Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial preface
- New introduction
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: human blood and social policy
- 2 The transfusion of blood
- 3 The demand for blood in England and Wales and the United States
- 4 The supply of blood in England and Wales and the United States
- 5 The gift
- 6 The characteristics of blood donors in the United States
- 7 The characteristics of blood donors in England and Wales
- 8 Is the gift a good one?
- 9 Blood and the law of the marketplace
- 10 Blood donors in the Soviet Union and other countries
- 11 A study of blood donor motivation in South Africa
- 12 Economic man: social man
- 13 Who is my stranger?
- 14 The right to give
- Appendix 1 Notes on blood and blood transfusion services in England and Wales
- Appendix 2 Notes on the use of blood in the United States and England and Wales in 1956
- Appendix 3 Regional statistics for England and Wales, 1951–65
- Appendix 4 The Donor Survey: The characteristics of Donors
- Appendix 5 Donor survey questionnaire
- Appendix 6 Analysis of blood donor motives
- Appendix 7 Acknowledgements
- Endnotes
- Bibliography
- Index
14 - The right to give
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editorial preface
- New introduction
- List of tables
- Preface
- 1 Introduction: human blood and social policy
- 2 The transfusion of blood
- 3 The demand for blood in England and Wales and the United States
- 4 The supply of blood in England and Wales and the United States
- 5 The gift
- 6 The characteristics of blood donors in the United States
- 7 The characteristics of blood donors in England and Wales
- 8 Is the gift a good one?
- 9 Blood and the law of the marketplace
- 10 Blood donors in the Soviet Union and other countries
- 11 A study of blood donor motivation in South Africa
- 12 Economic man: social man
- 13 Who is my stranger?
- 14 The right to give
- Appendix 1 Notes on blood and blood transfusion services in England and Wales
- Appendix 2 Notes on the use of blood in the United States and England and Wales in 1956
- Appendix 3 Regional statistics for England and Wales, 1951–65
- Appendix 4 The Donor Survey: The characteristics of Donors
- Appendix 5 Donor survey questionnaire
- Appendix 6 Analysis of blood donor motives
- Appendix 7 Acknowledgements
- Endnotes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
‘We need not wait for the Moralist's verdict before calling one kind of action good and another bad.’Lan Freed
In this chapter we make no attempt to summarise the many issues of social, economic, medical and political interest raised in this book ranging from the definition of ‘the gift’ in an Apartheid society to the redistributive role of the seller of blood in the United States, the Soviet Union and Japan. Much that we have written is fundamentally about a conflict of ideas; of different political concepts of society and the role of the private market in the area of social policy; of, in Isaiah Berlin's words, ‘the central question of politics – the question of obedience and coercion: “Why should I (or anyone) obey anyone else?” “Why should I not live as I like?”’ Why should I not ‘contract out’ of ‘giving relationships’? Such themes are clearly not amenable to condensation.
Instead, we aim to provide some interpretative comment on the responses of the voluntary donors recorded in the preceding chapter, and to relate certain issues of principle and practice raised in this study to the potential role that governmental social policies can play in preserving and extending the freedom of the individual.
Practically all the voluntary donors whose answers we set down in their own words employed a moral vocabulary to explain their reasons for giving blood. Their view of the external world and their conception of man's biological need for social relations could not be expressed in morally neutral terms. They acknowledged that they could not and should not live entirely as they may have liked if they had paid regard solely to their own immediate gratifications. To the philosopher's question ‘What kind of actions ought we to perform?’ they replied, in effect, ‘Those which will cause more good to exist in the universe than there would otherwise be if we did not so act’.
For most of them, the universe was not limited and confined to the family, the kinship, or to a defined social, ethnic or occupational group or class; it was the universal stranger.
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- Information
- The Gift Relationship (Reissue)From Human Blood to Social Policy, pp. 202 - 210Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2018