Abstract
Organ transplantation illustrates the ambiguity of modern medical technology: it can save patients from organ failure while creating new powers over vulnerable bodies, definitions of death and the allocation of scarce treatment. This article applies Hans Jonas’ ethics of responsibility to emerging transplantation challenges in Nigeria. Using a critical-analytical and hermeneutic approach, it reconstructs Jonas’ concepts of technological power, prospective responsibility, the heuristic of fear, human integrity and precaution, and relates them to Nigeria’s National Health Act 2014, the national transplantation standards introduced in 2025, World Health Organization principles and contemporary scholarship. Consent remains morally inadequate when poverty, dependency, limited information and institutional opacity shape donation. Jonas’ framework reveals four connected threats: treating the poor body as a repository of spare parts; prematurely instrumentalizing neurologically impaired persons; unequal access to transplantation; and adopting xenotransplantation, genomic modification, artificial intelligence allocation and bio-printed organs without long-term governance. Responsible innovation must therefore address present suffering while protecting future life. The article proposes an anticipatory model of transplant governance for Nigeria based on independent donor advocacy, separation of death determination from organ procurement, transparent allocation, a mandatory donor registry and audit system, lifelong donor monitoring, public accountability and staged oversight of emerging technologies. Jonas’ enduring contribution is to shift transplantation policy from mere permission towards responsibility for its foreseeable consequences.
Keywords: Hans Jonas; ethics of responsibility; organ transplantation; Nigeria.
Author(s):
Saviour Enefiok Frank
09094564912
saviorf@yahoo.com
Department of philosophy, Faculty of Arts
University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria