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Madi Mathers
Professor Javoroski
Introduction to Philosophy
2 April 2016
Personal Identity and Brain Transplantation
There has been a traffic accident, with two critically injured adult people taken to the
hospital. Patient A has not sustained any head injuries, but every other part of his body has. As of
the moment patient A will not live long as his body is damaged beyond repair. Turning to the
other individual, on the surface patient B appears to have survived the accident unscathed. Upon
closer examination doctors discover patient B suffered significant brain trauma and patient B is
pronounced brain dead. The doctors, acting quickly, decide to preserve the life of patient A by
transplanting his brain into the unharmed body of patient B. In the heat of the moment this plan
of action seemed the most righteous to the doctors, a life would be saved. However, days, even
hours, after the procedure a very important question of personal identity became glaringly
apparent. The patient has the memories of patient A, but the body of patient B. What is the
identity of the individual left after the brain transplant? Is it patient A, patient B, or is it patient C,
a whole new individual? The extent of an individuals identity is tied to the characteristics upon
which it is based. The characteristic of psychological continuity is not the solitary criterion for
determining personal identity, consequently the identity of the individual after the brain
transplant cannot be determined as either patient A, patient B, or a whole new patient C.
Of the three possible identities, the surviving individual being patient C can be ruled out
first. The patient cannot be a whole new person because he has existing memories that predate
the day of the brain transplant. The patient has the brain of patient A therefore, he has the

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accompanying memories. The patient remembers childhood and other important life events of
patient As life previous to the accident. Roland Puccetti explains the improbability of the patient
being a whole new person in a similar scenario, As a new person he would not even have the
store of unconscious traces the amnesiac has. He would not know how to walk and talk, for
example. He would be on the intellectual level of the infant toddler (Puccetti 68). Thus the
surviving patient is decidedly not a whole new person. Patient C cannot exist because the
surviving individual does in fact have the ability and mental functions of the previous patient A.
This proves that personal identity does in fact rely on some form of continuity, whether it be
body or psychological. It can be certain that the claim neither matters as a criterion for identity
is false. The question remains then, is the identity of an individual tied the to the brain, the body,
or both?
Building upon the previous conclusion, it seems logical to argue that patient Bs body
was used to give life to patient A. If this is true personal identity must rely on attributes of the
brain. The brain houses all aspects of psychological continuity. Psychological continuity in this
scenario can be defined as an unbroken stream of consciousness and memory. Thus it can be
presumed that the identity of the individual is patient A because the surviving patient has an
unbroken memory stream of being patient A before the accident. The individual has no memory
of being patient B, even if they are currently living in patient Bs body. Puccetti would agree
with this assessment, stating he has a very definite set of memory traces to draw upon (Puccetti
68). These memories are quite different than patient Bs, with only this knowledge in mind the
individual must be patient A. For now, it is assumed the identity of the patient is in fact patient A.
Several months after the accident, the patient is walking down the street when he is
recognized by a passerby. The passerby speaks to patient A, thinking he is in fact patient B

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because he looks like patient B. Patient A tries to explain his situation to the passerby, telling him
he is not patient B. Further into the conversation the passerby begins to believe patient A is in
fact not who he thought he was. For one thing, the passerby realizes the individual he is talking
to has no memory of previous events he experienced with the individual patient B. But even
more convincingly, the passerby notices that the individual he is speaking to has mannerisms that
are fundamentally contrary to the person he knew as patient B. The passerby watches as the
individual before him gestures wildly, with an exuberance that his timid friend patient B would
have found horrifying.
When the passerby was meeting patient A, was he meeting the body of patient B or the
brain of patient A? Puccetti claims that we meet bodies controlled by brains (Puccetti 71). So
the passerby was meeting patient A controlling the body of patient B. However, the passerby was
using his knowledge of patient Bs behavior, at least in part, to determine that the individual
before him was not patient B. Sydney Shoemaker explains that it is bodily and behavioral facts
that incline one to say that a bodily transfer has occurred (Shoemaker 872). This casts doubt on
the previous presumption that the identity of the individual is patient A on the sole basis of
psychological continuity. Instead the impression is given that the brain cannot be the
unwavering single characteristic of personal identity.
A scenario described by John Perry can support the statement that the brain is not the
exclusive vessel for personal identity. What if patient A were to have his brain duplicated in
every way, so that there are two identical brains, one the supposed real brain and the other the
duplicate brain. Now imagine if the duplicate brain was also put into another body, so now in
addition to patient A there is also a patient Z. Neither of which knows the identity of the
individual who has the real brain that the duplicate was created from. Both patients have

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identical psychological continuity. How is each patient to determine their personal identity solely
based off of memory? If both have the same memories, it would be concluded that both are in
fact patient A. However, two people cannot be one person. If each individual used memory to
determine who they were before opening their eyes, both would come to the conclusion that they
were patient A. One of the individuals is really remembering the memories, while the other is
conjuring up delusions (Perry 331). At that point patient A and patient Z are not using any other
criteria, such as body identity, to determine who they are. Furthermore, psychological continuity
cannot be the only criterion for personal identity. Some other criteria must be used to distinguish
between the patients.
The identity of the survivor in the accident remains a mystery. The individual cannot be
patient C, a whole new person, because he has the psychological continuity of patient A. A whole
new individual would have no preexisting memories from the brain transplant. So the individual
cannot be neither patient A nor patient B, he must be one of them. The individual cannot be
patient B because he remembers nothing of patient Bs past life. Unlike an amnesiac, the
individual has not been wiped clean of memories. Instead he has a whole set of other memories
connected to a time in another body. The individual cannot be patient A because it was proved
the brain alone is not what houses personal identity. Another criterion, such as bodily identity,
cannot be used to support the individuals identity as patient A because the patient is no longer
living in his original body. There is no other option left to determine the identity of the
individual. He cannot be both patient A or patient B because one person cannot be two people.
Therefore, using the brain transplant scenario, it can be concluded that there is in fact no single
criterion for personal identity. The identity of an individual is tied to both the brain and the body.

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Works Cited
Perry, John. A dialogue on personal identity and immortality. Hackett Publishing, 1978.
Puccetti, Roland. "Brain transplantation and personal identity." Analysis 29.3 (1969): 65-77.
Shoemaker, Sydney, and Richard Swinburne. Personal identity. Oxford: Blackwell, 1984.