What Happens if the Brain Goes Elsewhere? Puzzles about Persons, Identity, and Embodiment

Abstract

Brain transplants have long been merely the subject of science fiction and engaging thought experiments. No longer. Neuroscientists have announced their intention to transplant the head of a volunteer onto a donated body. Response has been decidedly mixed. How should we think about the moral permissibility of head transplants? Is it a lifesaving/life-enhancing opportunity that appropriately expands the boundaries of medical practice? Or, is it a bioethical morass that ought not to be attempted? For the purposes of this paper, I set aside questions regarding the surgical operation’s technological plausibility to focus on very basic questions regarding the morality of head transplantation. Analysis begins with exploration of human embodiment. It considers ways in which persons can be conceptually distinguished from all parts of their body, even if they can only be physically separated from most. It argues that in most cases replacing body parts with reasonably similar parts will not destroy the conditions for sustaining personal identity. However, the phenomenology of personhood is such that some physical changes may prove to be too significant successfully to maintain personal identity over time.