Abstract
Much of the discussion of the definition and criteria of death occurs within the framework of what James Bernat has called the “paradigm of death” – a set of conditions and assumptions that defines the nature of the phenomena and its conceptual boundaries. Two assumptions in this paradigm are that death is “an immutable and objective biological fact and not fundamentally a social contrivance” and that “‘death’ can be applied directly and categorically only to organisms” and not to persons (persons can die in only a “metaphorical” sense). I challenge these assumptions and argue that defining death is not simply a biological matter but also a matter for metaphysical, moral, and cultural reflection. When it comes to deciding among non-brain, whole-brain or higher-brain formulations of death, biological considerations are insufficient. Disagreement among proponents of these formulations can be traced to disagreements over the nature of the kind of being we are or to moral, social or cultural differences. This is illustrated by a critical analysis of the position taken by the U. S. President’s Council on Bioethics in its White Paper, Controversies in the Determination of Death (2008). Thus, while it may be false in some contexts to say that Elvis ain’t dead until we say so, insofar as defining death involves metaphysical, moral, and cultural considerations, Elvis ain’t dead until we say so.
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