One or Two: An Examination of the Recent Case of the Conjoined Twins from Malta

Abstract

The article questions the assumption that conjoined twins are necessarily two people or persons by employing arguments based on different points of view: non-personal vitalism, the person as a sentient being, the person as an agent, the person as a locus of narrative and valuation, and the person as an embodied mind. Analogies employed from the cases of amputation, multiple personality disorder, abortion, split-brain patients and cloning. The article further questions the assumption that a conjoined twin's natural interest and wish is separation. I first contend that separation is such a radical procedure as to render the post-separation person different from the pre-separation one. Therefore, it is not possible to benefit the pre-separation twin by the act of separation. The article concludes with a critical evaluation of the tendency in bioethics to regard ethical challenges as rivalry between individuals competing for scarce resources.

Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: An Experimentally-Grounded Framework for Understanding Diverse Bodies and Minds

“…It is inevitable that stem cell therapies for degenerative brain diseases ( Forraz et al, 2013 ; Rosser and Svendsen, 2014 ; Tanna and Sachan, 2014 ) will confront us with humans whose brains are partially replaced by the naïve progeny of cells that were not present during the formation of memories and personality traits in the patient. Even prior to these advances, it was clear that phenomena such as dissociative identity disorder ( Miller and Triggiano, 1992 ), communication with non-verbal brain hemispheres in commissurotomy patients ( Nagel, 1971 ; Montgomery, 2003 ), conjoined twins with fused brains ( Gazzaniga, 1970 ; Barilan, 2003 ), etc., place human cognition onto a continuous spectrum with respect to the plasticity of integrated Selves that reside within a particular biological tissue implementation.…”

Sharing my Body. Personal Identity and Individuation

“…Let me give one example: if human beings are individuated by the number of hearts they have-as tentatively proposed by Barilan (Barilan 2002, 602-603)-then the same paradox arises; see also Barilan 2003. Brought to you by | University of Arizona Authenticated Download Date | 6/3/15 9:16 PM of actions are two distinct mental systems. On this basis, one might argue that (B)* is false, though (B) is true.…”