The absence of life of an organism; permanent ending of vital processes in a cell or tissue; separation of the soul and the body; the cessation of breathing and the cessation of life, we have all heard one or more definitions of death. The real problem arises in assembling all the broken meanings of this feared state of our lives. Defining death is not merely an issue of describing this simple term; death has greater deep-rooted consequences in emergency rooms of hospitals where technology has enabled us to reflect on a new dimension of death – brain death as opposed to the cessation of cardiovascular function. In this essay, I aim to focus on how brain death successfully determines the occurrence of death and that such neurologically determined death is closely related to Pojman’s Whole Brain View (i.e.,
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However, with advancements in biomedical technology, the human body can be kept alive almost indefinitely, making death more and more difficult to define. Death to a cardiologist means that one’s heart has stopped beating and cannot be revived. To a neurologist, it might mean the end of the functioning of a brain stem. A cell biologist will only pronounce a person dead if all of the cells have died. The question that arises from these opposing views is one of determining the cessation of life, the cessation of a living organism. Traditional medical definitions of death have supported the lack of functioning of the heart and lungs. In a more recent approach of defining death, there has been a move from the cardiopulmonary view to the whole-brain death view. David DeGrazia mentions “Although opposed by many philosophers, the brain-dead diagnosed individual is said to be legally dead in 50 states of the US except New York and New Jersey where families still have the right to decide how they wish to proceed in such cases.” (The definition of death,
However, with advancements in biomedical technology, the human body can be kept alive almost indefinitely, making death more and more difficult to define. Death to a cardiologist means that one’s heart has stopped beating and cannot be revived. To a neurologist, it might mean the end of the functioning of a brain stem. A cell biologist will only pronounce a person dead if all of the cells have died. The question that arises from these opposing views is one of determining the cessation of life, the cessation of a living organism. Traditional medical definitions of death have supported the lack of functioning of the heart and lungs. In a more recent approach of defining death, there has been a move from the cardiopulmonary view to the whole-brain death view. David DeGrazia mentions “Although opposed by many philosophers, the brain-dead diagnosed individual is said to be legally dead in 50 states of the US except New York and New Jersey where families still have the right to decide how they wish to proceed in such cases.” (The definition of death,