Epistemological questions concerning death

Abstract

This paper illustrates that it is meaningless to provide answers to the question: “is the patient dead?” outside of specified contexts. Unless it is clear who is asking the question, for what purpose, and how certain one must be, medical decisions concerning death will remain ambiguous and open for misinterpretations. The ambiguity of these medical decisions may lead to additional legal, social, psychological, and ethical conflicts. Our discussion of the concept of ‘death’ and current confusions concerning ‘brain death’ attempts to distinguish between exclusively clinical decisions and other decisions concerning death which are epistemological. By showing that there is a difference between the competing criteria for the determination of death and the definition of death itself, we hope to suggest how society may employ the clinical expertise of physicians-primarily as the guardians of medical consistency.