Bioethical approach to the definition of a person through the diagnosis of whole brain death. Relevance in the field of organ transplatation

Abstract

The acceptance of the diagnosis of death based on neurological criteria (brain death) was not quickly or unanimously accepted by the scientific community, nor by the philosophical world. The persistence of biological activity in the corporeality of human beings in brain death has served to refute this concept in the medical, anthropological and philosophical fields. In this study, characteristics of the different hierarchical levels of living organisms are established, focusing mainly on the uniqueness of complex biological structures (organic biotope), human corporality, and the person. A series of characteristics of each of these levels are described and it is evident how in the remaining corporality after brain death all the characteristics of the person have disappeared (rationality, self-awareness, moral conduct, freedom, manifestation, project). , identity of person, immanence of person, transcendence of person culmination, etc.) and exclusive of it. In a situation of whole brain death, only those characteristics that are inherent to it but comparable to what we could find in other developed living beings remain in the body, with those characteristics exclusive to the person having disappeared. It can be concluded that the irreversible cessation of all intrinsically neurological functions of the entire brain (whole brain death) is the death of the person due to the disappearance of all those essential and exclusive characteristics of the person, leaving only the activity of the organic biotope and human corporality.