Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

IS THE BRAIN-DEAD PATIENT REALLY DEAD? 303life only in a qualified sense. Rather, it is the neocortex that istruly the seat of cognitive life. Functionally, the patient who haslost all neocortical function has ceased being disposed to a rationalsoul in the same way as the patient who has lost whole-brainfunction. Thus, Furton would again have to conclude that thePVS patient is dead. Like the TBD patient, the PVS individual isnot functionally disposed to and thus lacks a level of organizationfit for a rational soul. However, as we have already noted,the Catholic Church and most mainstream bioethicists haverejected this conclusion. As I will discuss in the last section ofthis essay, by focusing upon the criteria of bodily integration asthe only appropriate sign for the presence of the soul in the body,a holistic, a systems understanding of the human being canproperly affirm the metaphysical principle that matter has to beproperly disposed to form without leading to the insurmountableproblems encountered by Furton.Finally, I think that it is important to see how Furton’s argumentdiffers from the standard paradigm used by both thePresident’s Commission and the Pope. For the Pope, the absenceof the soul is made manifest by the loss of bodily integration.This is a species-nonspecific definition for death. For Furton,the absence of the soul is made manifest by the loss of thatorgan in the body whose presence allows the soul to be present.This is a species-specific definition. (What organ would have tobe missing to declare a dog dead?) In fact, I would propose thatFurton’s argument is actually the argument of those who advocatea higher-brain formulation of BD cast in classicalAristotelian terms. For higher-brain advocates, the criterion fordeath is the loss of those parts of the brain responsible for thosefunctions unique to persons, i.e., to think, to feel, and to reason.For Furton, the criterion for death is the loss of that organ of thebody responsible for those functions unique to rational souls,i.e., to think, to feel, and to reason. The parallel is striking. Byreplacing the loss of bodily integration as the hallmark sign forthe separation of the soul from the body with another standard,the loss of the organ of cognitive life, Furton has unwittinglyreplaced a biological definition for death with a psychologicalone.