ArticleTheoretical medicine and bioethics2022
How many ways can you die? Multiple biological deaths as a consequence of the multiple concepts of an organism.
Article in Theoretical medicine and bioethics, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- When does life end? Consensus and controversy in defining death.Monash bioethics review · 2026Article
- Two kinds of evolutionary individuals: the concept of common interest as an evolutionary foundation of dualism on biological individuality.History and philosophy of the life sciences · 2026Article
- Death as the extinction of the source of value: the constructivist theory of death as an irreversible loss of moral status.Theoretical medicine and bioethics · 2024Article
- Death as the Cessation of an Organism and the Moral Status Alternative.The Journal of medicine and philosophy · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
According to the mainstream position in the bioethical definition of death debate, death is to be equated with the cessation of an organism. Given such a perspective, some bioethicists uphold the position that brain-dead patients are dead, while others claim that they are alive. Regardless of the specific opinion on the status of brain-dead patients, the mere bioethical concept of death, according to many bioethicists, has the merit of being unanimous and univocal, as well as grounded in biology. In the present article, we challenge such a thesis. We provide evidence that theoretical biology operates with a plurality of equally valid organismic concepts, which imply different conclusions regarding the organismal status of a brain-dead patient. Moreover, the theoretical biology concepts of an organism are very distant from the view on an organism that appears by way of bioethicists theorizing on death. We conclude that if death is to be understood as the cessation of an organism, there is no single correct answer to the question of whether a brain-dead patient is alive or dead.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.