Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

298 NICANOR AUSTRIACOus that the brain is the seat of cognitive life. Thus Furton concludes:“If the human being is a substantial union of intellectivesoul and physical body, which union takes place through theorgan of intellectual cognition, then it is logical to conclude thatwhen the brain is dead the soul has departed.” 59 For Furton, theBD individual is dead because in the absence of the brain, therational soul is unable to be “tethered” to the body, and thus,departs. What is left behind is not a corpse but a living “subhuman”being that has a soul not unlike the souls of human cellsliving in culture dishes in the laboratory. For Furton, the BDbody is another form of organic life.There are two problems with Furton’s argument. First, it isunable to properly distinguish the BD individual who is presumedto be dead and the Persistent Vegetative State (PVS) individualwho is presumed to be alive. This is a problem with theargument as it stands because it presupposes that one can clearlydefine the loss of all brain function. Second, Furton’s argumentis internally incoherent because of his presupposition thatan organ is needed to mediate the union between the bodily matterand the soul. This presupposition is mistaken because it isbased both upon an outdated hierarchical view of organic lifethat simply cannot account for all the empirical data and upona flawed interpretation of a bona fide metaphysical principlethat describes the union of the body and the soul.First, central to his argument, Furton claims that the conditionfor death properly obtains when the entire brain is dead. Asnumerous critics of BD have pointed out however, bona fide BDpatients, patients who have been properly diagnosed as TBD,often retain some brain function. 60 Furthermore, the litany ofbrain functions in clinically certified BD patients is not short.First, a significant number of BD patients do not have diabetesinsipidus (water diabetes), a condition where the kidneys pro-59Ibid., p. 467.60This paragraph is heavily indepted to the essay by Robert D. TRUOG,“Is It Time to Abandon Brain Death?” Hastings Center Report 27 (1997): 29-37.