死亡的判定

死亡是生命的终结.死亡判定的标准在历史上经历了一个逐步深化的过程.1959年2位法国医学家首先提出了脑死亡的概念.但是什么是脑死亡,以及如何判定脑死亡是一个有争议的问题.1981年美国总统委员会提出了一个脑死亡的判定指标体系,并被一些国家立法接受.回顾了对死亡判定认识的历史过程.     

BRIEF REPORT Interpretation of death‐relevant ambiguous stimuli as a function of death threat

According to G.A. Kelly's (1955) Personal Construct Theory, people are threatened by personal death to the extent that their conceptions of death are inconsistent with their conceptions of their present selves. As an individual difference factor, death threat predicts how people respond to death‐relevant situations and stimuli. To test the hypothesis that high death‐threat (relative to low death‐threat) persons will engage in greater denial when assigning meaning to ambiguous stimuli, college students viewed inkblots and chose between a nondeath‐relevant interpretation and a death‐relevant interpretation. As hypothesised, high death‐threat participants endorsed fewer death‐relevant interpretations than did low death‐threat participants. Self‐reported conscious fear of death did not predict this avoidance. Results are discussed in the light of historical and current work on psychological responses to death.     

Assessment of death attitudes: an empirical approach

The Threat Index and the Death Anxiety Scale were administered to 228 subjects. Based on the high/low criterion scores, 105 subjects were assigned to the following four groups: (a) high death threat/high death anxiety, (b) high death threat/low death anxiety, (c) low death threat/high death anxiety, and (d) low death threat/low death anxiety. During the experimental phase of the study, subjects viewed a filmstrip on death rituals in various cultures. A recall test was then administered. Results indicated no significant group differences on recall performance. Initial no-show rates for the second part of the experiment were observed in the four groups reflecting a significant negative relationship between death anxiety and initial no-show rates. The possibility of defensive responding on the Death Anxiety Scale was suggested.     

Personal identity and brain death: a critical response

The authors contend that there are logical inconsistencies in a theory put forth by Michael Green and Daniel Wikler ("Brain death and personal identity," Philosophy and Public Affairs 1980 Winter; 9(2): 105-133) to justify the brain death concept of death. Green and Wikler had asserted that individuals cease to exist and are dead when the criteria for continuity in their personal identity are not met. Having argued that the theory of personal identity is misguided, Agich and Jones suggest that further research into the ontological foundation of brain death concepts should begin, not by rejecting medical or moral considerations, but by carefully defining the main competing concepts of brain death as brain stem death, cerebral death, death of the brain as a whole, and whole brain death, and then by relating these concepts to the ontological conditions for being a live individual or person.     

Choosing a Place of Death: The Influence of Pain and of Attitude Toward Death1

This experimental study sought to verify if factors like pain or attitude toward death can determine the choice of a place of death. Using a questionnaire developed from Triandis’(1980) theory, the influence of pain on the intention of choosing a place of death was measured among 138 respondents. “Attitude toward death,” used as a control variable, was measured by means of the Death Attitude Profile. Variance analyses (p < .008) demonstrated the influence of pain on intention of choosing a place of death and on the cognitive component. Linear regression (p .002) highlighted 2 determinants of intention of choosing a place of death: moral norm and social role. As for attitude toward death, it seems to have no influence on the choice of a place of death.     

恐惧管理理论的争议及其对死亡心理研究的启示

死亡心理是人类面临死亡及相关事件时所产生的认知、情感和行为意向的复杂心理状态。目前, 研究死亡心理较为全面和科学的理论是恐惧管理理论(Terror Management Theory, 简称TMT)。但该理论存在以下争议: (1)在死亡的基本认知方面, 恐惧管理理论呈现出不一致的研究结果, 如死亡是否与不确定性无关, 死亡是否导致恐惧情绪, 寻求个体生存是否为人类的核心议题; (2)在社会文化层面, 恐惧管理理论提出者的文化背景对待死亡的普遍态度是呈否认的, 但是跨文化的研究显示其他文化背景对待死亡的态度却呈现出接纳或蔑视; (3)在恐惧管理理论的研究结果方面, 呈现出较多的矛盾性, 表明研究中有重要的调节因子未被涉及。基于此, 死亡心理可能的研究方向拟从认知、行为和社会三个层面进行梳理。未来死亡心理研究需秉承科学与文化并重的原则, 并结合死亡心理的内容与过程, 关注群体面对死亡时的心理规律, 开展死亡心理影响下的身心健康干预研究。     

Deliberating death

Utilizing a particular case study of a woman attempting to come to terms with her death, this article explores the difficult metaphors of death present within the Christian tradition. Tracing a Christian understanding of death back to the work of Augustine, the case study is utilized to highlight the difficulties presented by past and present theology embracing ideas of punishment within death. Following the trajectory of the case study, alternative understandings of death present in recent Christian theology and within Native American spirituality are presented in an attempt to find room for a fuller meaning of death post-reconciliation, but premortem.     

Brain death, religious freedom, and public policy: New Jersey's landmark legislative initiative

"Whole brain death" (neurological death) is well-established as a legal standard of death across the country. Recently, New Jersey became the first state to enact a statute recognizing a personal religious exemption (a conscience clause) protecting the rights of those who object to neurological death. The Act also mandates adoption through the regulatory process of uniform and up-to-date clinical criteria for determining neurological death.     

The End: Thoughts on Humanism and Death

Extending earlier work on a nontheistic theology, in this article I explore a humanist framing of death. I begin with a critique of theistic framings of death as a matter of isolation and transition to a greater situation. In place of theistic understandings of death, here I argue that humanist theology, drawing insights from literature and Albert Camus' moralism, provides a way to “naturalize” death, to understand death as already and always a dimension of life.     

Community responses following suicide, homicide, and other deaths: the perspective of potential comforters

To determine whether actual responses of potential comforters in the community differ according to cause of death, 83 college students participated in a structured, individual interview. They were asked demographic questions about themselves, the bereaved, and the deceased, and then about various aspects of how they, and others in the community, responded to the death. Students were grouped by their reports of the cause of death (suicide, homicide, accident, natural anticipated death, or natural unanticipated death). When the death was by suicide or homicide, others were perceived as relatively less supportive of the bereaved person. When the death was by suicide, respondents themselves tended more to blame the bereaved person. When the death was by homicide, the bereaved person was perceived as reacting relatively worse. Potential comforters were relatively more shocked when the death was by homicide or accident.     

Understanding mortality and the life of the ancestors in rural madagascar

Across two studies, a wide age range of participants was interviewed about the nature of death. All participants were living in rural Madagascar in a community where ancestral beliefs and practices are widespread. In Study 1, children (8–17 years) and adults (19–71 years) were asked whether bodily and mental processes continue after death. The death in question was presented in the context of a narrative that focused either on the corpse or on the ancestral practices associated with the afterlife. Participants aged 8 years and older claimed that death brings an end to most bodily and mental processes. Nevertheless, particularly in the context of the religious narrative, they claimed that certain mental processes continue even after death. This assertion of an afterlife was more evident among adults than children, especially with respect to cognitive processes, such as knowing and remembering. In Study 2, 5- and 7-year-olds were asked similar questions in connection with the death of a bird and a person. Seven-year-olds consistently claimed that bodily and mental processes cease at death, whereas 5-year-olds were unsystematic in their replies. Together, the two studies replicate and extend findings obtained with Western children showing that, in the course of development, different conceptions of death are elaborated—a biological conception in which death terminates living processes and a religious conception in which death marks the beginning of a new form of spiritual existence.     

Where is the Harm in Dying Prematurely? An Epicurean Answer

Philosophers have said less than is needed about the nature of premature death, and about the badness or otherwise of that death for the one who dies. In this paper, premature death’s nature is clarified in Epicurean terms. And an accompanying argument denies that we need to think of such a death as bad in itself for the one who dies. Premature death’s nature is conceived of as a death that arrives before ataraxia does. (Ataraxia’s nature is also clarified. It is a pervasive inner peace that is a kind of purity and completeness in how one is living.) Whatever harm we might attribute to a premature death is better attributed to a life’s being lived at that time without ataraxia. The paper ends by explaining how its Epicurean account, more so than comparativist or narrativist accounts, could allow a person to know that her death will not be premature.     

诊断脑死亡的伦理思考

随着医学的进步和社会的发展,死亡的定义、诊断标准和医生道德责任有了新的内容,脑死亡就是生命终结已为医学界普遍接受.诊断脑死亡是非常专业的技术性工作,有权进行脑死亡诊断的医疗单位和医生必须达到相应的资质要求.确诊和宣布脑死亡应遵循的伦理准则包含多方面的内容,如家属应有死亡标准选择权、脑死亡的诊断程序、脑死亡诊断结果的宣布和生效等方面的问题.     

Thanatos and massive psychic trauma: the impact of the death instinct on knowing,remembering, and forgetting

The connection between massive psychic trauma and the concept of the death instinct is explored using the basic assumptions that the death instinct is unleashed through and is in a sense characteristic of traumatic experience, and that the concept of the death instinct is indispensable to the understanding and treatment of trauma. Characteristics of traumatic experience, such as dissolution of the empathic bond, failure to assimilate experience into psychic representation and structure, a tendency to repeat traumatic experience, and a resistance to remembering and knowing, are considered as trauma-induced death instinct derivatives. An initial focus is on the individual, on how death instinct manifestations can be discerned in the survivors of trauma. Next the intergenerational force of trauma is examined; a clinical vignette illustrates how the death instinct acts on and is passed on to the children of survivors. Finally, the cultural or societal aspects of trauma are considered, with an eye to how death instinct derivatives permeate cultural responses (or failures to respond) to trauma. Because trauma causes a profound destructuring and decathexis, it is concluded that the concept of the death instinct is a clinical and theoretical necessity.     

Neuroscience and Brain Death Controversies: The Elephant in the Room

The conception and the determination of brain death continue to raise scientific, legal, philosophical, and religious controversies. While both the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research in 1981 and the President’s Council on Bioethics in 2008 committed to a biological definition of death as the basis for the whole-brain death criteria, contemporary neuroscientific findings augment the concerns about the validity of this biological definition. Neuroscientific evidentiary findings, however, have not yet permeated discussions about brain death. These findings have critical relevance (scientifically, medically, legally, morally, and religiously) because they indicate that some core assumptions about brain death are demonstrably incorrect, while others lack sufficient evidential support. If behavioral unresponsiveness does not equate to unconsciousness, then the philosophical underpinning of the definition based on loss of capacity for consciousness as well as the criteria, and tests in brain death determination are incongruent with empirical evidence. Thus, the primary claim that brain death equates to biological death has then been de facto falsified. This conclusion has profound philosophical, religious, and legal implications that should compel respective authorities to (1) reassess the philosophical rationale for the definition of death, (2) initiate a critical reappraisal of the presumed alignment of brain death with the theological definition of death in Abrahamic faith traditions, and (3) enact new legislation ratifying religious exemption to death determination by neurologic criteria.     

Intending and Causing

In much of the contemporary discussion of end of life cases, active killing is forbidden doctors, whereas the passive bringing about of death is, e.g., a rather common occurrence in our hospitals. In the former sorts of cases, doctors are held to be causes of death; in the latter sorts of cases, they are held not to be. If they did not cause a death, even though they did passively bring it about, we cannot use casual responsibility for a death in order to raise possible questions about moral responsibility for that death. I here look at part of this insistence that doctors are not a part cause of death and call it into question.     

Life,Death, and Life After Death: Meanings of the Relationship Between Death Anxiety and Religion

ABSTRACT

A sample of 389 individuals completed a death anxiety scale and a series of items that measured self-reported religious practices and beliefs. Those lowest in religious practices and beliefs were significantly higher in death anxiety. Contrary to some prior research, depth of belief had a stronger negative association with death anxiety than did religious activities. Strongest relationships had to do with concepts of life after death. The oldest respondents reported the least death anxiety.     

The Role of Death Qualification in Capital Trials Involving Juvenile Defendants1

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of death qualification in capital trials involving juvenile defendants. Two hundred residents of the 12^th Judicial Circuit in Florida completed a booklet of stimulus materials that contained the following: One question that measured participants' level of support for the death penalty; One Witt death‐qualification question; a summary of the guilt and penalty phases of a capital case involving either an adult or a juvenile defendant; sentence preference; the Revised Legal Attitudes Questionnaire (RLAQ); and standard demographic questions. Results indicated that death‐qualified participants were more likely to sentence both defendants to death. In addition, death‐qualified participants were more likely to recommend the death sentence for the juvenile defendant. Legal implications are discussed.     

Towards a Theological Metaphysics of Death

Death is an inescapable event. It defines our existence as mortal. It is both a marker of our finitude and a portal to a deeper mystery: what awaits us in, through, and beyond this moment of ending? In thinking about death in the context of a theological dialogue, I identify two key questions: the phenomenological ‘What is death?’ and the philosophical ‘What is the meaning of death?’ as the beginning points of reflection. In general, it is the function of religion to provide some sort of answer to these questions, to give death both coherent definition and adequate understanding. The primary religious response is to articulate appropriate beliefs. But in their intellectual formation and construction, beliefs draw on metaphysics—the structures of logic, language, conceptuality and general worldview presuppositions by which we render all things intelligible and communicable. In this article I shall undertake an exploration of Christian viewpoints on death, which will require noting antecedents and corollaries in Judaism, then discuss possible metaphysical readings of death, that is, philosophical understandings of death that lie within and under, as it were, the otherwise stated religious beliefs about death. The aim of this article is not to present a fully developed ‘theological metaphysics of death’ as such; rather, in the context of an inter-religious dialogical engagement, to raise issues and perspectives from a Christian point of view that might contribute to a wider, more encompassing, theistically oriented understanding of death.     

浅析死刑认同的心理根源

我国民众普遍认同死刑,这种"死刑认同"具有三种心理情绪根源:死亡情结、社会情感以及正义报复感。死刑认同实质上是国民的一种个人情绪和社会情感的表达和要求。取消死刑是必然趋势,但必须具备相应的社会条件。