Hitting the brakes

I sawed a human head in half today.  First, my lab group and I disarticulated the head (i.e. popped the skull off the vertebral column), then proceeded to take a saw to the midsaggital plane of the face.  I don’t know if there will ever be a time ever again where I will question, due to such a frontal assault on my reality, the constitution of a “human” who is no longer living.  There is nothing like watching bone dust settle into the cranial cavity or feeling it wander into your nostrils that makes you think of a cadaver as anything but human.

This discussion has been floating about in our class; though it is not so much centered on whether or not the cadaver is human is in fact human, but is our natural objectification of the cadaver indicative of our future encounters with patients?  That is, is the numbing process really taking place, and if so, how quickly.

I’m not interested in that.  Its a bit self-centered, something to be conscious of, but nevertheless somewhat inevitably going to happen to some degree.  Perhaps its the distance, the lack of personality, that is the key to keep going.  Overt emotional investments seem to be anchors that prevent a doctor from being a doctor.

I’m really after the first part, the label that is automatically applied to the cadaver; that s/he is in fact human.  Is the cadaver human?  Isn’t the word cadaver an immediate, perhaps subconscious, predisposition towards objectification?  Its one we seem to overlook.

We can take the classic philosopical definitions of a “human” and apply it here.  For the Aristotelians, the human is a “rational animal” always in pursuit of actualizing his/her potential.  Rationality seems to be the key here, where the cadaver is incapable of anything of the like.  In addition, Aristotle talks of “human becomings”, as we are never fully actualized as humans, always attempting to harmonize the intellectual, moral, and passionate faculties natural to the human life, trying to find the medium that allows a certain ascent towards Eudemonia.  This is in contrast to say a rock, a thing, which is always and completely itself, that is, fully actualized.  A cadaver is, and for now, can and only will be a cadaver, no longer given the space for conscious fluctuation.  Not human.

One could also argue for the utilitarians on the point, as such a sacrafice benefits a greater good in knowledge, and by extension, the impact of the student in their subsequent careers.  We may put the deontologists at ease, since Kant is one to stand that consciousness, and the a priori reasoning we are capable of, is the criteria by which we are human.  The cadaver, therefore, is not.

How harsh does this sound?  The other option is to act as many med students do; the cadaver is human, respect him/her, then paradoxically slip into objectification without even knowing it.  We speak to each other during anatomy using possessive pronouns when referring to the cadaver: “Come look at my brachial plexus if you want to see the musculocutaneous nerve.” 

From such a standpoint, we as students are less human than the cadaver, as we are doing the most inhumane things to it/him/her.  We removed a leg, bilaterally split the penis (thus causing referred pain, I might add), and today, split the head like a melon. 

Maybe, I think that if we are to understand the cadaver from the onset as non-human, then the moral dilemma (or at least the immediate internal hesitation), followed by the subsequent guilt, or lack thereof (since such a lack is such a frequent occurrence) may not be such a problem (though I think it should be, but that I will reserve for a whole other diatribe).  Its a blunt, intellectual bridge over the problem, as the previously stated “lack” only exists as one in the constructs of an initial human understanding of the cadaver. 

Is there anything to this?