Arguing Agents for Fairness in the Allocation of Human Organs for Transplantation

This paper proposes a novel process for the allocation of human organs that are made available for transplantation. This new allocation process is intended to ensure that when an organ is assigned to a particular recipient, it i because that particular recipient is the most suitable patient to whom transplant the available organ. This process is famed in an agent-based organization – CARREL –, intended to improve the overall transplant process. The medical doctors responsible of a potential recipient, represented by software agents, will have the opportunity, in this new process, to argue in favor of transplanting the available human organ to one of their potential recipients. The process defines a mediator agent that will gather all the submitted arguments and evaluate them in order to conclude which is the recipient to whom the organ should be assigned. In that way, the reasons behind an assignation are supported by arguments that warrant the fairness of such decisions.