Affiliation:
1. Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, PRC
2. City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, PRC
Abstract
Abstract
This essay draws on classical Confucian intellectual resources to argue that the person who emerges from a head transplant would be neither the person who provided the head, nor the person who provided the body, but a new, different person. We construct two types of argument to support this conclusion: one is based on the classical Confucian metaphysics of human life as qi activity; the other is grounded in the Confucian view of personal identity as being inseparable from one’s familial relations. These Confucian ideas provide a reasonable alternative to the currently dominant view that one’s personal identity “follows” one’s head. Together, these arguments imply that head transplantation is ethically inappropriate.
Funder
Whole Body Transplants
Head Transplants: An International Interdisciplinary Research Project
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Subject
Philosophy,General Medicine,Issues, ethics and legal aspects
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Cited by
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