ABSTRACT
In the 1950s, the development of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and tracheal positive-pressure ventilation with a mechanical ventilator forever changed the interdependence of vital systems. This chapter reviews the definition of death from conceptual and medical perspectives, and highlights the controversies over proposed definitions and criteria. It shows how a systematic biophilosophical analysis of death is useful to clarify areas of scholarly disagreement. The chapter also concerns how medicine and law have embraced various definitions. It clarifies the distinction between the biological concept of death and its medical determination, and discusses the principal current controversies. Many of the controversies over the definition and criterion of death result from disagreements over the preconditions for analyzing death. Contemporary definitions of death try to capture the essential features of higher life forms that are lost when technological support maintains respiration and circulation after all brain functions have ceased.
