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CU in the City, Toronto – Parts and Labour: Morality, the Market, and the Human Body

Body for sale

Parts and Labour: Morality, the Market, and the Human Body  by Dr. Vida Panitch, Department of Philosophy, Carleton University

This is a free event open to all Carleton alumni, donors and friends.

Please join us for an open reception at 6:00 p.m. featuring hot and cold hors’ d’oeuvres and cash bar.

The presentation will begin at 7:00 p.m.

Register: events.carleton.ca/cu-in-the-city-toronto-2/

In this talk, Professor Vida Panitch will discuss the moral boundaries of a market economy. Why are some things wrong to buy and sell? Why should our market choices be restricted when it comes to selling things like citizenship, prizes, friendship, and particularly human body parts and intimate labours? Join us as we explore and evaluate a variety of philosophical arguments to see if they can justify regulations on the sale of organs, payment for sperm and eggs, commercial surrogacy, and prostitution.

CU in the City Lecture Series

Co-hosted by Carleton’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Department of University Advancement, as part of its CU in the City lecture series, this lecture is the third CU in the City event to be held in Toronto and the first to be held at the Gladstone Hotel.


Professor Vida Panitch

Dr. Vida Panitch’s research interests lie in the areas of distributive justice and bioethics. Her work explores the extent to which the concepts of equality, exploitation and commodification can serve as normative guides to the just distribution of health-related goods and services, both domestically and internationally. While her doctoral work addressed the normative foundations of liberal welfare programs geared to basic need satisfaction (including the need for health), her current work applies the concepts of equality, exploitation and commodification to assessing the moral permissibility (or impermissibility) of emerging commercial global health practices.