Philosophical, Medical, and Legal Controversies About Brain Death

A discussion of the medical, legal, philosophical, and practical foundations of brain death, and how they clash with patient rights.

L. Syd M Johnson (Author)

9781009323345, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 March 2024

84 pages
22.9 x 15.1 x 0.5 cm, 0.14 kg

This Element considers current legal, ethical, metaphysical, and medical controversies concerning brain death. It examines the implicit metaphysical and moral commitments and dualism implied by neurological criteria for death. When these commitments and worldview are not shared by patients and surrogates, they give rise to distrust in healthcare providers and systems, and to injustice, particularly when medicolegal definitions of death are coercively imposed on those who reject them. Ethical obligations to respect persons and patient autonomy, promote patient-centered care, foster and maintain trust, and respond to the demands of justice provide compelling ethical reasons for recognizing reasonable objections. Each section illustrates how seemingly academic debates about brain death have real, on-the-ground implications for patients and their families.

1. Ways to be dead
2. Philosophical and medical challenges to brain death
3. The reinvention of the person
4. Social, cultural, and spiritual objections to brain death
5. Is there an end in sight?
References.

Subject Areas: Child & developmental psychology [JMC]