Double Effect Donation claims it is permissible for a person meeting brain death criteria to donate vital organs, even though such a person may be alive. The reason this act is permissible is that it does not aim at one’s own death but rather at saving the lives of others and because saving the lives of others constitutes a proportionately serious reason for engaging in a behavior in which one foresees one’s death as the outcome. Double Effect Donation, we argue, opens a novel position in debates surrounding brain death and organ donation and does so without compromising the sacredness and fundamental equality of human life. Summary: Recent cases and discussion have raised questions about whether brain death criteria successfully capture natural death. These questions are especially troubling since vital organs are often retrieved from individuals declared dead by brain death criteria. We therefore seem to be left with a choice: either salvage brain death criteria or else abandon current organ donation practices. In this article, we present a different way forward. In particular, we defend a view we call Double Effect Donation, according to which it is permissible for a person meeting brain death criteria to donate vital organs, even though such a person may be alive. Double Effect Donation, we argue, is not merely compatible with but grows out of a view that acknowledges the sacredness and fundamental equality of human life.

Prolonged survival after the declaration of death by neurologic criteria creates ambiguity regarding the validity of this methodology. This ambiguity has perpetuated the debate among secular and nondissenting Catholic authors who question whether the neurologic standards are sufficient for the declaration of death of organ donors. Cardiopulmonary criteria are being increasingly used for organ donors who do not meet brain death standards. However, cardiopulmonary criteria are plagued by conflict of interest issues, arbitrary standards for candidacy, and the lack of standardized protocols for organ procurement. Combining the neurological and cardiopulmonary standards into a single protocol would mitigate the weaknesses of both and provide greater biologic and moral certainty that a donor of unpaired vital organs is indeed dead. Summary: Before a person’s organs can be used for transplantation, he or she must be declared “brain-dead.” However, sometimes when someone is declared brain-dead, that person can be maintained on life-support for days or even weeks. This creates some confusion about whether the person has truly died. For patients who have a severe neurologic injury but are not brain-dead, organ donation can also occur after his or her heart stops beating. However, this protocol is more ambiguous and lacks standardized protocols. We propose that before a person can donate organs, he or she must first be declared brain-dead, and then his or her heart must irreversibly stop beating before organs are taken.

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Lockean accounts of personhood propose that an individual is a person just in case that individual is characterized by some advanced cognitive capacity. On these accounts, human beings with severe cognitive impairment are not persons. Some accept this result-I do not. In this paper, I therefore advance and defend an account of personhood that secures personhood for human beings who are cognitively impaired. On the account for which I argue, an individual is a person just in case that individual belongs to a natural kind that is normally characterized by advanced cognitive capacities. Since "human being" is just such a natural kind, individual human beings can be persons even when they do not themselves have advanced cognitive capacities. I argue, furthermore, that we have good reason to accept this account of personhood over rival accounts since it is uniquely able to accommodate the intuitive concept of an impaired person.

ABSTRACT:Memory blunting is a pharmacological intervention that decreases the emotional salience of memories. The technique promises a brighter future for those suffering from memory-related disorders such as PTSD, but it also raises normative questions about the limits of its permissibility. So far, neuroethicists have staked out two primary camps in response to these questions. In this paper, I argue both are problematic. I then argue for an alternative approach to memory blunting, one that can accommodate the considerations that motivate rival approaches even while avoiding the problems these rivals face. In addition to arguing for this primary thesis, the paper also aims to suggest something about neuroethics generally: despite what some neuroethicists claim, new discoveries in neuroscience may not typically upend traditional views of morality. Rather, discoveries in neuroscience often provide us with new occasions to reflect on enduring questions about what it means to be human.