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Natural Right to Grow and Die in the Form of Wholeness: A Philosophical Interpretation of the Ontological Status of Brain-dead Children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Masahiro Morioka
Masahiro Morioka*
Affiliation:
Osaka Prefecture University, Japan
*
Masahiro Morioka, Osaka Prefecture University, 1-1 Gakuen-cho, Nakaku, Sakai, Osaka 599-8531, Japan. Email: morioka@hs.osakafu-u.ac.jp
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Abstract

In this paper, I would like to argue that brain-dead small children have a natural right not to be invaded by other people even if their organs can save the lives of other suffering patients. My basic idea is that growing human beings have the right to grow in the form of wholeness, and dying human beings also have the right to die in the form of wholeness; in other words, they have the right to be protected from outside invasion, unless they have declared their wish to abandon that right beforehand. I call this the principle of wholeness. Natural rights, which were discussed by Hobbes and Locke in the 17th century, have to be extended to include the right to grow and die in the form of wholeness in the age of scientific civilization, where peripheral human lives are being threatened by aggressive biomedicine and other advanced technologies.

Type
Articles
Information
Diogenes , Volume 57 , Issue 3: Japanese Philosophy Today , August 2010 , pp. 103 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2011

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