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The Death of Expressed Personhood: A Neuroscientific Model to Solve Our Greatest Bioethical Dilemmas.

Defining "death" is central to addressing bioethical questions. Brain death is the most prominent legal definition of "death" in the US. Nonetheless, there seem to be notable difficulties with the notion of brain death that makes it inadequate to respond to ambiguous bioethical inquires. Jeff McMaha...

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Published in:Dialogue (00122246) Vol. 55; no. 1; pp. 1 - 10
Main Author: Ismail Kronemer, Sharif
Format: Article
Published: Phi Sigma Tau Oct2012
Subjects:
Brain death
Personality (Theory of knowledge)
Bioethics
McMahan, Jeff
Neurosciences
United States
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Summary:Defining "death" is central to addressing bioethical questions. Brain death is the most prominent legal definition of "death" in the US. Nonetheless, there seem to be notable difficulties with the notion of brain death that makes it inadequate to respond to ambiguous bioethical inquires. Jeff McMahan aims to mend these limitations by positing a second notion of death: death of personhood. Although intuitive, the death of personhood does not acknowledge contemporary neuroscience research and posits dualist notions which we have good reason to doubt. Instead, a third notion of death is necessary: the death of expressed personhood.