PHL382H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Quid Pro Quo, Organ Donation, Organ Transplantation
Document Summary
Perhaps a more contemporary de nition of death is one that focuses on neurological criteria. Technology has created a new class of patients who would otherwise have died. It has also effected conversations about organ transplantation. In the late 60s when the technology for transplantation was being developed, there was a lack of legal framework. Clari cation was needed for when a person is dead before we would be able to contemplate using their organs. There is some debate about whether or not the criteria ought to comprise the whole brain. This prompted conversation about what is it that makes us genuinely human. It was thus proposed that it was the higher brain that we are interested in. Of course, this was problematized further where it is hard to say that people who look to be alive and who are in a vegetative state are dead. The higher brain criteria doesn"t thus completely account for what we think about death.
