Ethical Thinking Of Brain Death Legislation

The progress of modern medical science has brought unprecedented chance of survival, which also brought ethics disputes. Brain death was born in the 20th century, 60 years. In 1968, Harvard Medical School formally proposed the concept of the brain death stand,which has caused widespread controversy around the world. Today brain death standard has been acceptted by many countries.Taiwan and Hong Kong have brain death legislation successively in 1987 and 1996. However, In mainland China there is no unified answer. Parties to the dispute hold different views. Why? What is brain death? What is the relationship between two death standard? Shall we have brain-death legislation? All questions have to be clear.The article is divided into three parts . Chapter I introduces the overview of brain death,including generation, development, controversies and current status of legislation. Chapter II analyzes the reasons why people have different attitudes. Different moral communities have different ethical values. People in different moral communities become moral strangers. Can we prove which ethical value has authority? According to Engelhardt′s theory, one cannot fully prove which ethical concept is the only correct because of the limitations of reason. Then how to resolve the dispute? According to Allow Principle, people cannot do something for others without their consent, even if they think the behavior is beneficial to others. As a result, people have the right to choose death standard they accept,others cannot interfere. In order to ensure people's freedom of choice, we need brain-death legislation. Finally, I give the ethical difense of brain death legislation from two angles.