Abstract

In this essay, I outline two contemporary metaphysical accounts of human nature—substance dualism and biological reductionism, also known as “animalism”—by elucidating the views of two representative theorists. I show how these two accounts conceive of death and which criteria for determining death--higher brain, whole-brain, or cardiopulmonary--each advocates. I will then contrast these accounts with Thomas Aquinas’s view of human nature and death.