philosophy

philosophy
The 1977 book Who Is Julia? tells the story of Julia North and Mary Frances Beaudine. Mary Frances has a 2-year-old son who runs out in front of traffic. Mary Frances is too far away to save him, and when she sees he is about to be killed, she has a brain hemorrhage and drops dead. Just before the streetcar is going to hit the child, however, Julia saves the child. She ends up getting hit, and her body is badly mangled. The ambulance takes both Julia and Mary Frances to the same hospital where a doctor has pioneered a new technique he calls a “body transplant.” He takes Julia’s brain and puts it into Mary Frances’s body. When the person wakes up, who is she?

According to John Locke, if she remembers being Julia, then she is Julia. (And clearly, given that he has named the procedure a “body transplant,” the surgeon thinks that Julia is getting a new body, so the resulting person is Julia.) But think about Mary Frances’s husband and son. They walk in the room and call her by name. She, of course, has no idea who they are. But Mary Frances’s husband just thinks that his wife is confused—she had an accident and surgery and woke up thinking she is someone else. It looks like Mary Frances; it has her fingerprints . . . (it looks like a duck; it quacks like a duck; it is a duck!) thus it must be Mary Frances (so her husband reasons). Of course, the person lying in the hospital bed remembers being Julia—she has Julia’s memories and personality. She’s just awakened to find herself in a different body.

For the purpose of this discussion, develop an argument for who you think the resulting person is: Julia, Mary Frances, or someone else altogether (maybe Mary Julia?). Defend your position with material drawn from the module as well as your own philosophical inquiry.

 
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