Abstract
This article presents the figure of Illinois neurologist Ronald Eugene Cranford (1940-2006) and highlights his neurological thinking and the anthropological interpretation on the nature of the mind-body relationship that he adopts. Within the medical-clinical paradigm of neuroethics, Cranford’s neurocentric forma mentis contrasts with the neuroethical paradigm proposed by neuropsychiatrist Anneliese Alma Pontius for at least two reasons: (1) it has at its basis the false disjunctive between human being and human person typical of modernity and attributed to the philosophical development of John Locke (1632-1704) who sees a synthesis in the mental experiment of the prince’s “soul” in the body of a cobbler (Essay on the Human Intellect 1690); (2) it envisions a functionalistic approach similar to that underlying behaviorism. This view corresponds to the application proposals in clinical settings about the interruption of nutrition and hydration in patients with certain neurological alterations in the brain areas that mediate the manifestation of self-consciousness.