Defining Death: Beyond Biology

Diametros 55:1-19 (2018)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The debate over whether brain death is death has focused on whether individuals who have sustained total brain failure have satisfied the biological definition of death as “the irreversible loss of the integration of the organism as a whole.” In this paper, I argue that what it means for an organism to be integrated “as a whole” is undefined and vague in the views of those who attempt to define death as the irreversible loss of the integration of the organism as a whole. I show how what it means for a living thing to be integrated as a whole depends on the sortal concept by which it is identified. Since interests, values, and ontological considerations besides strictly biological ones affect the concepts by which we individuate and identify living things, those non-biological considerations have a bearing on what it means for a particular kind of living thing to exist as a whole and thus what it means for one of us to die. Even if our bodies may remain organically integrated in some sense despite total brain failure, this fact should not lead us to reject brain death as death. Artificially sustained brain-dead human bodies are not human beings, but the remains of them. While such bodies may be alive in some sense, they are not human beings or human persons. They are not one of us.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The Whole-Brain Concept of Death Remains Optimum Public Policy.James L. Bernat - 2006 - Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 34 (1):35-43.
Whole-brain death reconsidered.A. Browne - 1983 - Journal of Medical Ethics 9 (1):28-44.
The conservative use of the brain-death criterion – a critique.Tom Tomlinson - 1984 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 9 (4):377-394.
Brain death without definitions.Winston Chiong - 2005 - Hastings Center Report 35 (6):20-30.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-04-01

Downloads
107 (#150,928)

6 months
9 (#144,107)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

John Lizza
Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Citations of this work

Brain Death as the End of a Human Organism as a Self-moving Whole.Adam Omelianchuk - 2021 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 46 (5):530-560.
The challenge of brain death for the sanctity of life ethic.Peter Singer - 2018 - Ethics and Bioethics (in Central Europe) 8 (3-4):153-165.
The Demise of Brain Death.Lukas J. Meier - 2022 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 73 (2):487-508.
Dissolving Death’s Time-of-Harm Problem.Travis Timmerman - 2022 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (2):405-418.

View all 17 citations / Add more citations