Brain Death A Morally Legitimate Criteria for Determining Death?

Abstract

The issue of whether the whole brain death criterion serves as good evidence for death has surfaced within Catholic bioethical circles of late. There apparently is a vocal minority who claim that the Church's acceptance of the brain-death criterion should be overturned. The present paper addresses these arguments, first by clarifying the philosophical anthropology largely accepted by the Catholic intellectual tradition. And second, the paper shows that whole brain death is good evidence for death once one understands the basics of this philosophical anthropology. The paper finishes by criticizing arguments to the effect that whole brain death is either too strong of a criterion or too weak. The “too strong” proponents consider higher-brain (upper-brain) death sufficient, therefore persons in a persistent vegetative state should be considered dead. The “too weak” proponents argue that whole brain death is not sufficient for determining death, consequently the Church should reject it. The paper concludes by rebutting these arguments.