Bailley Schneider
Dr. Moss
PHIL 364: Biomedical Ethics
28 September 2016
DEATH DEFINED AS PUBLIC POLICY
RECONSTRUCTION
James L. Bernat argues that the whole-brain criterion of death, opposed to the higher-brain and the cardiopulmonary criteria of death, are optimum public policy (130). In order to argue this, Bernat outlines the relevant steps that help form his argument. First, “death” is a common word that one uses when talking about the ending of a human’s life; it has been made ambiguous by technological advances. Second, death is fundamentally a biological phenomenon, and not fundamentally a social contrivance. Third, defining human death is simplified by restricting one’s purview to the death of higher vertebrate species. Fourth, death…show more content… He creates a sense of trust in his audience and helps prevent assumptions from being made. Bernat is creating a strong backup for what the criterion of death is and why it is the only plausible proposal for brain death advocates. When looking at the assumptions that back up Bernat’s argument, one will find that assumption two is very important. It states that death is fundamentally a biological phenomenon, and not fundamentally a social contrivance. This is important and shows that it can be talked about thoroughly. When it comes to the actual scientific definition of death, Bernat comes extremely close. Critical functions means more than just functions of a body, but also means a balance of certain reactions. When looking at Bernat’s definition of death and how scientists would define death, one would find how it is so close to being the exact same. Another important assumption clarified earlier that backs up his argument is number seven. Death is irreversible. This is important because in the cardiopulmonary criterion of death, it can be said that it is sometimes reversible; therefore, the person who died may still be alive (134). Following this, the higher-brain criterion of death states that people are alive if one considers that they may be in a persistent state of
