Professor Singer, Im troubled by the distinction you make between death of the organism and death of the person. You define death of the person as that of irreversible loss of consciousness. What I would ask is this: while we sleep, we are unconscious but clearly alive; we are no closer to death than when we are awake. Our memories are being solidified, we are dealing with psychological issues; we can react to pain, and some people can even speak and interact. Likewise, in many types of coma, a person can react to pain while unconscious, and we do not have the medical technology to define exactly what else is going on within the mind and psychology of the person during that time. So I dont think it is merely the consciousness that determines personhood. There have been cases of people who have awakened after being in a coma for years. What use is the concept of irreversible loss of consciousness if psychological processes might be going on during that time (in which case irreversibility might not even be relevent), and also, if we cannot determine the ultimate irreversibility of the process? I think it is a much safer proposition to rely on the death of the organism as the true and factual death.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 17:03:20 +0000
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