Finding Consciousness

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is Stillman Professor of Practical Ethics at Duke University in the Philosophy Department, the Kenan Institute for Ethics, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the Law School. He has served as co-chair of the Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association http://www.apaonline.org/ and co-director of the MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Project http://www.lawandneuroscienceproject.org/. He publishes widely in ethics, moral psychology and neuroscience, philosophy of law, epistemology, informal logic, and philosophy of religion.

"You think people are either conscious or not? Think again. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong takes us by the hand through a forest of clinical exceptions and leaves us wondering what the very concept of consciousness really means. It is a brilliant analysis and collection of primary papers not to be missed because depending on the answer, we will decide whether or not to freely pull the plug on gramps." --Michael Gazzaniga, PhD, Director of the SAGE Center for theStudy of Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara

• 1 - Finding Consciousness: An IntroductionBy Meghan Brayton and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong 2 - Discussion with a Caring FatherBy Ken Diviney and Katherine Grichnik PART I: Consciousness 3 - The Geography of Unconsciousness: From Apparent Death to the Minimally Conscious StateBy Jeffrey Baker 4 - Consciousness and Death: The Whole-Brain Formulation of DeathBy James L. Bernat 5 - Modes of ConsciousnessBy Tim Bayne and Jakob Hohwy PART II: Diagnosis 6 - What is it like to be in a Disorder of ConsciousnessBy Caroline Schnakers 7 - Decoding Thoughts in Behaviorally Non-Responsive PatientsBy Adrian Owen and Lorina Naci 8 - Persistent Vegetative State, Akinetic Mutism, and ConsciousnessBy Will Davies and Neil Levy PART III: Ethics 9 - Lay Attitudes to Withdrawal of Treatment in Disorders of Consciousness and Their Normative SignificanceBy Jacob Gipson, Guy Kahane, and Julian Savulescu 10 - Moral Conflict in the Minimally Conscious StateBy Joshua Shepherd 11 - What's Good for Them? Best Interests and Severe Disorders of ConsciousnessBy Jennifer Hawkins 12 - Minimally Conscious States and Pain: A Different Approach to Patient EthicsBy Valerie Gray Hardcastle PART IV: Law 13 - The Legal Circle of LifeBy Nita Farahany and Rachel Zacharias 14 - Guardianship and the Injured Brain: Representation and the Rights of Patients and Families By Joseph Fins and Barbara Pohl References Index