Conceptions of death in the Western World: Bioethics from a critical anthropological perspective

Abstract

Death is symbolically, historically and socially constructed. More than a biological process, death is a cultural elaboration, and discussing it means, therefore, to understand its representations and practices. Although it is currently understood negatively, it was not always considered a taboo. This article aims to unveil how the opposition between life and death favoring life as a positivity was established and what are the consequences of banishing the idea of finitude in favor of a myth of immortality. Through a literature review of the conceptions of death in the Western world, specifically in Brazil, this discussion proposes to rethink bioethics as a discipline that should include, besides dogmatic and authoritarian models, plural moral values. This reflection allows us to face death as a part of life and, thus, to confront the impossibility of nothingness, an inexorable end, as an endless possibility, in its various and different meanings.