Distribution > Human Life?

[AWoodside]

I had a conversation at dinner today with a very liberal friend who attends my very liberal school and I was quite shocked by it. We were talking about whether or not people should be allowed to sell their organs, and I used market-arguments that I'm sure I don't need to rehashed here to argue against prohibition of this practice. What shocked me is this: I convinced him that in a world that allowed this there would be more organs available/transplanted, but he still disagreed with allowing it. His reason: THEY WOULD ONLY GO TO RICH PEOPLE.

Granted, if it were legal to sell organs the distribution of people recieving them would probably shift towards the wealthy, but more lives would be saved. After this I asked him flat out what is preference would be in this more abstract case (not necessarily organ related):

Policy 1: 10 people's lives are saved(5 poor people, 5 wealthy people)

Policy 2: 12 people are saved (11 wealthy, 1 poor)

And he told me he would honestly prefer Policy 1. This is totally insane. I was going to argue with him some more but we both had places to be. He's basically saying he values poor people's lives more than wealthy people's lives, not something that I believe is in line with his ideals (he's of the camp that like to say things like, "a human life is priceless"). Or alternatively, he's saying that a wealth-neutral distribution of resources is more valuable than human life. I was shocked by this, and I'm wondering if he's just a kook or if this is a widespread sentiment. I'm starting to lean towards the latter.

What do you guys think?