Rethinking Life And Death By Peter Singer

1. Case Summary

A thirty-five-year-old married man with four children is suffering from the end-stage of kidney failure. All do to suffering years with chronic renal inadequacy and kidney disease. He is currently on dialysis, which has improved his health significantly to where he can function well and can expect to remain about the same while on it (Grisez, 1997, question 50). The treatment is not painful, the difficult part is the amount of time he has to spend on the machine and his wife’s required commitment to help. The dialysis is required three times a week for four hours each time. The couple spends around eighteen hours a week with it which can include time spent setting machine up, cleaning up and while he is on the machine she

Grisez would argue that the total brain dead human is no longer sentient. So in regards to receiving a kidney from an organ donor declared brain dead, Singer would agree. Grisez opposition to what brain dead means is Peter Singer. In his book Rethinking Life and Death (1995) Singer explains that not all functions of the body cease with brain death (BMJ, 2000). For example, when someone still twitches when they pass away. Singer takes the position that brain dead individuals are still alive. Then again, he would not find it acceptable to accept organs from an individual who is brain dead even though he views them as still alive. Both philosophers view life and death differently. On one hand we have Grisez who does not want us to define death too narrowly, classify too few people as dead. If we do, we would miss out on organ transplants and waste medical resources. Singer takes the position that individuals that are declared brain dead are still alive. He argues we need not to create bogus definitions of death and instead recognize that all lives are not equally valuable. Meaning although an individual is technically still alive it is considered ethically acceptable utilize them for organ transplants (BMJ,