Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

IS THE BRAIN-DEAD PATIENT REALLY DEAD? 281Note that disagreements at this first level of discourse wouldinvolve philosophical arguments. There is no need for medicalexpertise here since definitions of death arise primarily fromone’s anthropological vision of the human person.Second, every interlocutor has a set of criteria for death thathe uses to determine when his particular definition of death hasbeen fulfilled. For instance, if an individual held that deathinvolved the permanent loss of consciousness (a psychologicaldefinition for death), it is likely that he would also embrace a setof criteria for death that included the destruction of those partsof the brain necessary for consciousness. However, two individualswho held identical definitions for death could still disagreeon the appropriate criteria that would be used to determinewhen death actually occurred. For instance, two proponents ofa psychological definition for death could disagree on exactlywhich parts of the brain need to be destroyed in order for thereto be the permanent loss of consciousness that they both agreesignals death. At this level of discourse, disagreements wouldinvolve both philosophical and medical arguments.Philosophers would need to understand human biology beforethey would be able to identify and distinguish the criteria thatwill be needed to meet their definition of death.Third, every interlocutor in the BD debate has a list of clinicaltests for death that is used to evaluate whether his criteriafor death have been satisfied. To return to our individual whoheld that death involved the permanent loss of consciousness,his list of tests could include either an MRI or a CT scan or EEGmeasurements, medical procedures that could determinewhether the critical parts of the brain necessary for consciousnessare still intact or not. Again, two individuals who share boththe same definition and the same criteria for death could stilldisagree on the appropriate tests that would could be used todetermine whether a particular individual could in fact bedeclared dead. At this level of discourse, disagreements wouldinvolve predominantly medical arguments over how clinicaltests best ascertain criteria for death.As we shall see below in the historical overview of thedebate, the last forty years have witnessed disagreements atevery level of the conceptual discourse over death. However, it isstill disagreements over the appropriate definition for death that