ABSTRACT
This chapter examines various philosophical accounts of personal identity in the context of brain-related criteria for diagnosing death. Opposition to brain-related criteria for the death of a human being sometimes relies upon speculations regarding either brain transplants or artificial brains. Insistence upon the integrative function of the brainstem in any account of the death of the person avoids any accusation of a dualism between brain and body, which illicitly favours the brain. The concept of death which emphasises the death of the brainstem avoids the dualistic ambiguities inherent in formulations based on loss of hemispheric functions. Brain cells growing in tissue culture have as little relation to human life as the various forms of disembodied consciousness that are cited by dualists. Taking the broadest definition of experience it would appear that this is when brainstem activity has permanently ceased.
