The Religion & Culture Web Forum
March 2006
Trading Faces: A Case Study in the Science of Identity, Aesthetics, Ethics
This month’s Web Forum is adapted from a roundtable discussion that took
place at the Divinity School on February 17, 2006. The discussion was
made possible through the Weissbourd Fund for the Society of Fellows in
Liberal Arts, and was organized and moderated by Geoffrey Rees. In the
three essays presented here, an ethicist, a historian of science, and
a philosopher address the ethical issues at stake in the transplantation
of human tissue, and of faces in particular. As Rees posed the basic question
to the discussants: how much of one's body is replaceable, renewable,
or expendable before one ceases to be one's “self?” What are the potential
implications for conceptions of personal identity and social responsibility?
Moreover, how do we even determine which are the relevant questions to
ask?
The essays are:
Formal responses by Jeremy Biles and Geoffrey Rees may be found in the archived discussion board for this Forum (pdf).
