Brain Death as Local Knowledge: The Standardization of Harvard Definition

• In Event: Diagnosing Death: Critical STS Perspectives - I

Abstract

Using a methodology of hermeneutics, this paper interprets the locality of brain death through the analysis of historical materials of Harvard criteria for brain death in 1968, and then discusses how this local knowledge has been standardized in the translation process based on the relevant strategies adopted by the Ad Hoc Committee of Harvard Medical School. The research holds that during the generation and defense of the concept of brain death, researchers downplayed the contextual relevance of brain death and interpreted it in a broader clinical medical context by the following ways: (1) distinguishing irreversible coma and dying state through the clinical definition of brain death; (2) making "brain death" equal to "death" by blurring the concept of "complete death"; (3) weakening the relationship between brain death and organ transplantation through rhetoric, and reaffirming the value rationality of brain death law.

Author

• FAN ZHOU, Tsinghua University