The nature of the trivial quest

I'd have to disagree on the economics and moral philosopher angle expressed here. Adam Smith's first treatise is on morals, he considered it his greatest achievement (the world became somewhat more familiar with a later work). David Hume was well involved in the study of both, as was JS Mill. I think you could easily argue Marx was concerned about both. In fact most economists come to the study as way to look for the "best", ie most effective or efficient, ways to resolve complex issues. (one, if they were inclined could count me among such luminaries in the manner I came to studying economics, as a result of my intense interest in human ethics and behavior, though I certainly don't consider anything I produce to be anything more than trivial derivations of their far more expansive works). Most of our complex issues happen to be bound up on in difficult moral imperatives, as if they were not, they could be easily resolved with empirical claims and data.

Behavioral economics is almost totally about looking for ways to influence behavior in a desirable way (putatively anyway, they, like many sciences, can be abused by less well-intentioned adherents). Hence the desire to design policies that reduce demand for abortions, reduce drug violence and crime, decrease wasteful spending in health care (or political programs generally), increase voter participation and information, decrease corruption and fraud, and so on. I would hardly argue that these are in the main policies which are pursued without regard to moral assumptions. Rather because they make slightly different moral assumptions than normal people they are often perceived as amoral. An assumption that some people will continue to consume narcotic substances is regarded as vile, even though every evidence indicates this is bound up in the nature of human beings. The more pressing question is then how best to have such consumption continue, as it will regardless of what policies are pursued, without it creating more damage upon others through crime, corruption, and violence. If in fact this means designing a policy which reduces the number of addicted drug consumers rather than interdicting drug shipments and which then reduces the overall quantity of damage done to society and most drug seeking individuals, why is this considered an immoral presumption? Because some people will be free to use an illicit substance by their choice?

In the case argued specifically, similarly, the claim is advanced that human being's remains and organs are an autonomous issue with considerable moral value (one that a price should not be applied to at all). I don't think anyone's argument within economics makes the claim that people would be compelled to sell their organs to others and that people would thus be compelled to voluntarily surrender their moral claim to their body and organs. If they don't want to sell at any price, they don't have to. I'm pretty sure this claim is made instead by people who don't understand economics, ie, poor people will sell their kidneys off without real any benefits to themselves and that rich people would be able to buy them all up...which is more or less what can happen now except poor people don't get anything for their kidneys but some social standing and maybe a promise to receive a kidney first if something happens to their remaining functional organ. But to presume that it is the economists who are refusing to deal with this argument is pretty silly. It's already been accounted for when you work out the argument who will be buyers and sellers and what price the market will determine. The marketplace would determine if people generally placed an extremely high premium on their organs because of these abstract but important moral quibbles that they would receive a higher price for selling one. If high enough, fewer buyers will enter the market and may await the normal flow of donations or pay for expensive treatments instead. If people by contrast did not place such a price premium, then they would sell them more cheaply, and as a result, poor people would have more organs available to purchase in the event they are suffering from severe kidney ailments. In either event, the moral problem of how people value their bodily autonomy in this moral sense is considered by the individual players in the market who choose to participate in it (by selling or buying kidneys).

It is, as described, a lousy argument to suppose that people will not trade off some moral principles for others that they value more highly when the ability to satisfy all of our moral demands is limited (as it tends to be). The proposition being advanced by people against having a legal market for such things is more generally defined that nobody else should be allowed to participate in such a market because they themselves would not. This is, in effect, the same argument as those against legalisation of narcotics. The presumption being that a bodily autonomy does not include, in some cases, the ability to "defile" the human temple by use of chemical substances or the removal of some partially vital organs in exchange for money (which can then be used to satisfy other moral imperatives such as providing for one's family or paying for education and health care).

There are some moral lines that can only be crossed in the most general abstractions. Such as a calculation involving deliberate murder by individuals, outside of established practices of law and order or warfare, and its costs or benefits. Some people probably do benefit society or others individually were they to die, but making that judgment and carrying it out is probably best left out of individual people's hands as all of us can be measured in such a way by someone else whose moral compass is not as attuned to our own. The supposition instead that a person cannot do with themselves as they please, even where we disapprove of this or where it might cause them some cost of pain or suffering while simultaneously presuming that it is precisely because of our individuality and dignity as a valuable human being that we should not do so seems a little silly as an argument. What if for example it reduces other people's suffering and individuals can then take joy in that reduction that they helped cause? It can be argued that yes we have to make that case and you do have to explain the rational means around that conflict. But this is not because it's a convincing and sound argument raised against an economically sound policy position or that economists are refusing to ask it. It's just a commonly held one that economists find trivial next to much broader moral scopes and which can be best worked out by the individual participants with their own moral weights and decision making rather than by fiat. There isn't some major harm committed to the public or even the people involved to involve money in these organ transactions. There is only a (large, possibly a majoritarian)group of people who will be offended if they are no longer allowed to increase the amount of suffering of others by reducing their options to resolve it in mutual accord with others.