A rigorous framework is needed because deathcare is not simply the disposal of a decomposing anatomical specimen. Rather, caring for a deceased person is a dutiful act that both fulfills a decedent's need and also has something to say about creation. Though this act, and the events surrounding death, is full of diverse theologies, the undeniable and all inclusive spirituality that encompasses death is biological. The decomposition of the human body is not the dissolution of life but rather the transformation of a concluded life into a new life. Christian theology, particularly Paul's letter to Corinthians, calls this resurrection. Buddhists, on the other hand, call it impermanence. The process of a human body returning to a natural state and reuniting with the ecology is not only cosmic but also fundamental to deathcare ethics.

Many theologies support the dualistic nature of humankind, stating that there is a dichotomy, a separation between, body and soul. As a result, the body is viewed as a pestilent object that must be disposed of once the soul has departed. The dead human body has, therefore, become an object susceptible to various definitions of dignity and interests other than upholding a tenacious ethicality. The creation of a spirituality-centered ethical framework, proposed by parties outside of the funeral industry, establishes an order of care so that society can hold deathcare accountable.

Deathcare is a complex duty that reflects the mortality of the caretaker and decedent, possessing divine implications. Its objective is to compassionately care for someone who cannot care for him or herself, provide healing for the decedent's family and friends, and to speak to our individual and communal living and dying. The characteristics of deathcare, therefore, have compartmentalized qualities that quantitatively create a just ethic. The ethics pertain to the decedent, bereaved, caretaker, and those parties affected by and or connected to the previous individuals.  An ethical framework is dependent on the edification of all the complexities that pertain to deathcare and cannot be limited to one or several principles. The ethical principles are the following, in no particular order: Relationality, Inter-relationality, Personhood, Dignity, Sanctity, Justice, Healing, Equality, Autonomy, Environmental Stewardship, Reverence, Consent/Information, Empathy, Compassion, Mercy and Duty. Some of these principles stand in solidarity with medical ethics. Such principles ought to be upheld in all institutions and practices that care for or encounter the deceased. These ethics, therefore, are a call to architectural and artistic transformation, as much as it is a demand for reformation in the care itself. These are a working ethic that ought to evolve as we redefine our living and dying.

Ethical Principles for Deathcare

I.     Personhood

The condition of being a human person is defined as personhood. Our personhood has three fundamental attributes: 1. dignity; 2. autonomy; 3. subjectivity. When a person dies, the individual is not to be treated like an object. Rather, the individual's growth should be permitted, embracing the growth and decay that is a part of each individual's natural life cycle. Extreme interference with the process of growth via processes that inhibit natural decay is a violation of personhood because it objectifies the individual subject. Embalming violates personhood because it objectifies the dead by aestheticising their physical characteristics, thus infringing on the individual's autonomy and right to dignity. Personhood remains in the physical manifestation of the person after death, requiring the preservation of dignity and subjectivity. In order to preserve subjectivity, decay must be allowed, which is not an opposite of growth but a variant. Similarly, until the decedent's physical personhood has dissipated into the eco-system its subjectivity and dignity must be maintained.

II.     Dignity

Each individual person intrinsically possesses dignity, and persons are dignified by others when vulnerabilities are actively protected from exploitation. Dignifying the dead requires the preservation of their personhood in those contexts in which humiliation could occur, such as nakedness, sexualization, physical violence etc. In order to dignify the dead, the decedent's vulnerabilities ought to be acknowledged and compassionate care given, free from treatments and care that objectify or abuse the decedent's helplessness.  

III.     Relationality

The ethic of relationality assumes that we have not reached our fullest potential. In other words, we continue to have potential and will remain in unknown capacities. This ethic specifically applies to how the body and the memory of the decedent relates to the earth and other human beings. Relationality assumes that a person's wholeness is not only within; rather, it is inclusive of the person's relationship to the rest of the world and also the world's relationship with him. Though the dead cannot engage in a reciprocal relation after death, decedents nonetheless affect those who love them and care for them in death. A decedent's effect on those who care for him varies as a result of his socio-economic status, the cause of death, his age, the effect of his death on others, and associations his caretakers make with their own lives or other loved ones. The ethic of relationality includes the effects decedent disposals have on the environment. Each living individual ought to be in harmony with the eco-system within which she dwells. Similarly, the decedent ought to be harmonious with her committal place. The ethic of relationality is the acknowledgment of relations between the living and the dead, the environment and the biological decedent.

IV.     Inter-Relationality

Inter-relationality is the recognition of those effects deathcare has on caretakers and requires remuneration greater than financial prosperity for those who satisfy such deeds that are not their duty. An ethic of inter-relationality requires the fulfillment of duties as they are prescribed to family and friends or to those who cared for the decedent when she was alive. The ethic requires responsibility and not to expect others to complete deathcare simply because the obliged party is unwilling to do so. Inter-relationality is an ethic for the bereaved to fully understand the effects their obligations have on others when duties are fulfilled by the other, who, as a result, is committed to an ethical relation with the decedent. Within this ethic is the exception of those whose responsibilities are complicated by extreme difficulties grieving. In such instances, the duties of such individuals ought to be fulfilled by those in relation to the obliged, such as friends, religious institutions or lastly by those who professionally fulfill such obligations.

V.     Environmental Stewardship

The ethic of environmental stewardship is the juxtaposition of several ethical principles, including mercy and relationality. The decedent is to be cared for with concern to his relationality to the environment at all times. Therefore, the consumption of resources during deathcare ought to be minimal, and the interment or burning of such resources ought to be harmonious with the local eco-system. The decedent is in relation with the environment regardless if she is evaporated into the eco-system or interred to dissipate. Sustainable practices are fundamental to good environmental stewardship. The effects of decedent disposal are inseparable from humanity's interconnectedness with nature, and thus reverence is required to acknowledge the reunification of the human body with the larger environmental body. The relationship between the decedent and the place of his or her disposal ought to be free of waste, toxins, and other unearthly pollution. Similarly, through reverent and dignified practices, the decedent will be permitted to reunite with nature, constricted by no unnatural or immoral hindrances.

VI.     Empathy

The ethic of empathy is a personal transformation that results from compassion, mercy, and reverence. It is both a spiritual and intellectual identification with the feelings, suffering, personhood, and life of the decedent. Through empathetic compassion for the decedent's suffering and life, the caretaker is enabled with the ability to reflect and ultimately understand the mortality of the decedent and oneself. The principle is fundamental for understanding the suffering of the decedent and bereaved, and also to care for both the bereaved and decedent with unconditional compassion. This ethic upholds the caretaker to handle the decedent with all prescribed ethical principles and to find spiritual compensation within mercy itself.

VII.     Mercy

The ethic of mercy is simply the act of compassion. Mercy is the dutiful fulfillment of the decedent's needs, accomplished through no other reimbursement than an empathetic movement towards compassion, leading to a personal transformation.

VIII.     Compassion

An ethic of compassion is required in order to desire and uphold ethical principles. The ethic of compassion is formulated in the feeling of sympathy and sorrow for the needing, deceased person. The feeling is further complemented by the desire to remedy the suffering. Though the suffering of the decedent is not remediable, the compassionate ought to be moved to the merciful act of caring for the dead and preserving her dignity. Similarly, such compassion ought to extend to the decedent's family and others affected by the death. The intensity of such compassion ought to transform the caretaker to be motivated by compassion and empathy, no other prosperities. Compassionate care is required for the dead, treating each decedent with utmost respect and reverence, upholding their dignity and personhood.

IX.     Sanctity

Sanctity is the acknowledgement of what the decedent's body is and what he will become. The principle is aligned with environmental stewardship, relationality, and reverence. It is the empathetic awareness that each body has endured suffering and thus reverence is required for the life that was and the suffering that each death causes individuals and communities. The principle of sanctity preserves the dignity of each decedent because each body and each life is unique, having, through individuality, contributed to the communal whole and the spiritual edification of humankind's evolution. The sanctity of the decedent is to be upheld in medical settings where the donation of decedents enhances medical knowledge, requiring the preservation of dignity and sanctity because each body incarnates the suffering and joy of the decedent's life. Though these individuals chose to become anatomical specimens for the betterment of medical care, they are to be treated reverently and with thanksgiving.

X.     Justice

An ethic of justice acknowledges that deathcare is susceptible to vast and fluctuating manifestations of injustice. All ethical principles comprise just deathcare. An ethic of justice is pertinent for the prevention of financial exploitations. Each person will succumb to death and, because it is an immanent variable for all humans, no family should be emotionally or financially exploited by the need for deathcare. It is unjust to exploit the vulnerable or any party who partakes in or is affected by deathcare. Each family has the right to seek healing and partake in as much or little ritual as necessary to begin the healing process. The amount of time the bereaved spend with the decedent, and the quality of care the bereaved and decedent receive, should not be affected nor constrained by financial abilities or inabilities. The most just practices are those that most fully embody ethical principles and do so from the empathetic desire to be wholly compassionate, free from perverse agendas.

XI.     Healing

Healing is not only a fundamental ethic of deathcare but also a primary goal. The bereaved, most specifically, ought to receive healing benefits from deathcare. The best practices aid in supporting these individuals and complement the care of the decedent, who as a needing creation cannot care for or comfort her loved ones. Assisting the bereaved in their healing process possesses rightly and justly deserved compassion and empathy. Healing should also occur on behalf of the deathcare provider, aiding in his own spiritual and personal transformation. Healing is one of the primary goals of deathcare. Therefore, the bereaved ought to be understood as the proprietor of the decedent. The decedent does not inherently belong to the state simply because of a suspicious death or because of a family's inability to afford funeral costs. Rather, the spiritual and emotional concerns of the bereaved are to be promptly upheld unless no tangible evidence can be found other than on the decedent or if the bereaved are considered suspects. The latter does not entitle authorities to incriminate bereaved persons simply to obtain custody of the deceased, but rather acknowledges the complexity of homicides and their effects on healing.[1]  The healing process is easily complicated, thus necessitating particularized care for each family in order to ensure that mental health issues do not unnecessary arise and to diminish lifelong complications in such processes. Similarly, cultural sensitivity is pertinent in our diverse world, where many view spirituality as a greater variable than answers to crime.

XII.     Equality

Equality is a just principle. No person, family, or decedent should experience discrimination or inequality based on socio-economic status, color, race, orientation, religion, religious practices, ethnicity, disability, age, gender, gender identity or other characteristic. The principle of equality assumes that the citizen least valued by his or her society is treated as greatly as the most revered. Therefore, all people deserve utmost compassion and steadfast ethics. Similarly, deathcare requires equal treatment of minorities and immigrant groups, respecting their diverse traditions and upholding their right to grieve in contexts that support their healing processes. Understandings of the body vary within spiritual and cultural traditions. These beliefs are vital to diverse traditions' healing and understanding of their lives and deaths and accompanying rituals. 

XIII.     Autonomy

The desires and hopes of the decedent and bereaved ought to be upheld to their fullest extent, as long as such wishes comply with an ethic of inter-relationality and its subsidiaries. Despite a decedent's deadness, she continues to have rights in death, all of which necessitate strict adherence. The personhood of a decedent does not dissolve at the time of death, and his body remains in custody of his respective kin or spouse. Reverence for each individual's autonomy ensures that the personhood of the deceased is sustained in deathcare. In order to best maintain this principle, it is the duty of all living parties to prepare a decedent directive and inform the proper parties of desires and hopes.

XIV.     Reverence

Reverence is an ethic expected from the caretaker whose commitment is benevolence, which contributes to awe-inspiring practices when the prescribed duty upholds all ethical principles. The caretaker ought to be moved to compassion through reverence for the life lived and the bodily transformation yet to come. Reverence is not confined to the decedent, but is also shared with the bereaved, whose suffering and healing should be revered, and with the divine, whose transcendence is always present creation.

XV.     Consent

Deathcare ought to be accountable to the wishes the decedent expressed before her death and also to the bereaved. All practices, rituals, and unspoken duties ought to be fully disclosed to all who are making ethical decisions. Full disclosure and consent requires all involved parties to be accountable for their decisions and actions, any accompanying consequences, and to best uphold their right to healing deathcare.

XVI.          Duty

[1] The Institute on Religious Deathcare and Spiritual Healing proposes that each hospital and policing authority have a guideline for making particularized decisions for such cases.