THE ENIGMA OF DEATH

FRED FELDMAN
1. THE MYSTERY THESIS.
Quite a few philosophers - especially philosophers sympathetic to
the traditions of existentialism and phenomenology - have maintained
that there is something mysterious or enigmatic about death. One, for
example, describes death as a ' mysterious and long-neglected
phe nome non' l ; he tells us that death '... reveals the uncanny
strangeness of the world. 2' Others speak of death as ' opaque' or
' i mpenet rabl e' or ' absol ut el y unknowabl e' . 3 Some of these
philosophers, I suspect, think that death is mysterious primarily
because no one knows how being dead feels to those who are dead. 4
I too want to claim that death is a mystery. But I do not think it
mysterious for the reason cited. I have another reason for thinking that
death is mysterious. Since these other philosophers may have used
similar words to express other theses, (or at any rate, theses defended in
a wholly different way) I should try to be more explicit about the claim
I want to defend.
As a first step, it will be important to identify the central focus of
the discussion. To do this, it will be useful to distinguish among
several closely related concepts. These are the concepts in the "death-
and-dying family". They include the concepts we express when we say
(a) that a thing dies; (b) that some event is a death; (c) that a thing is
dying; and (b) that a thing is dead. The first of these (the concept
expressed by 'dies') seems to have a sort of conceptual priority over the
others, since it is natural to suppose that we can define each of the
others by appeal to it. Thus, we might propose to say that the death of
an organism is an event that necessarily occurs when the organism
dies. And we might say that an organism is dead if it has died (and has
not come back to life). Defining 'dying' is a bit trickier, but as a start
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FXF_D FELDMAN
we might say that a thing is dying at a time i f it is rapidly and
inexorably approaching the moment at which it will die. s
In light of its apparent conceptual priority in the death-and-dying
family, as well as for a variety of other reasons, it is important to
understand precisely what we mean when we say that something dies.
That is, it is important to have a satisfactory philosophical analysis of
the concept of death. My thesis is that although a certain sort of
analysis has gone vi r t ual l y unquest i oned in the literature, it is
unacceptable. Furthermore, no obvious modification of that analysis
seems to me to be correct. This is what I mean when I say that death is
enigmatic, or a mystery. 6
Before turning to the defense of my thesis, it may be helpful to
make a number of preliminary comments.
2. PRELIMINARIES.
One point worth nothing at the outset is that ever y proposed
analysis of the concept of death to be discussed here makes use of the
concept of life. That is, in each case, we will be considering a proposed
definition of 'x dies at t', and in each case the definition makes use of
several ot her expressions, including 'x is alive at t' (or some near
equi val ent ). It goes wi t hout sayi ng that t here is consi der abl e
controversy about the correct analysis of the concept of life. Some
apparently think that life has something to do with the having of
soul. 7 Others have suggested that it should be analyzed by appeal to
the capacities to engage in nutrition, growth, reproduction, and other
such "vital functions", s Still others have attempted to analyze life by
appeal to the reverse of the concept of entropy - according to these
philosophers, to be alive is to be "syntropic". 9 And still others have
said that to be alive is to have an internal genetic program. 1~
While several of these traditional analysis of the concept of life are
based on plausible intuitions, and seem to point in the right direction,
each of them nevertheless seems problematic. Unfortunately, I find that
I am unable to provide a better one of my own. But I think that each of
us has some insight into the concept of life; the word ' alive' in our
mouths expresses some (perhaps confused) thought in our minds. Let
us begin with the assumption that the concept of l i fe is sufficiently
clear for present purposes. Part of what I hope to show is that some of
the obscuri t y surrounding to concept of death is refl ect ed f r om
corresponding obscurity surrounding the concept of life.
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THE ENIGMA OF DEATH
A second prel i mi nary remark concerns the target concept - the
concept of death. Some of the literature on death seems to be based on
t he assumption that the most interesting concept of deat h is one
applicable just to people. Such analyses mention brain f unct i on, or
consciousness, or some other concept that has no application to lowly
organisms. Thus, some writers seem to be trying to analyze a concept
of death that coul d not possibly apply to any lower animal or plant. 1
This seems quite odd to me. Consider these sentences:
(1) JFK died in November of 1963.
(2) The last Dodo died an April of 1681.
(3) My Baldwin Apple tree died during January of 1986.
I cannot think of any reason to suppose that the word 'died' has one
meaning in sentence (1), and a different meaning in the other sentences.
As I see it, the term is most naturally taken to be univocal. Some
slight evidence for my view may be provided by the fact that there is
nothing amusing, or paradoxical, or otherwise out o f the ordinary
about the claim that i f (1), (2) and (3) are all true, then three different
things died. If 'died' were used in different senses in these sentences, we
might expect the inference to be an eyebrow raiser. Of course, this is
not to say that the death of JFK is exactly as important as the death of
an apple tree; nor is it to say that the death of JFK must manifest itself
in ways i ndi scerni bl e from those in which the death of the tree
manifests itself. It is just to say that the meaning of the word 'died' in
sentence (1) is the same as the meaning of word 'died' in sentences (2)
a n d ( 3 ) .
I shall proceed here on the assumption that there is a concept of
death that has application throughout the biological realm. As I see it,
Just as there is a single concept of life that applies to ever y living
plant and animal, so there is a single concept of death that potentially
applies to every organism from the lowliest plant all the way up to the
most complex mammal. I call this "the biological concept o f death".
When I speak of the enigma of death, I mean to be indicating the
puzzle concerning the analysis of the biological concept of death.
A final preliminary point concerns the concept of "definition" or
"analysis". There is an enormous literature on a problem concerning
"the defi ni t i on of death". 12 Most of this, I think, is devot ed to
discussion of vari ous attempts t o provi de what is also cal l ed a
"criterion" of human death. Since my topic in this paper could easily
be confused wi t h this more popular topic, I should attempt to make the
distinction clear.
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FRED FELDMAN
There are a number of situations that require someone to determine
whether or not a certain person has died. For example, there is the case
in which a transplantation team is about to remove transplantable vital
organs from an accident victim. There is the case in which a mortician
is about to embalm or cremat e a body. In such cases, a certain course
of action will be legally permissible only i f the body is dead. Those
enganged in the activity have a pressing need for a straightforward,
legally acceptable, practical test for death.
A popular proposal is that cessation of electrical ectivity in the
brain be taken as the criterion of death. 13 If this criterion were accepted
in some jurisdiction, then morticians, organ transplanters and others
operating under the laws of that jurisdiction could act as i f this were
true:
(4) A person dies at a time i ff his or her brain ceases to engage in
discernible electrical activity at that time.
If a mortician followed the required tests and determined that there
was no discernible electrical activity in the brain of some body, and
then buried that body, he would be immune from prosecution - even i f
uncontrovertable evidence l at er emerged, showing that the body was
not dead. Of course, if here were many such cases, it would be clear
that (4) is an unacceptable criterion of death.
A criterion is something that is proposed for acceptance; that
might be adopted if enough people thought it would be useful; that
might subsequently be rejected i f it proved inadequate, or became
obsolete as a result of technological advances. A crucial feature of a
criterion is that it be relatively easy to apply. It is supposed to help us
make practical decisions. Furthermore, a criterion does not purport to
express a conceptual truth - even i f (4) were true, it would surely still
be concei vabl e that peopl e live wi t hout discernible brain act i vi t y.
Finally, a criterion such as (4) is designed to apply only to persons. It
has no application to plants or other living things without brains.
An analysis of the concept of death is in all these respects unlike a
criterion. A successful analysis would report a conceptual truth, So, for
example, consider this proposed analysis:
DI : x dies at t =df. x ceases to be alive at t.
I f D1 is true, then the concept of death (the intension of ' x dies at
t') is identical to the concept of ceasing to be alive (the intension of ' x
ceases to be alive at 0 . We might someday stop using this concept ,
but to technological advance coul d make the analysis false, i f ever it
was true.
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THE ENIGMA OF DEATH
Furthermore, the analysis woul d anal yze a concept that applies to
everything that dies, whether such things have brains or not.
A successful analysis is not something we adopt as a matter of
convention. Nor is it something that we could, as a matter of law,
decide to replace when it becomes inconvenient. Rather, it indicates a
conceptual truth - something there to be discovered. Most importantly,
the excellence of analyses is truth, not usefulness. My object in this
paper is to discuss some proposed analyses of the biological concept of
deat h; not to di scuss any pr opos ed cr i t er i on. So much for
preliminaries. Let us turn to a proposed analysis of the biological
concept of death.
3. PERREIT'S ANALYSIS.
In his recent book, Roy Perrett seems to be discussing the nature of
deat h itself. He distinguishes bet ween persons and biological
organisms, and says that he is focussing on the question about what
we mean when we speak of the death of a biological organism. 14
Thus, it appears that Perrett' s target in his book is identical to my
target in this paper, He calls it '... the concept of death that is neutral
to all deaths. 15 He goes on to say: ' My proposal is that death be
i dent i f i ed with {the dest r uct i on of a f unct i oni ng bi ol ogi cal
organism} .,16
I f Perret t said no more on this topic, the reader would surely
assume that he meant to defend this analysis of the concept of death:
D2: x dies at t =df. x is a living biological organism up to t, but at t,
x is destroyed.
However, Perrett has more to say.
In a passage just a sentence later than the one already cited, Perrett
says that '... death is the annihilation of a funct i oni ng biological
organism . . . . ,17 And only a page after that, he says that death is '... the
di si nt egrat i on of a living organism. . . "lg These remarks seem to
confuse matters, since it now appears that Perret t has commi t t ed
hi msel f to three different analyses of the biological concept of death.
According to the first, death is t he destruction of a living biological
organism; according to the second, it is the annihilation of such an
organi sm; accordi ng to the third, it is t he di si nt egrat i on of the
organism.
The t hree proposal s are distinct. We coul d i nvest i gat e them
independently. However, it seems to me that none is correct. One
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FRED FELDMAN
exampl e suffices to show that each of Perret t ' s proposals is false.
Suppose a butterfly collector captures a rare specimen. Suppose she
careful l y places i t i n the killing jar. Surel y it i s possible that she
might kill it wi t hout breaking of f any legs, and wi t hout dislodging
even so much as a single scale from the wings. The specimen might
be "perfect". In such a case, I think, even though the butterfly has died
it would be wrong to say that it has been "destroyed". It is even more
obvious that it would be wrong to say that it disintegrates, or that it
has been annihilated. Thus , Perret t ' s proposal , no mat t er how
interpreted, is false.
In another passage, Perrett notes that death ' marks the transition
from being alive to being dead'. 19 This hints at a much more popular
conception of death - the conception according to which a thing dies at
a time i f and only i f it then ceases to be alive. Since this conception is
so popular, I refer to it as 'the standard analysis.' Let us turn t oi t .
4. THE STANDARD ANALYSIS.
I think it is fair to say that something l i ke the analysis formulated
above in D1 i sal most universally assumed to be correct. Some would
accept D1 as it stands, Thus, in his recent book Thinking Clearly
about Death, Jay Rosenberg says, 'to die is to cease to live, to cease to
be in the condition of life... '2~ Others would modi fy it by adding that
death occurs onl y i f life permanent l y ceases. Rosenberg cites a
di ct i onary defi ni t i on that suggests this idea. Accordi ng to this
dictionary, death is 'the total and permanent cessation of all the vital
functions of an animal or plant. '21 Still others woul d modi fy it in a
sl i ght l y di fferent way by addi ng that deat h occur s when l i fe
irreversibly ceases. Rosenberg hi msel f suggests this view when he
says elsewhere in his book that '...an organism dies when it loses its
power to preserve and sustain its sel f-organi zi ng organi zat i on
permanently and irreversibly. '22 Since Rosenberg takes life to be the
cited power, this is tantamount to saying that an organism dies when
it irreversibly ceases to live. The variations may seem trivial. Let us
say that each of the proposed analyses, and any others relevantly like
them, are instances of "the Standard Analysis". According to this view,
death i s the (perhaps permanent, perhaps irreversible) cessation of life.
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THE ENIGMA OF DEATH
5. PUZ71.ES ABOUT SUSPENDED ANI MATI ON.
I think the three abovement i oned versions of the Standard Analysis
are genui nel y distinct and mutually incompatible. Furthermore, I think
none of them is true. Although each of them is open to several sorts of
obj ect i on, I want to discuss t wo mai n sorts of difficulty. The first
difficulty is that the Standard Analysis is i ncompat i bl e with some facts
concer ni ng s us pended ani mat i on, Let us t hen consi der this
phenomenon .23
I realize that it is currently i mpossi bl e to freeze an adult human
bei ng (or any ot her large mammal ) and subsequent l y revi ve him.
Freezi ng destroys too many cells. However, it is reasonabl e to bel i eve
that the probl ems are all merel y technical. Just as we can now freeze
and later reani mat e a day-ol d human blastula, so someday we will be
able to freeze and then later reani mat e an adult human being. Let us
imagine that the technology has in fact been developed. Let us imagine
that an adult human can be frozen and later reani mat ed. I prefer to
pr oceed in this way pri mari l y for dramat i c effect, even though my
ar gument could j ust as well be formul at ed by appeal to an exampl e
i nvol vi ng organisms that currently can be frozen, z4
In order to see how facts about suspended ani mat i on bear on the
standard analysis of death, let us consider a case.
Case One. A man has a bad disease, There is currently
no cure, unless some way can be found to stop the
disease, he will die in a few days. There is good reason
to bel i eve that a cure will be found in a dozen years or
SO.
Cr yogeni cs , Inc. of f er s to i nj ect s ome speci al l y
formul at ed glycerol, and to freeze the man solid. Then,
when the cure has been perfect ed, they will thaw him
out, reani mat e him, and see to it that he is cured of the
disease. The man accepts the offer, and is injected and
frozen. Ten years later, a cure for the di sease is found.
The body is thawed, reani mat ed, and subj ect ed to the
cure. The man goes on with his life.
In one of the passages cited above, Rosenberg said that to die is to
cease to live. 25 Thi s surely suggest s the fol l owi ng versi on of the
Standard Analysis of the concept of death:
DI : x dies at t =df. x ceases to be alive at t.
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FRED FEI DMAN
Case One refutes D1. For in Case One the man ceased to be alive
when he was frozen. Wi t hout an accepted analysis of the concept of
life, this point is hard to prove. But it seems reasonable to say that the
man ceased to live when he was frozen, After all, he then ceased to
engage in metabolism, thought, motion, energy transfers, syntropic
increase in orderliness, etc. If this is right, then D 1 implies that the
man died when he was frozen. But the implication is false - the man
did not die when frozen. He went into suspended animation. Unless
something went wrong with the procedures, and it became impossible
to reanimate him, no one would want to say that Cryogeni cs, Inc.
killed their client.
The mere possibility of suspended animation shows that death
cannot be defi ned as the cessation of life. Organi sms that ent er
suspended animation cease to live, but do not then die. We must alter
t he standard analysis so as to accomodate this fact. We must define
death in such a way that it turns out that organi sms that ent er
suspended animation don' t die.
Perhaps we can think of suspended animation as the temporary
cessat i on of life. Then perhaps we will want to say that death is the
permanent cessation of life. This approach is suggested by some o f
Rosenberg' s remarks cited above. In one of those passages, Rosenberg
mentioned that his dictionary said that death is the "total and permanent
cessation of all vital functions" .26 This suggests another definition of
death:
D2: x dies at t =dr. x ceases permanently to be alive at t.
Notice fh'st that D2 yields a different result in Case One. Since the
frozen man did not cease permanently to live when he was frozen, D2
(unlike D1) entails that he did not then die. This may seem to be an
i mprovement , since it seems to be consistent with the facts about
suspended ani mat i on. But anot her exampl e shows that t here is
something implausible about D2.
Case Two. Each of two identical t wi ns has the some
currently incurable disease, Both are frozen and go into
suspended animation. Unfort unat el y, about one year
later, one frozen body is damaged. The damage is so
severe that it woul d be impossible ever to reanimate the
body. It is then thawed out and buried. That t wi n never
lives again. The other twin remains frozen until a cure is
found. He is then thawed, reanimated and cured. The
second twin goes on with his life.
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THE ENIGMA OF DEATH
D2 yields strange results in Case Two. Since the first twin in fact
never lives again after bei ng frozen, D2 entails that he di ed when he
was frozen. On the ot her hand, even though there is no di scerni bl e
difference bet ween the t wi ns during their first year on ice, D2 entails
that the second twin did not die when he was frozen. This follows from
the stipulated fact that the second twin comes back to life later. But it
seems to me that until the accident occurs, the twins are in rel evant l y
similar conditions. Either they are both dead, or they are bot h alive, or
they are bot h neither dead nor alive. (My own vi ew is that they are
both neither dead nor alive. As I see it, suspended animation is a state
that excludes both life and death. But the point of the exampl e does not
depend upon my intuition. 27) D2 entails that the twins are in different
"vital states" during the first year on ice - one is dead, the other not.
Sinse the twins are in fact not in different vital states during that period
of time, D2 is wrong.
Consider yet a third anal ysi s of death suggested by Rosenber g' s
r emar k 28 about p e r ma n e n c e and i r r ever s i bi l i t y:
D3: x dies at t =df. x ceases permanent l y and irreversibly to be
alive at t.
D3 has truly bizarre implications in Case Two. Consi der the twin
whose body is damaged. Accordi ng to D3, this twin n e v e r dies. He
does not die when frozen, because at the t i me of freezi ng l at er
reanimation is still possi bl e. Though he then ceases permanent l y to be
alive, he does not then cease irreversibly to be alive. I f he had been
handled properly, his condition would have been reversed. He woul d
have come back to life. Nor according to D3 does he die when the body
is damaged in handling, for he does not cease in any way to be alive at
that time. That ' s a t i me at whi ch he is not al i ve to start with. So
there' s no t i me at which the twin "ceases permanently and irreversibly
to be alive". Surely this is wrong; surely there is s o me t i me at which
that twin dies.
Let us consider a variant of D3:
D4: x dies at t -df. (i) x ceases permanently to be alive at
or bef or e t, and (ii) at t, it becomes physi cal l y
impossible for x ever to live again.
The idea behi nd D4 is that the t i me of death is the t i me at which
the loss of life becomes irreversible. The loss of life may have occurred
years before. D4 implies t hat there is a time of death for the damaged
twin. The t i me of his death, according to IM, is not the t i me when he
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FRED FELDMAN
was frozen, but is the time when the body is damaged beyond repair,
for this is the time at which the loss of life becomes irreversible.
In mor e mundane cases, D4 i mpl i es t hat deat h occur s
approximately when life ceases. For in more mundane cases, when life
ceases, it is almost immediately impossible for it to return.
Some would reject D4 because it implies that it is impossible for
an organism to live again af t er it dies. The comedian Jerry Lewi s
claims that he died several times while undergoing open-heart surgery.
I f I34 is correct, Lewis must be wrong. We can offer a somewhat less
striking claim for Lewis. Perhaps he would be satisfied to say instead
that he ceased to live several times whi l e undergoi ng open-heart
surgery. 134 permits that. Maybe that's all Lewis means.
A mor e serious probl em with D4 can be br ought about by
consi derat i on of a distinction. In some cases, later reani mat i on
becomes impossible because of changes that take place within the
body. Thus, for example, i f the body is damaged beyond repair, internal
changes make later reanimation impossible. In other cases, however,
changes that take place outside the body may make later reanimation
impossible. Perhaps the body is moved to a place where it cannot be
reached; perhaps a crucial reanimation chemical is irretreivably lost;
perhaps the atmosphere of the Earth becomes so choked with pollution
or radioactivity that all life is destroyed.
Suppose a body is in suspended animation, and some such external
change takes place, t hereby making later reani mat i on impossible.
Provi ded that the body is internally unchanged, I woul d be uneasy
about saying that it had j ust become dead. I would rather say that the
body r emai ns undead until i nt ernal changes occur that woul d
i ndependent l y make subsequent reani mat i on impossible. Thus I
propose:
D5: x dies at t =df. (i) x ceases to be alive at or before t,
and (ii) at t, internal changes occur in x that make it
physically impossible for x ever t o live again.
While I think that D5 comes pretty close to solving the problem of
suspended animation, I still have my doubts. I am troubled by the
obscurity of the concepts of internality, physical impossibility, and
life. But let us assume that we have come close enough. I want to turn
to another problem for the Standard Analysis.
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THEENIGMAOFDEATH
6. PROBLEMS CONCERNING FISSION AND FUSION.
In spite of its plausibility and in spi t e of the fact that Rosenberg
seems to endorse somet hi ng quite l i ke it, D5 is i nconsi st ent with
certain ot her pl ausi bl e vi ews Rosenberg maintains. In an interesting
passage, Rosenberg asserts that death is not the only route out of life.
To illustrate his point, he describes the case of an amoeba, Alvin. 29 He
tells us that Al vi n was a fat and healthy amoeba. Accordi ng to the
story, Al vi n was so fat and heal t hy t hat at preci sel y mi dni ght on
Tuesday ni ght / Wednesday morni ng, Al vi n underwent fission and
became t wo amoebas. Accor di ng to Rosenber g, Al vi n no l onger
existed on Wednesday. Apparently, Al vi n was "replaced" by his two
descendant s, Amos and Ambr ose. Ros enber g cl ai ms t hat Al vi n' s
exampl e shows that ' there are other ways for a life to come to an end
besi des death. '3~ So while Alvin is no l onger among the living on
Wednesday, it is '... clear that he did not die. '31 My own intuitive sense
of the situation is identical to Rosenberg' s. I woul dn' t say that Alvin
died.
Fi ssi on is not the onl y bi ol ogi cal pr ocess t hat may seem to
provi de a deathless exit from life. Rosenber g apparent l y thinks that
met amorphosi s does the same thing. As he sees it, when a caterpillar
turns into a butterfly, the caterpillar ceases to exist, but doesn' t die. 32
The poi nt that Rosenberg seems to have mi ssed is this: i f Alvin
ceased to be al i ve midnight, but did not die at midnight, then death
cannot be the cessation of life. When we say that a thing died, we
cannot mean j ust that it ceased to live. For Al vi n ceased to l i ve
without dying. I f we think that the caterpillar gets out of life without
dying, we will have to say that its case al so refutes the idea that death
is the cessation of life.
A natural "fix" woul d be based upon a cruci al feat ure that is
common to division and met amorphosi s. In eacb case, an organi sm
seems to go out of exi st ence, but the st uf f of which it was made
continues to exist - and this st uff continues to support life. We can
make use of this common feat ure in a rel at i vel y economi cal new
analysis of death:
D6: x dies at t --df. (i) x ceases to be al i ve at or before t,
and (ii) at t, x undergoes internal changes that make it
physi cal l y i mpossi bl e for x ever to l i ve again, and (iii)
it' s not the case that x turns into anot her living thing or a
hunch of other living things at t.
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FRED FELDMAN
It may be useful t o say a few words about a phrase -- 'turns i nt o' -
that appears in D6. This phrase is i nt ended to express what is
traditionally cal l ed 'substantial change'. Some (including Rosenberg, I
think) would say that the caterpillar undergoes substantial change when
it turns into a butterfly. As I underst and it, the crucial elements in a
pure example of such a change are these: the first entity (the caterpillar)
is a concrete individual substance - a "thing". It is made of some
"stuff" - a certain parcel of prot opl asm, perhaps. During the
substantial change, the first entity goes out of existence, and a new
entity comes into existence, The new entity is diverse from the old
entity, but they are made of the same parcel of stuff (or "matter"). In
such a case, we can say that the first entity "turned into" the second. 33
D6 gets t he fission example right. At the moment of division,
Alvin turns into Amos and Ambrose. Each of these is a living thing.
So, according to D6, Alvin does not die. Furthermore, in an ordinary
case, in which some organism ceases to live, and simply rots, D6 still
yields the correct result. Since, in such cases, the organism does not
turn into living things, D6 entails that it dies. D6 also preserves
Rosenberg' s intuitions concerning the caterpillar exampl e) 4 At the
moment of metamorphosis, the caterpillar allegedly turns into the
butterfly, which is a living thing. So, although it ceases to be alive, it
doesn't die.
Reflections such as these on cases of fission invite reflections on
corresponding cases of fusion. Are there examples in which organisms
go out of existence by fusing with others? Would we want to say that
such organisms die when they fuse? Let us look into this.
Under certain environmental conditions, certain types of single-
celled green algae engage in a sort of fusi on. These creatures, called
chlamydomonas, are flagellated, chlorophyll-bearing plants. In their
normal state, each individual is haploid. Al t hough they are all of
approximately the same size, they come in two different mating types.
When conditions are favorable, large clusters of individuals form.
Eventually the clustered cells move apart in pairs. The
members of a pair are positioned end4o end, with their
flagella, which bear species-specific and mating-type-
specific attractant sites at their tips, in close contact. The
cells then shed their wails, and theft cytoplasms slowly
fuse. Fi nal l y, their nuclei unite i n the pr ocess of
fertilization, which produces a single diploid cell, the
zygote. 35
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THE ENIGMA OF DEATH
Suppose t wo chl amydomonas, c l and c2, fuse to f o r m a new
zygote, c3. It seems reasonably clear that, in this process, c l and c2 go
out of existence. Furt hermore, it seems reasonabl y cl ear that neither
one of them t urns into any new living individual, No living part of the
resultant individual, c3, can be identified as the part such that cl turned
into it. The st uf f from which c l and c2 were made is t horoughl y
blended in c3.
In this case, we must say that cl ceases i rreversi bl y to live, and
does not turn into another living thing or even into a bunch of living
things. D6 then legislates that cl dies at the moment of fusion. Yet I
would hesitate to say that c 1 dies at the moment of fusion. I would say
that the e xa mpl e of the chl amydomonas shows that there are still mor e
ways of get t i ng out of life wi t hout dying. In addition to suspended
animation and deathless fission, t her e is also a certain sort of deathless
fusion that somet i mes does the trick. So D6 is wrong.3 6
We can revi se D6 in such a way as to take account of fusion, too.
We merel y add a clause speci fyi ng t hat i f an organi sm engages in
deathless fusion at a time, then it does not die. In other words, i f it is a
member of a set of living things that fuses into a new living thing,
then it does not die:
D7: x dies at t =df. (i) x ceases to be alive at or before t,
and (ii) at t, x undergoes internal changes that make it
physi cal l y i mpossi bl e for x ever to live again, and (iii)
it' s not the case that x turns into a l i vi ng thing, or a
bunch of living things, at t, and (iv) it is not the case
t hat x is a member of a set of l i vi ng things whose
member s fuse and turn into a living thing at t.
The fundament al idea behind D7 is reasonably simple: a thing dies
i f f it ceases i rreversi bl y to l i ve wi t hout maki ng use of one of the
deathless exits; the deathless exits are met amor phosi s (turning into
another living thing); a certain sort of fission (turning into a bunch of
living things) and a certain sort of fusion (being a member of a set of
living things t hat fuse into a l i vi ng thing). I think D7 gets a wi de
variety of cases right, In si mpl e cases, in which an organism ceases to
l i ve and si mpl y rots, D7 says that the organi sm d i e s . In cases of
fission like the one illustrated by Alvin, D7 says that the organi sm
does not die, even t hough it ceases to l i ve. Si mi l ar l y f or the
chl amydomonas - they cease to live without dying because they make
use of one of the deathless exits.
175
FRED FEI.,DMAN
Nevert hel ess, it seems to me that D7 still fails. One pr obl em is
that there are forms of division that mi mi c deathless fission, but which
seem to i nvol ve the deat h of the di vi ded organi sm. Consi der an
exampl e. Imagi ne a devi ce for use in bi ol ogy laboratories - a "cell-
separator". Thi s is a machi ne that grinds up mi ce and then emi t s a
puree of mouse cells. The machine is constructed in such a way that all
the mouse cells come out alive. Each cell can be placed in a suitable
medium, and kept alive indefinitely.
Suppose some mouse is pl aced in the cell-separator, and is ground
up into a puree of living mouse cells. In this case, the mouse goes out
of existence, and hence ceases to be alive. However, it turns into a
bunch of living things. As a result, the mouse fails to satisfy the right
hand side of D7. D7 then legislates that the mouse does not die. It
seems to me, however, that the cell-separator kills the mouse.
Another exampl e involves not cells, but bodily organs. Reasonabl y
sane medical personnel somet i mes want to harvest living organs from
dyi ng patients. Suppose a mad scientist wants to harvest all the organs
from some perfect l y healthy victim. Suppose he captures his victim,
knocks him out, and then carefully dissects the victim' s body in such a
way as to waste nothing. Every organ is preserved alive. ( I f need be we
can imagine that each organ is transplanted into some needy body,
where it remains alive for years to come. ) In this case, it woul d appear
that the poor victim goes out of existence, replaced by a compl et e set
of living bodily organs. I f D7 were correct, we would have to say that
the victim did not die. This seems wrong. 37
I f we al l ow our sel ves to make use of anot her rat her obscur e
concept, we may be able to revi se D7 in such a way as to accomodat e
these examples. Let us assume that we have sufficient understanding of
what we mean when we say that somet hi ng is an organism. Now
not i ce that when an amoeba deathlessly divides, it turns into living
organisms, but that when a mouse is killed in t he cel l separat or, it
does not turn living organisms. It turns into living cells. Similarly, in
the case of the Mad Organ Harvest er, the vi ct i m does not turn into
living organisms. He turns into the member s of a set of living organs.
Perhaps this marks the distinction bet ween deat hl ess and deadl y
division.
We can revise D7 as follows:
D8: x dies at t =df. (i) x ceases to be alive at or before t,
and (ii) at t, x undergoes internal changes to make it
physically impossible for x ever to l i ve again, and (iii) it
176
THE ENIGMA OF DEATH
is not the case that x turns into a living organism or a
bunch of living organisms at t, and (iv) it is not the case
that x is a member of a set of living organisms that fuse
to form a living organism at L
It seems to me that the introduction of talk about organisms in D8
is a fundamental mistake. It is a mistake, as I see it, because the
concepts of life and death appl y uni vocal l y to biological entities,
whet her organi sms or not. The di ffi cul t y can be brought out by
reflection on a variant of the example concerning Alvin the amoeba.
Suppose a researcher has removed a single cell from a frog, and is
keeping it al i ve in a suitable medium. Suppose the researcher is
interested in cell division. She treats the cell in a special way.
Subsequently, t he cell divides, giving rise to two "daughter cells".
Since neither daughter cell is an organism, the original frog cell does
not turn into a bunch of living organisms. Thus, D8 entails that the
frog cell dies at the moment of division. But it seems to me that the
frog cell is relevantly like Alvin the amoeba. Since we don' t want to
say that Alvin dies when he divides, we should not say that the frog
cell dies when it divides. Each of them gets out of life deathlessly. So
D8 is wrong.
Fission and fusion are puzzling. I find that I cannot explain the
difference between their deathless forms and their deadly forms.
7. CONCLUSIONS.
I think there is a single concept of death that applies across the
biological board. When we say of some plant or animal, or of some
cell or tissue, or of some organ, that it has died, we may be expressing
this concept. I call this the biological concept of death. Roughly, what
we seem to mean in such cases is that the biological entity has ceased
to live, but has not entered suspended animation and has not engaged in
one of the deathless forms of fission or fusion. Explaining death in
such rough (and circular) terms is not too difficult. The difficulty arises
when we try to clarify the concept s of suspended ani mat i on and
deathless fission and fusion. It's then that the enigma of death begins
to reveal itself.
My main point is that when we say that some biological entity has
died, we do not invariably mean that it has ceased to live. I am inclined
to suspect that we never mean j ust this. I f there is some single thing
that we do mean, then it is hard to say precisely what it is. So, though
177
FRED FEI.DMAN
deat h l o o ms l ar ge i n our e mot i ona l l i ves , t hough we hat e i t , a nd f ear
it, and ar e d i s ma y e d by t he t hought t hat i t wi l l s ome da y ove r t a ke us
a nd t hos e we l ove , we n e v e r t h e l e s s c a n n o t f o r mu l a t e a f ul l y
sat i sf act or y account of what deat h is. 38
UNI VERSI TY OF MASSACHUSETTST AT AMHERST
AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS 01003
USA
NOTES
1 John Wi l d, The Challenge of Existentialism, 218, quoted by Paul
Edwards in {3}, 51.
2 Op. cir., 56.
3 In {3}, 56, Edwards cites John Wild, Paul Tillich and several others as
exampl es.
4 This view is critically discussed by Edwards in {3}.
5 For further discussion and a proposed analysis, see {4}.
6 In The Definition of death and the Right to Die,' John Ladd says that
'... it is hi ghl y l i kel y that the concept of death is not definable at all
in the st ri ct sense. ' ({6}, 120) I n support of this cl ai m, Ladd
mentions the Wittgensteinian vi ew that many terms express "family
resembl ance" concepts. His r emar k appears to be a versi on of the
thesis I mean to defend here.
7 Ari st ot l e, in De Anima, st rongl y suggest s this view. I n Book II,
Chapter 2, Ari st ot l e ment i ons ' . . . the fact that what has soul in it
differs from what has not in that the former displays life.'
8 Aristotle, also in De Anima, seems to support a version of this view.
It has many modern defenders, too. These include Emst Mayr in {8},
51-59, and Gary Matthews in {7}.
9 In {2}, Erwin Schrodinger seems to maintain that living things differ
from nonliving in that living things have a remarkabl e capaci t y to
resi st the decl i ne into disorder. He put s this by sayi ng that each
living organi sm has ' the astonishing gi ft of concentrating a "stream
of order" on itself and thus esaping the decay into atomic chaos - of
"drinking orderl i ness" from a sui t abl e envi ronmnet . . . ' ({12}, 82)
Although he doesn' t express i t quite so flamboyantly, Jay Rosenberg
defends a similar view in {11}, 106.
10 This is suggest ed by Ma yr ; see ({8}, 55-56). The i mport ance and
popul ari t y of the view were i mpressed upon me by Di ck Gol dsby in
conver sat i on.
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THE ENIGMA OF DEATH
11 Qui t e a few comment at or s apparent l y i dent i f y deat h wi t h the
cessation of consciousness. Thus, for example, James van Evra says
that ' :..dying is si mpl y a matter of ceasing to think and experience.'
( { 1 5 } , 25)
12 Extensive bibliographies can be found in {6}, {9}. {14} and {!6}.
13 FOr discussion and further references, see {16}, 30-36.
14 {9}, 14.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
t 7 Ibid.
18 {9}, 17.
19 {9}, 18.
20 {11}, 23.
21 {11}, 21.
22 {11}, 106. (Emphasis added.)
23 The relevance of suspended animation to standard analyses of death is
discussed by Michael Wreen in { 17}.
24 The "freeze-alive" school of cryogenics is di scussed in {10}, 168.
For details concerning the laboratory techniques of cryopreservation,
see Low Temperature Preservation in Medicine and Bi ol ogy, ed. by.
M. J. Ashwood- Smi t h and J. Farrant, (Tunbri dge Wel l s: Pitman
Medi cal Ltd., 1980). A very interesting di scussi on of the technical,
l egal , and mor al pr obl e ms t hat ar i se in connect i on wi t h
cryopreservation of human fetuses can be found in James Leiber, ' A
Piece of Yourself in the Worl d, ' The Atlantic Monthly, June, 1989,
76- 80.
25 {11}, 23.
26 {11}, 21.
27 A number of others share my intuition about suspended animation.
Michael Wreen seems to be one. He says ' Suspended animation is a
state not readi l y assimilated to either life or death:...' {17}, 89.
28 {111, 106.
29 {11}, 21-22. I here embel l i sh the story slightly.
30 i l l } , 21.
31 {11}, 22.
32 {11}, 33; 104. For a sl i ght l y di f f er ent account of t he same
phenomenon, compare Roy Perrett' s di scussi on of met amorphosi s
(and other changes), ({9}, 16).
33 Ari st ot l e is general l y credi t ed with bei ng the fi rst to di st i ngui sh
subst ant i al change f r om mer e al t er at i on. See, for exampl e,
Generation and Corruption, Bk. I, Ch. 4. Once again, i t may be
179
FRED FELDMAN
interesting to compare the interpretation of substantial change
proposed here with the one given by Perrett in {9}, Chapter 1.
34 D6 is consistent with my view about the caterpillar example, too. I
agree with Rosenberg that the caterpillar does not die when it
undergoes metamorphosiss. Perhaps Rosenberg would describe the
case by saying that the caterpillar turns into another living then, and
so does not die because it does not satisfy the third conjunct of D6.
As I see it, the caterpillar does not undergo substantial change, but
continues to exist through the amazing alterations in shape, etc., and
it continues to live. Thus, it does not satisfy the f i rst conjunct of D6.
That, according to me, is approximately why it doesn't die.
35 {5}, 1064. I thank Dick Goldsby and Barbara Osborne for telling me
about chlamydomonas.
36 There are other actual reproductive practices that refute D6 (and
variants). One of these (described in {5}, 1055) concerns certain
cellular slime molds. These creatures are single-celled, amoeba-like
individuals. Under certain conditions, large numbers of these
individuals "aggregate", forming one large living cell, Each former
individual is thoroughly assimilated into the new individual. Each
thus seems to go out of existence, but I for one would be uneasy about
saying that any of them dies in this process.
37 Gary Matthews has presented a possible difficulty for this argument. I
have presupposed that the various transplantable organs of the
victim's body are genuinely "living" - that when we say that the skin
cells or kidneys (for example) are still alive, we use 'alive' in the
same sense as we use it when we say that the organism as a whole is
alive. If this presupposition is false, then the example fails to refute
D7. I think the presupposition is true, but in the absence of an
accepted analysis of the concept of life I see no way to prove it. If I
had to provide some rationale for the presupposition, I would point
to facts relevantly like the ones I mention in Section 2 above in
connection with the conclusion that 'dies' is univocal.
3 8 I am happy to express my gratitude to many friends and colleagues for
their encouragement, criticism, and suggestions concerning this
paper. Gary Matthews, Dick Goldsby, and Barbara Osborne have been
especially helpful. I am also grateful to Steve Voss, Earl Conee, Eva
Bodanszky, Ned Markosian, Ish Haji, David Cowles and Asa Kasher,
the Editor of Philosophia, for helpful criticism. Earlier versions of
the paper were read at Brown University and Drew University. I
learned much from participants in the discussions that followed those
talks.
180
THE ENIGMA OF DEATH
REFERENCES
{ 1} Aristotle, The Basic Works of Aristotle, edited by Richard Mckeon,
(New York: Random Home, 1941).
{2} John Donnelly, editor, Language, Metaphysics, and Death, (New
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{4} Fred Feldman, 'On Dying as Process,' Phi l osophy and
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{8} Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought, (Cambridge: The
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{9} Roy W. Perrett, Death and Immortality, (Dordrecht: Martinus
Nijhoff publishers, 1987).
{10} Roland Puccetti, 'The Conquest of Death,' originally published in
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Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1983).
{12} Erwin Schrodinger, What is life? & Mind and Matter, (London and
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{13} Niniam Smart, 'Philosophical Concepts of Death,' in {14}, 25-35.
{14} Arnold Toynbee, et. al., Man's Concern with Death, (London:
Hodder and Stoughton, 1986).
{15} James van Evra, 'On Death as a Limit,' originally published in
Analysis, 31 (1971), 170-171; reprinted in {2}, 25-31.
{ 16} Douglas N. Walton, On Defining Death, (Montreal: McGill-Queen's
University Press, 1979).
{17} Michale J. Wreen, 'The Definition of Death,' Public Affairs
Quarterly, 1, 4 (October, 1987), 87-99.
181