REF.06 own project · FARR/6 atlas · 2026
A taxonomy of violent death on six independent axes
A model that, instead of a single "manner of death" label, describes each death on six axes — unit of analysis, agency, intent, consent, institutional mandate, place in the causal chain — and so settles the cases where one-dimensional categories break.
- I–IIUnit of analysis · AgencyPerson / event / sequence
- III–IVIntent · Deceased's consentGoal · means · risk · refusal
- V–VIMandate · Causal chain57 combinations (16 / 13 / 28 names)
- Descriptive axes
- 6
- Formal combinations
- 57
- Attested / partial / working names
- 16 / 13 / 28
- Boundary cases
- 6
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Problem
The classic categories of violent death — homicide, suicide, accident, execution, death in battle, death after surgery — glue several independent questions into one name: who acted, whether they wanted the outcome, whether the deceased consented, and in what legal frame it happened. In borderline cases the label stops working, and legal qualification gets mixed up with a description of the event.
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Approach
Each axis has its own question and a closed set of values, e.g. intent: goal · means · risk · unintended · undetermined; consent: to the act · to the risk of death · to death as the goal · refusal · no capacity. Biological description, agency and intent are kept separate from legal qualification. The model was tested on six boundary cases and on all 57 formal combinations of the six classic types, each given a naming status: attested, partial or working name.
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Outcome
The model separates pairs that look identical inside one category: euthanasia differs from assisted suicide only on the agency axis; death after a correctly performed procedure is the realisation of an accepted risk, with no need to assume an error; and "extended suicide" turns out to be two deaths in one event, not a single hybrid. The atlas and data are open under CC BY 4.0.
The model’s most important decision concerns the first axis: before anything is classified, you have to settle whether the unit is a person, an event, a sequence or a practice. “Extended suicide” shows what happens without that decision — one label for the whole episode renames the victim’s homicide as suicide and hides the fact that the victim did not consent. In the data model these are two person records linked by an event identifier.
A second finding: “lawful” is not a separate manner of death. Capital punishment is the deliberate taking of life by others under a state mandate — the description of agency, the legal assessment and the moral assessment remain three separate fields.
The combinatorics are a result in their own right. Of the 57 formal intersections of the six types, only some describe a coherent single death; many are causal chains or events with several deaths. The number of combinations you can generate says little — what matters is which of them correspond to something real.
What this engagement does not cover
This is an analytical tool, not medical or legal advice. The model has not been through an independent reproducibility test or a review by forensic-medicine specialists.