Barilan Y Michael
Department of Internal Medicine B, Meir Hospital, Kfar Saba, Israel.
J Med Philos. 2003 Feb;28(1):27-44. doi: 10.1076/jmep.28.1.27.14176.
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.
非个人生机论、作为有感知能力的存在的人、作为行为主体的人、作为叙事和价值核心的人以及作为具身心灵的人。文中还从截肢、多重人格障碍、堕胎、裂脑患者和克隆等案例中进行了类比。文章进一步质疑了连体双胞胎的自然利益和愿望是分离这一假设。我首先认为，分离是如此激进的一种做法，以至于分离后的人与分离前的人不同。因此，通过分离行为不可能让分离前的双胞胎受益。文章最后对生物伦理学中将伦理挑战视为争夺稀缺资源的个体之间的竞争这一倾向进行了批判性评估。
