Death is not a topic that the philosopher should treat in passing or on which we should not waste our time. On the contrary, it is one of the most important philosophical questions. Raising a whole series of inquiries, it stimulates philosophical speculation; for some it is at the very origin of the philosophical act. This consists, in part, of discovering what prevents a human being from knowing himself as he is in reality, that is, as Heidegger has rightly emphasized, a Being-towards-death, and (subsequently) of bringing him to live in authenticity. The confrontation with death leads to a meditation on life and human nature.

A philosophical reflection on death requires above all that one clarify the term, which implies an anthropological definition of the person, a definition that will have ethical repercussions on problems concerning the end of life. The definition of so-called personal death, which is based on Lockean anthropology, involves several important problems, and proponents of this position do not always apply it consistently, either on the anthropological, theoretical level or with regard to its ethical implications. Furthermore, the notion of person underlying the definition of so-called personal death and the ethics of interests are both based on the presuppositions of the Epicurean thesis of “the nothingness of death”, which are very problematic. I have opted for a definition of personal death that is at variance with the anthropological dualism of Lockean origin that has been adopted by many philosophers in the bioethical debate, who would define person by the empirically verifiable exercise of self-consciousness and by activity as a moral subject. Personal human death occurs, rather, when the organism is irreversibly incapable of functioning as a whole, a condition that itself implies the person’s departure from this world.