Research Catalog

Title

Organ donation and the divine lien in Talmudic law / Madeline Kochen.

Author

Kochen, Madeline, 1957-

Publication

• New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2014.
• ©2014

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xvi, 258 pages; 24 cm

Summary

"This book offers a new theory of property and distributive justice derived from Talmudic law, illustrated by a case study involving the sale of organs for transplant. Although organ donation obviously did not exist in late antiquity, this book posits a new way, drawn from the Talmud, to conceive of this modern means of giving to others. Our common understanding of organ transfer (transplant) as either gift or sale is trapped in a dichotomy that is conceptually and philosophically limiting. Drawing on Maussian gift theory, this book suggests a different legal and cultural meaning for this property transfer. It introduces the concept of the 'divine lien,' representing an obligation to others in need that is built into the very definition of property ownership. Rather than a gift or sale, organ transfer is shown to exemplify an owner's voluntary recognition and fulfillment of this latent property obligations"--Page i.

Subject

• Transplantation of organs, tissues, etc. > Judaism
• Medicine > Judaism
• Medical laws and legislation (Jewish law)
• Donation of organs, tissues, etc. (Jewish law)
• Human body in rabbinical literature

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-248) and indexes.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Beyond gift and commodity: rethinking the compartmentalization approach to the problem of commodification -- Alternate property conceptions : the donor's lien -- "From the table of the most high" : divine ownership and private property in Talmudic law -- "And your brother shall live with you" : the divine lien and the obligation to save human life -- Returning a "lost body" with one's body : human organ transplantation and the (re)consecration of the body.

ISBN

• 9780521493383 (hardback : alk. paper)
• 0521493382 (hardback : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2013030424

OCLC

859061204

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library