A Metaphysical Analysis of the Contemporary Brain Death Controversies

I survey the arguments of neurologists and bioethicists pertaining to survival. I show that these arguments are not persuasive in determining when death occurs. They do not include any rigorous analysis of what type of entity we are and are unable to clarify the properties essential for our survival. An analysis of death upon an examination of personal identity is indispensable because only on this basis will we be in a position to identity the properties which matter for our persistence across the entire span of our existence. Personal identity theories are classified into either psychological or biological accounts. This dissertation analyzes McMahan's Embodied Mind Account of Identity and Baker's Constitution Account under the psychological heading. Representative of the biological position is Olson's Animalism. McMahan's account is not persuasive in revealing the beginning and end of our lives since whether or not we acquire the capacity to create consciousness is not relevant to the presence of our persistence. Baker's notions that we begin to exist from the newborn stage and that we are persons who can persist independently of human organisms are not plausible. Besides, even if we admit Baker's assumption that there are two beings, a person and a human organism that are in a constitutive relation, we do not lose a first-person perspective and do not cease to exist in PVS. Finally, I criticize Olson's notion of the beginning and end of our lives. The primitive streak of an early fetus does not indicate the beginning of our lives. Neither does losing brain stem function determine the end of our lives. I conclude with my own conception of Animalism that we begin to exist with the onset of life processes such as metabolism within the membrane. We cease to persist as a result of the loss of the anti-entropy effect due to the irreversible cessation of life processes. When the cerebrum is detached from the body, we persist in the cerebrum so long as that organ is placed in an organic or inorganic brain stem and preserves life processes.