PHIL 213 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Amniote, Homeostasis, Brain Death
Document Summary
The whole-brain concept of death remains optimum public policy. Before the 1950s, the loss of spontaneous breathing and heartbeat (vital functions) were perfect predictors of death because the functionings of the brain and of all other organs ceased rapidly and nearly simultaneously thereafter, producing a unitary death phenomenon. Invention of positive-pressure mechanical ventilators caused confusion of determining death. Allowed for ventilation and circulation to occur without the brain. Many made bold claims that patients who had totally and irreversibly lost brain functions were dead, despite a continued heartbeat and circulation. Persistent group of critics have attacked the concept and practice of brain death as being conceptually invalid or a violation of religious beliefs. Thesis: the author, bernat, agrees with the concept of brain death, despite its shortcomings because it remains both conceptually coherent and forms a solid foundation for public policy surrounding human death determination and organ transplantation.
