifying certain things or activities. (Commodification means simply putting something or activity on the marketplace for sale.)
Choosing one and only one of the following, write at least a paragraph on whether one of the following things or activities should be commodified. Why or why not?
Should people be forbidden in to sell our organs (one's kidney or one's teeth, for example)?
Should there be a market for friendship?
If we are arrested for a crime, should people have the option of paying for a better prison cell?