TOTAL BRAIN DEATH: A REPLY TO ALAN SHEWMON

D. Alan Shewmon has advanced a well-documented challenge to the widely accepted total brain death criterion for death of the human being. We show that Shewmon's argument against this criterion is unsound, though he does refute the standard argument for that criterion. We advance a distinct argu...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lee, Patrick (Author)
Contributors: Grisez, Germain Gabriel 1929-
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: 2012
In: Bioethics
Year: 2012, Volume: 26, Issue: 5, Pages: 275-284
Further subjects:B Brain Death
B radical capacity
B Sentience
B Animal
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Summary:D. Alan Shewmon has advanced a well-documented challenge to the widely accepted total brain death criterion for death of the human being. We show that Shewmon's argument against this criterion is unsound, though he does refute the standard argument for that criterion. We advance a distinct argument for the total brain death criterion and answer likely objections. Since human beings are rational animals – sentient organisms of a specific type – the loss of the radical capacity for sentience (the capacity to sense or to develop the capacity to sense) involves a substantial change, the passing away of the human organism. In human beings total brain death involves the complete loss of the radical capacity for sentience, and so in human beings total brain death is death.
ISSN:1467-8519
Contains:Enthalten in: Bioethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2010.01846.x