Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

280 NICANOR AUSTRIACOing both Working Groups of the Pontifical Academy ofSciences. 8 These individuals propose that loss of the entirebrain leads immediately and necessarily to the loss of bodilyintegrity. This is the so-called whole-brain or total-brainformulation of the brain death criteria.2. Psychological definitions: Basically, death involves the permanentloss of consciousness or other essential humanproperties associated with personhood. This definition isspecies-specific. This is the rationale advocated by thosewho propose that death occurs when an individual losesonly those parts of his brain associated with the “higher”functions of human being including the abilities to think,feel, and reason. 9 This is the so-called higher-brain or neocorticalformulation of the brain death criteria.3. Sociological definitions: Basically, death involves the loss ofsocietally conferred membership in the human community.This definition is culture-specific and it is the rationale advocatedby those who believe that death is an arbitrary, culturallyrelative, social construct, which presently in developedcountries happens to be brain-based. 10Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and BehavioralResearch, Defining Death (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office,1981).8C. CHAGAS “Conclusions” in Working Group on the ArtificialProlongation of Life and the Determination of the Exact Moment of Death,October 19-21, 1985 (Scripta Varia 60) (Vatican City: Pontifical Academy ofSciences, 1986), pp. 113-114; and R.J. WHITE, H. ANGSTWURM, and I. CARRASCODE PAULA, “Final considerations formulated by the scientific participants” inWorking Group on the Determination of Brain Death and its Relationship toHuman Death, December 10-14, 1989 (Scripta Varia 83) (Vatican City:Pontificial Academy of Sciences, 1992), pp. 81-82.9As a representative example of this position, see Robert M. VEATCH,“The Impending Collapse of the Whole-Brain Definition of Death,” HastingsCenter Report 23 (1993): 18-24.10As a representative examples of this position, see J. LACHS, “The elementof choice in criteria of death,” in Death: Beyond Whole-Brain Criteria, ed. R. M.Zaner. (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988) pp. 233-251; and M.S.PERNICK, “Back from the grave: recurring controversies over defining and diagnosingdeath in history,” in Death: Beyond Whole-Brain Criteria, ed. R. M.Zaner. (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988) pp. 17-74.