The Transplant Intuition as an Argument for the Biological Approach
Issue: • Author/s: Alfonso Muñoz-Corcuera
Topics: Cognitive science, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of mind
One of the primary objections to the biological approach revolves around what is known as the transplant intuition. That is, the allegedly widely shared intuition that if we had our cerebrum transplanted into a different body, we would be transferred to that body along with our cerebrum. Drawing upon our understanding of brain death, this paper argues that either (1) the transplant intuition should be rejected, and the biological approach has the advantage of being consistent with that rejection; or (2) the psychological approach, the biological approach’s main rival, cannot…