Our study aims to point out, especially from a cultural point of view, using an interdisciplinary approach, the fact that the problematic status of cremation in contemporary Romania, as well as the status of Western cremation makes a bioethical perspective necessary. Our paper supports the idea that bioethics should study cremation, because cremation symbolises life and death at the same time and it is a delicate subject as far as the communication between the historical and religious aspects is concerned. Also, bioethics is underpinned by a strong ontological principle (e.g. noticeable in the human dignity concept), fundamental to a good understanding of cremation, especially as a personal choice and decision towards one’s own post-mortem situation. A second purpose of the study is to demonstrate that the reinvestigation of imaginaries corresponding to cremation (fire, ash and death) is a premise for its bioethical reconstruction, because the imaginary can offer answers for a series of current attitudes regarding cremation. [*]
[*] This work was supported by the Romanian National Council for Scientific Research CNCS-UEFISCDI, grant number 54/2011 – PNII TE.
