title: Moral Evaluations of Organ Transplantation Influence Judgments of Death and Causation.
abstract: Two experiments investigated whether moral evaluations of organ transplantation influence judgments of death and causation. Participants' beliefs about whether an unconscious organ donor was dead and whether organ removal caused death in a hypothetical vignette varied depending on the moral valence of the vignette. Those who were randomly assigned to the good condition (vs. bad) were more likely to believe that the donor was dead prior to organ removal and that organ removal did not cause death. Furthermore, attitudes toward euthanasia and organ donation independently predicted judgments of death and causation, regardless of experimental condition. The results are discussed in light of the framework of motivated reasoning, in which motivation influences the selection of cognitive processes and representations applied to a given domain, as well as Knobe's person-as-moralist model, in which many basic concepts are appropriately imbued with moral features. On either explanatory framework, these data cast doubt on the psychological legitimacy of the mainstream justification for vital organ procurement from heart-beating donors, which holds that neurological criteria for death are scientifically justified, independently of concerns about organ transplantation. These data suggest that, rather than concluding that organ removal is permissiblebecause the donor is dead, people may believe that the donor is deadbecause they believe organ removal to be permissible.
authors.affiliation: Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine, Florida State University College of Medicine, 1115 West Call Street, Tallahassee, FL 32306 USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nair-Collins
authors.affiliation: Medical Social Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, 633 N. St. Clair Street, Suite 1900, Chicago, IL 60611 USA.
authors.forename: Mary A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Gerend
keywords: Brain death; Death; Moral psychology; Organ donation; Organ transplantation