The video explores philosophical and ethical questions concerning the limits and powers of government and personal freedom. It begins with John Locke's theory of government by consent, particularly focusing on taxation and Conscription while discussing what it means for a government to operate justly without overstepping its boundaries through arbitrary decisions. These discussions lead into real-world scenarios, such as recruitment strategies for the military, to highlight differing perspectives on when and how government authority should be exercised.

Following this, the video delves deeper into contemporary cases of reproductive rights and market transactions, questioning the morality behind surrogate motherhood, sperm, and egg donation under market conditions. These issues are juxtaposed with traditional expectations of parental bonds and examine how contracts and agreements intersect with personal relationships and societal values, ultimately pondering the limits of the market's role in deeply personal aspects of life. The discussions reflect on whether societal structures create coercive environments and how that impacts the notion of free will in making contractual obligations.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. Conscript [kənˈskrɪpt] - (v.) To enlist someone compulsorily, typically into the armed forces.

Can the government conscript people and send them into battle?

2. Arbitrary [ˈɑːr.bɪ.trer.i] - (adj.) Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

What matters is that the political authority or the military authority not be arbitrary.

3. Coercive [koʊˈɜːr.sɪv] - (adj.) Relating to or using force or threats.

It's a kind of Coercion almost to people who have lower incomes.

4. Commodification [kəˌmɒdəfɪˈkeɪʃn] - (n.) The action or process of treating something as a mere commodity.

It's dehumanizing and doesn't really seem right.

5. Disproportionate [ˌdɪsprəˈpɔːʃənət] - (adj.) Too large or too small in comparison with something else.

Because it falls so disproportionately upon one segment of the society.

6. Inalienable [ɪnˈeɪ.li.ə.nə.bəl] - (adj.) Unable to be taken away from or given away by the possessor.

A child has an Inalienable right to its actual mother.

7. Surrogate [ˈsʌrəɡət] - (n.) A substitute, especially a person deputizing for another in a specific role or office.

They went to an infertility clinic, where they met Mary Beth Whitehead, a 29 year old mother of two, the wife of a sanitation worker.

8. Altruism [ˈæltruɪzəm] - (n.) Selfless concern for the well-being of others.

If you believe patriotism, as Jackie does, should be the foremost consideration.

9. Transaction [trænˈzækʃən] - (n.) An instance of buying or selling something; a business deal.

Let's see if we can step back from the discussion that we've had and see what we've learned about consent as it applies to market exchange.

10. Economic Opportunities [ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪk ˌɒpərˈtunɪtiz] - (n.) Chances available to improve one's economic status or wealth.

They are doing so not because they really want to, but because they have so few economic opportunities.

Debating The Ethics Of Consent, Markets And Civic Obligation

When we ended last time, we were discussing Locke's idea of government by consent, and the question arose, what are the limits on government that even the agreement of the majority can't override? That was the question we ended with.

We saw in the case of property rights, that on Locke's view, a democratically elected government has the right to tax people. It has to be taxation with consent, because it does involve the taking of people's property for the common good. But it doesn't require the consent of each individual at the time the tax is enacted or collected. What it does require is a prior act of consent to join the society, to take on the political obligation. But once you take on that obligation, you agree to be bound by the majority.

So much for taxation. But what, you may ask about the right to life, can the government conscript people and send them into battle? What about the idea that we own ourselves? Isn't the idea of self-possession violated? If the government can, through coercive legislation and enforcement powers, say, you must go risk your life to fight in Iraq? What would lot say? Does the government have the right to do that? Yes. In fact, he says in 139, he says, what matters is that the political authority or the military authority not be arbitrary. That's what matters. And he gives a wonderful example. He says, a sergeant, even a sergeant, let alone a general, a sergeant can command a soldier to go right up to the face of a cannon, where he is almost sure to die. That the sergeant can do. The general can condemn the soldier to death for deserting his post or for not obeying even a desperate order.

But with all their power over life and death, what these officers can't do is take a penny of that soldier's money, because that has nothing to do with the rightful authority. That would be arbitrary, and it would be corrupt. So consent winds up being very powerful in Locke. Not consent of the individual to the particular tax or military order, but consent to join the government and to be bound by the majority in the first place. That's the consent that matters. And it matters so powerfully that even the limited government created by the fact that we have an unalienable right to life, liberty, and property, even that limited government is only limited in the sense that it has to govern by generally applicable laws, the rule of law. It can't be arbitrary. That's Locke.

Well, this raises a question about consent. Why is consent such a powerful moral instrument in creating political authority and the obligation to obey? Today we begin to investigate the question of consent by looking at a concrete case, the case of military Conscription.

Now, some people say if we have a fundamental right that arises from the idea that we own ourselves, it's a violation of that right for government to conscript citizens to go fight in wars. Others disagree. Others say that's a legitimate power of government, of democratically elected governments anyhow, and that we have an obligation to obey.

Let's take the case of the United States fighting a war in Iraq. News accounts tell us that the military is having great difficulty meeting its recruitment targets. Consider three policies that the us government might undertake to deal with the fact that it's not achieving its recruiting targets.

Solution number one, increase the pay and benefits to attract a sufficient number of soldiers. Option number two, shift to a system of military Conscription. Have a lottery and whosever numbers are drawn. Go to fight in Iraq. System number three, outsource. Hire what traditionally have been called mercenaries. People around the world who are qualified, able to do the work, able to fight well, and who are willing to do it for the existing wage.

So let's take a quick poll here. How many favor increasing the pay? A huge majority. How many favor going to Conscription? One. Two? All right. Maybe a dozen people in the room favor Conscription. What about the outsourcing solution? Okay, so there may be about two, three dozen.

During the civil war, the union used a combination of Conscription and the market system to fill the ranks of the military to fight in the civil war. It was a system that began with Conscription. But if you were drafted and didn't want to serve, you could hire a substitute to take your place. And many people did. You could pay whatever the market required in order to find a substitute. People ran ads in newspapers, in the classified ads offering $500, sometimes $1,000 for a substitute who would go fight the civil war in their place.

In fact, it's reported that Andrew Carnegie was drafted and hired a substitute to take his place for an amount that was a little less than the amount he spent in a year on fancy cigars. Now, I want to get your views about the civil war system. Call it the hybrid system, Conscription, but with a buyout provision. How many think it was a just system? How many would defend the Civil War system?

Anybody? One. Anybody else? 2345. How many think it was unjust? Most of you don't like the civil war system. You think it's unjust? Let's hear an objection. Why don't you like it? What's wrong with it? Yes.

Well, by paying $300 for to be exempt, one time around, you're really putting a price on valuing human life. And we established earlier that's really hard to do. So they're trying to accomplish something that really isn't feasible. Good. So paying someone 300 or 500 or $1,000, you're basically saying that's what their life is worth to you. That's what their life is worth. It's putting a dollar value on life.

That's good. And what's your name? Liz. Liz. Well, who has an answer for Liz? You defended the civil war system. What do you say? If you don't like the price, then you have the freedom to not be sold or hired. So it's completely up to you. And I don't think it's necessarily putting a specific price on you. And if it's done by himself, I don't think there's anything necessarily morally wrong with that.

So the person who takes the dollar, 500, let's say he's putting his own price on his life or on the risk of his life, and he should have the freedom to choose to do that. Exactly. What's your name? Jason. Jason, thank you. Now we need to hear from another critic of the civil war system. Yes.

It's a kind of Coercion almost to people who have lower incomes for Carnegie, he can totally ignore the draft. $300 is irrelevant in terms of his income. For someone of a lower income, they're essentially being coerced to draft, to be drafted. I mean, it's probably, they're not able to find a replacement. Tell me your name. Sam. Sam. All right, so you say, sam, that when a poor laborer accepts $300 to fight in the civil war, he is in effect being coerced by that money, given his economic circumstances, whereas Carnegie can go off, pay the money and not serve.

All right, I want to hear if someone has a reply to Sam's argument that what looks like a free exchange is actually coercive. Who has an answer to Sam? Go ahead. I'd actually agree with him in saying you agree with Sam. I agree with him in saying that it is Coercion in the sense that it robs the individual of his ability to reason properly. Okay.

And what's your name? Raul. All right, so Raul and Sam agree that what looks like a free exchange, free choice, voluntary act, is actually, it involves Coercion. It's profound Coercion of the worst kind because it falls so disproportionately upon one segment of the society. Good. All right, so Raul and Sam have made a powerful point. Who would like to reply. Who has an answer for Sam and Raul?

Go ahead. I just, I don't think that these drafting systems are really terribly different from, you know, all volunteer army sort of recruiting strategies. The whole idea of, you know, having benefits and pay for joining the army is, you know, sort of a coercive strategy to get people to join. It is true that military volunteers come from disproportionately, you know, lower economic status and also, you know, from certain regions of the country where you can use, like, the patriotism to try and coerce people to feel like it's the right thing to do to volunteer and go over to Iraq and tell me your name.

Emily. All right, Emily says, and Raul, you're going to have to reply to this, so get ready. Emily says, fair enough. There is a coercive element to the civil war system when the laborer takes the place of Andrew Carnegie for dollar 500. Emily concedes that. But she says, if that troubles you about the civil war system, shouldn't that also trouble you about the volunteer army today?

And let me, and before you answer, how did you vote on the first poll? Did you defend the volunteer army? I didn't vote. You didn't vote? By the way, you didn't vote? Did you sell your vote to the person sitting next to you? No. All right. So what would you say to that argument? I think that the circumstances are different in that there was Conscription in the civil war. There is no draft today.

And I think that the volunteers for the army today have a more profound sense of patriotism, that is, of an individual choice than those who were forced into the military in the civil war, somehow less coerced. Less coerced. Even though there is still inequality in american society, even though, as Emily points out, the makeup of the american military is not reflective of the population as a whole. Let's just do an experiment here. How many here have either served in the military or have a family member who has served in the military in this generation? Not parents, family members in this generation.

And how many have neither served nor have any brothers or sisters who have served? Does that bear out your point, Emily? All right, now we need, we need to hear from most of you defended the idea of the all volunteer military. Overwhelmingly, and yet overwhelmingly, people considered the civil war system unjust. Sam and Raul articulated reasons for objecting to the civil war. It took place against the background of inequality, and therefore the choices people made to buy their way into military service were not truly free, but at least partly coerced.

Then Emily extends that argument in the form of a challenge. All right, everyone here who voted in favor of the all volunteer army should be able, should have to explain, well, what's the difference in principle? Doesn't the all volunteer army simply universalize the feature that almost everyone found objectionable in the civil war buyout provision? Did I state the challenge fairly, Emily? Yes.

Okay, so we need to hear from a defender of the all volunteer military who can address Emily's challenge. Who can do that? Go ahead. The difference between the civil war system and the all volunteer army system is that in the civil war, you're being hired not by the government, but by an individual. And as a result, different people who get hired by different individuals get paid different amounts. In the case of the all volunteer army, everyone who gets hired is hired by the government and gets paid the same amount. It's precisely the universalization of essentially paying your service. You're paying your way into the army. That makes the all volunteer army just.

Emily. I guess I'd frame the principle difference slightly differently on the all volunteer army. It's possible for somebody to just, you know, step aside and not really think about, you know, the war at all. It's possible to say, well, I don't need the money, you know, I don't need to have an opinion about this. I don't need to feel obligated to take my part and defend my country with a coercive system or, I'm sorry, with an explicit draft. Then there's the threat, at least, that every individual will have to make some sort of decision regarding military Conscription.

And perhaps in that way it's more equitable. It's true that Andrew Carnegie might not serve in any case, but in one he can completely step aside from it. In the other, there's some level of responsibility while you're there. Emily, so what system do you favor Conscription? I would be hard pressed to say, but I think so because it makes the whole country feel a sense of responsibility for the conflict instead of, you know, having a war that's maybe ideologically supported by a few, but only if there's no, you know, real responsibility. Good.

Who wants to reply? Go ahead. So I was going to say that the fundamental difference between the all volunteer army and then the army in the civil war is that in the all volunteer army, if you want to volunteer, that comes first and then the pay comes after. Whereas in the civil war system, the people who are accepting the pay aren't necessarily doing it because they want to, they're just doing it for the money. First, what motivation beyond the pay do you think is operating in the case of the all volunteer army, like patriotism for the country? Patriotism. Well, what about that and a desire to defend the country?

I mean, there is some motivation in pay, but the fact that it's first and foremost an all volunteer army will motivate them. I think, personally. Do you think it's better? And tell me your name. Jackie. Jackie, do you think it's better if people serve in the military out of a sense of patriotism than just for the money? Yes, definitely. Because the people who, that was one of the main problems in the civil war army is that the people that you're getting to go in it or to go to war aren't necessarily people who want to fight. And so they won't be as good soldiers as they will be had they been there because they wanted to be.

All right, what about Jackie's having raised the question of patriotism, that patriotism is a better or a higher motivation than money for military service? Who would like to address that question? Go ahead. Patriotism absolutely is not necessary in order to be a good soldier because mercenaries can do just as good of a job, of the job as anyone who waves the american flag around and wants to defend what the government believes that we should do.

Did you favor the outsourcing solution? Yes, sir. And. All right, so let Jackie respond. What's your name? Phillip. What about that, Jackie? So much for patriotism. If you've got someone whose heart is in it more than another person's, they're going to do a better job when it comes down to the wire and there's like a situation in which someone has to put their life on the line. Someone who's doing it because they love this country will be more willing to go into danger than someone who's just getting paid. They don't care.

They've got the technical skills, but they don't care what happens because they really have, they have nothing, like nothing invested in this country. There's another aspect, though, once we get onto the issue of patriotism. If you believe patriotism, as Jackie does, should be the foremost consideration and not money, does that argue for or against the paid army we have now? We call it the volunteer army, though if you think about it, that's a kind of Misnomer. A volunteer army, as we use the term, is a paid army.

So what about the suggestion that patriotism should be the primary motivation for military service, not money? Does that argue in favor of the paid military that we have, or does it argue for Conscription? And just to sharpen that point, building on Phil's case for outsourcing, if you think that the all volunteer army, the paid army, is best because it lets the market allocate positions according to people's preferences and willingness to serve for a certain wage, doesn't the logic that takes you from a system of Conscription to the hybrid civil war system to the all volunteer army, doesn't the idea of expanding freedom of choice in the market, doesn't that lead you all the way if you follow that principle consistently, to a mercenary army?

And then if you say no, Jackie says no, patriotism should count for something. Doesn't that argue for going back to Conscription? If by patriotism you mean a sense of obligation, let's see if we can step back from the discussion that we've had and see what we've learned about consent as it applies to market exchange, we've really heard two arguments.

Two arguments against the use of markets and exchange in the allocation of military service. One was the argument raised by Sam and Raul, the argument about Coercion. The objection that letting the market allocate military service may be unfair and may not even be free if there's severe inequality in this society, so that people who buy their way into military service are doing so not because they really want to, but because they have so few economic opportunities that that's their best choice. And Sam and Ruel say there's an element of Coercion in that. That's one argument.

Then there is a second objection to using the market to allocate military service. That's the idea that military service shouldn't be treated as just another job for pay because it's bound up with patriotism and Civic obligation. This is a different argument from the argument about unfairness and inequality and Coercion. It's an argument that suggests that maybe where civic obligations are concerned, we shouldn't allocate duties and rights by the market.

Now we've identified two broad objections. What do we need to know to assess those objections? To assess the first, the argument from Coercion, inequality and unfairness. Sam, we need to ask what inequalities in the background conditions of society undermine the freedom of choices people make to buy and sell their labor? Question number one. Question number two. To assess the Civic obligation patriotism argument, we have to ask, what are the obligations of citizenship? Is military service one of them or not? What obligates us as citizens? What is the source of political obligation?

Is it consent, or are there some civic obligations? We have, even without consent for living and sharing in a certain kind of society. We haven't answered either of those questions, but our debate today about the civil war system and the all volunteer army has at least raised them. And those are questions we're going to return to in the coming weeks.

Do you think you should be able to bid for a baby that's up for adoption? That's Andrew's challenge. Do I think I should be able to bid for a baby? I'm not sure it's a market. I mean, I. Today I'd like to turn our attention and get your views about an argument over the role of markets in the realm of human reproduction and procreation.

Now within fertility clinics, people advertise for egg donors, and from time to time in the Harvard Crimson, ads appear for egg donors. Have you seen them? There was one that ran a few years ago that wasn't looking for just any egg donor. It was an ad that offered a large financial incentive for an egg donor from a woman who was intelligent, athletic, at least five foot ten, and with at least 1400 or above on her sats.

How much do you think the person looking for this egg donor was willing to pay for an egg from a woman of that description, what would you guess? $1,000? 15,010? I'll show you the ad. $50,000 for an egg, but only a premium egg. What do you think about that?

Well, there are also sometimes ads in the Harvard Crimson and other college newspapers for sperm donors. So the market in reproductive capacities is an equal-opportunity market? Well, not exactly equal opportunity. They're not offering $50,000 for sperm.

But there is a company, a large commercial sperm bank, that markets sperm. It's called California Cryobank. It's a for profit company, exacting standards on the sperm. It recruits and it has offices in Cambridge between Harvard and MIT, and in Palo Alto near Stanford. Cryobank's marketing materials play up the prestigious source of its sperm. Here is from the website of Cryobank. The information here, they talk about the compensation. Although compensation should not be the only reason for becoming a sperm donor, we are aware of the considerable time and expense involved in being a donor. So do you know what they offer? Donors will be reimbursed $75 per specimen, up to $900 a month if you donate three times a week.

And then they add. We periodically offer incentives, such as? Such as movie tickets or gift certificates for the extra time and effort expended by participating donors. It's not easy to be a sperm donor they accept. Fewer than 5% of the donors who apply their admission criteria are more demanding than Harvard's. The head of the sperm bank said the ideal sperm donor is 6ft tall with a college degree, brown eyes, blond hair and dimples, for the simple reason that these are the traits of that the market has shown that customers want. Quote quoting the head of the sperm bank if our customers wanted high school dropouts, we would give them high school dropouts.

So here are two instances, the market in eggs for donation and the market in sperm, that raise a question. A question about whether eggs and sperm should or should not be bought and sold for money. As you ponder that, I want you to consider another case involving a market and in fact, a contract in humanity reproductive in the human reproductive capacity. And this is the case of commercial surrogate motherhood. And it's a case that wound up in court some years ago.

It's the story of baby M. It began with William and Elizabeth Stern, a professional couple wanting a baby. But they couldn't have one on their own, at least not without medical risk to misses Sterna. They went to an infertility clinic, where they met Mary Beth Whitehead, a 29 year old mother of two, the wife of a sanitation worker. She had replied to an ad that the center had placed seeking the service of a surrogate mother. They made a deal. They signed a contract in which William Stern agreed to pay Mary Beth Whitehead a $10,000 fee plus all expenses, in exchange for which Mary Beth White had agreed to be artificially inseminated with William Stearns sperm to bear the child and then to give the baby to the Stearns?

Well, you probably know how the story unfolded. Mary Beth gave birth and changed her mind. She decided she wanted to keep the baby. The case wound up in court in New Jersey. So let's take, put aside any legal questions and focus on this issue as a moral question. How many believe that the right thing to do in the baby M case would have been to uphold the contract, to enforce the contract?

And how many think the right thing to do would have been not to enforce that contract? So it's about the majority, say enforce. So let's now hear the reasons that people had either for enforcing or refusing to enforce this contract.

First, from those, I want to hear from someone in the majority, why do you uphold the contract? Why do you enforce it? Who can offer a reason? Yes, stand up. It's a binding contract. All the parties involved knew the terms of the contract before any action was taken. It's a voluntary agreement. The mother knew what she was getting into, all four intelligent adults, regardless of formal education, whatever. So it makes sense that if you know what you're getting into beforehand and you make a promise, you should uphold that promise in the end. Okay. A deal is a deal, in other words. Exactly.

And what's your name? Patrick. Is Patrick's reason the reason that most of you in the majority favored upholding a contract? Yes. All right, let's hear now. Someone who would not enforce the contract. What do you say to Patrick? Why not? Yes.

Well, I mean, I agree. I think contracts should be upheld when all the parties know all the information. But in this case, I don't think there's a way a mother, before the child exists, could actually know how she's going to feel about that child. I don't think the mother actually had all the information. She didn't know the person that was going to be born and didn't know how much she would love that person. So that's my argument. So you would not. And what's your name? Evan Wilson.

Evan says he would not uphold the contract because when it was entered into, the surrogate mother couldn't be expected to know in advance how she would feel. So she didn't really have the relevant information when she made that contract. Who else? Who else would not uphold the contract? Yes. I also think that a contract should generally be uphold, but I think that the child has an Inalienable right to its actual mother, and I think that if that mother wants it, then that child should have the right to that mother.

You mean the biological mother, not the adoptive mother? Right. And why is that? First of all, tell me your name. Anna. Anna. Why is that, Anna? Because I think that that bond that is created by nature is stronger than any bond that is created by, you know, a contract. Good. Thank you. Who else? Yes. I disagree. I don't think that a child has an Inalienable right to her biological mother.

I think that adoption and surrogacy are both legitimate trade offs. And I agree with the point made that it's a voluntary agreement, an individual made. It's a voluntary agreement, and you can't apply Coercion to this argument. You can't apply the objection from Coercion to this argument. Correct. What's your name? Kathleen. Kathleen, what do you say to Evan that though there may not have been, Evan claimed that the consent was tainted not by Coercion, but by lack of adequate information. She couldn't have known the relevant information, namely how she would feel about the child. What do you say to that?

I don't think the emotional content of her feelings plays into this. I think in a case of law, in the justice of this scenario, her change of feelings are not relevant. If I give up my child for adoption and then I decide later on that I really want that child back, too bad. It's a trade off. It's a trade off that the mother has made. So a deal is a deal. You agree with Patrick? I agree with Patrick. Deal is a deal, yes.

Good. Yes. I would say that, though I'm not really sure if I agree with the idea that the child has a right to their mother. I think the mother definitely has a right to her child. And I also think that there are some areas where market forces shouldn't necessarily penetrate. I think that the whole surrogate mother area smacks a little bit of dealing in human beings. Seems dehumanizing, and it doesn't really seem right. So that's my main reason. And what is. Could tell us your name. I'm Andrew.

Andrew, what is dehumanizing about buying and selling the right to a child for money? What is dehumanizing about it? Well, because you're buying someone's biological right. I mean, you can't, in the law, as it stated, you can't sell your own child like were you to have a child. I believe that the law prohibits you selling it to another person or something. So this is like baby selling, right? To a certain extent. I mean, though there is a contract with another person, you've made agreements and whatnot.

There is an undeniable emotional bond that takes place between a mother and a child. And it's wrong to simply ignore this because you've written out something contractually. All right, you want to reply to Andrew? Stay there. You point out there's an undeniable emotional bond. I feel like in this situation, we're not necessarily arguing against adoption or surrogacy in itself. We're just sort of pointing out the emotional differences. But wait. I mean, it's easy to break everything down to numbers and say, oh, we have contracts like you're buying and selling a cardinal. But there are underlying emotions.

I mean, you're dealing with people. I mean, these are not objects to be bought and sold. All right, what about. What about Andrew's claim that this is like baby selling? I believe that adoption and surrogacy should be permitted. Whether or not I actually will partake in it is not really relevant, but I think that the government should. The government should give its citizens the rights to allow for adoption and surrogacy.

But adoption. Adoption is not according to. Is adoption baby selling? Well, do you think you should be able to bid for a baby that's up for adoption? That's Andrew's challenge. Do I think I should be able to bid for a baby? I'm not sure it's a market. I mean, I feel like the extent to which it's been applied, I'm not sure if the government should be able to permit it. And I have to think about it more, but fair enough. Are you satisfied, Andrew? Well, yeah, I mean, I just.

I think surrogacy should be permitted. I think that people can do it, but I don't think that it should be forced upon people that once the contract is signed, it's absolutely like the end all. I think that it's unenforceable. So people should be free, Andrew, to enter into these contracts, but it should not be enforceable in a court? Not in a court, no. Who would like to join on one side or the other? Yes.

I think I have an interesting perspective on this because my brother was actually one of the people who donated to a sperm bank, and he was paid a very large amount of money. He was 6ft tall, but not blonde. He had dimples, though, so he actually has. I'm an aunt now, and he has a daughter. He donated his sperm to a lesbian couple in Oklahoma, and he has been contacted by them and he has seen pictures of his daughter, but he still does not feel an emotional bond to his daughter. He just has a sense of curiosity about what she looks like and what she's doing and how she is. He doesn't feel love for his child.

So from this experience, I think the bond between a mother and a child cannot be compared to the bond between the father and the child. That's really interesting. What's your name? Vivian. Vivian.

So we've got the case of surrogacy, commercial surrogacy, and it's been compared to baby selling. And we've been exploring whether that analogy is apt. And it can also be compared, as you point out, to sperm selling. But you're saying that sperm selling and baby selling or even surrogacy are very different because they're Unequal services? They're Unequal services and that's because, Vivian, you say that the tie, the bond. Yes. And also the time investment that's given by a mother, nine months cannot be compared to a man going into a sperm bank, looking at pornography, depositing into a cup.

I don't think those are equal. Good. All right, so we. Because that's what happens in a sperm bank. All right, so this is really interesting. We have notice the arguments that have come out so far, the objections to surrogacy, the objections to enforcing that contract are of at least two kinds. There was the objection about Tainted consent this time not because of Coercion or implicit Coercion, but because of imperfect or flawed information.

So tainted or flawed consent can arise either because of Coercion or because of a lack of relevant information, at least according to one argument that we've heard. And then a second objection to enforcing the surrogacy contract was that it was somehow dehumanizing. Now, when this case was decided by the courts, what did they say about these arguments? The lower court ruled that the contract was enforceable. Neither party had a superior bargaining position. A price for the service was struck, and a bargain was reached. One side didn't force the other. Neither had disproportionate bargaining power.

Then it went to the New Jersey Supreme Court. And what did they do? They said, this contract is not enforceable. They did grant custody to Mister Stern as the father because they thought that would be in the best interest of the child. But they restored the rights of Mary Beth Whitehead and left it to lower courts to decide exactly what the visitation rights should be. They invoked two different kinds of reasons along the lines that Andrew proposed. First, there was not sufficiently informed consent. The court argued, under the contract, the natural mother is irrevocably committed before she knows the strength of her bond with her child. She never makes a truly voluntary, informed decision. For any decision prior to the baby's birth is, in the most important sense, that was the court. Then the court also made a version of the second argument against Commodification in this kind of case.

This is the sale of a child, the court said, or at the very least, the sale of a mother's right to her child. Whatever idealism may motivate the participants, the profit motive predominates, permeates, and ultimately governs the transaction. And so regardless, the court said, regardless of any argument about consent or flawed consent or full information, there are some things in a civilized society that money can't buy. That's what the court said in voiding this contract.

Well, what about these two arguments against the extension of markets to procreation and to reproduction? How persuasive are they? There was, it's true, a voluntary agreement, a contract struck between William Sterne and Mary Beth Whitehead. But there are at least two ways that consent can be other than truly free. First, if people are pressured or coerced to give their agreement. And second, if their consent is not truly informed. And in the case of surrogacy, the court said a mother can't know, even one who already has kids of her own, what it would be like to bear a child and give it up for payrol.

So in order to assess criticism, objection number one. We have to figure out just how free does a voluntary exchange have to be with respect to the bargaining power and equal information? Question number one, how do we assess the second objection? The second objection is more elusive. It's more difficult. Andrew acknowledged this right what does it mean to say there is something dehumanizing to make childbearing a market transaction?

Well, one of the philosophers we read on this subject, Elizabeth Anderson, tries to bring some philosophical clarity to the unease that Andrew articulated. She said by requiring the surrogate mother to repress whatever parental love she feels for the child, surrogacy contracts convert women's labor into a form of Alienated labor. The surrogate's labor is alienated because she must divert it from the end, from the end which the social practices of pregnancy rightly promote, namely, an emotional bond with her child. So what Anderson is suggesting is that certain goods should not be treated as open to use or to profit.

Certain goods are properly valued in ways other than use. What are other ways of valuing and treating goods that should not be open to use? Anderson says there are many respect, appreciation, love, honor, awe, sanctity. There are many modes of valuation beyond use. And certain goods are not properly valued if they're treated simply as objects of use.

How do we go about evaluating that argument of Anderson? In a way, it takes us back to the debate we had with utilitarianism. Is use the only is utility? Is use the only proper way of treating goods, including life, military service, procreation, childbearing, and if not, how do we figure out? How can we determine what modes of valuation are fitting or appropriate to those goods?

Several years ago, there was a scandal surrounding a doctor, an infertility specialist in Virginia named Cecil Jacobson. He didn't have a donor catalog because, unknown to his patients, all of the sperm he used to inseminate his patients came from one donor, Doctor Jacobson himself. At least one woman who testified in court, was unnerved at how much her newborn daughter looked just like him. Now it's possible to condemn Doctor Jacobson for failing to inform the women in advance.

That would be the argument about consent. The columnist Ellen Goodman described the bizarre scenario as follows. Doctor Jacobson, she wrote, gave his infertility business the personal touch. But now the rest of us, she wrote, are in for a round of second thoughts about sperm donation.

Goodman concluded that fatherhood should be something you do, not something you donate. And I think what she was doing and what the philosopher Elizabeth Anderson is doing, and what Andrew was suggesting with his argument about dehumanization, is pondering whether there are certain goods that money shouldn't buy, not just because of Tainted consent, but also perhaps, because certain goods are properly valued in a way higher than mere use. Those, at least, are the questions we're going to pursue with the help of some philosophers in the weeks to come.

Philosophy, Economics, Politics, Government Authority, Reproductive Rights, Patriotism