title: Is an account of identity necessary for bioethics? What post-genomic biomedicine can teach us.
abstract: Is a theory of identity necessary for bioethics? In this paper I investigate that question starting from an empirical explication of identity based on post-genomics, in particular on epigenetics. After analysing whether the classic problems a theory of identity has to cope with (fictional transplants; conjoined twins; and definition of death) also affect the proposed epigenetic account of identity, I deal with three topics (the assumption of moral responsibility; decision maintenance in the case of advance directives; and the attribution of value to human beings at given developmental stages) to offer an insight on the relationship between that account and bioethics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Sciences, University of Milano, European Institute of Oncology (IEO), Milano Via Adamello 16, 20139 Milano, Italy. giovanni.boniolo@ieo.eu
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Boniolo
mesh_terms: D001675:Bioethics; D003643:Death; D057890:Epigenomics; D023281:Genomics; D006801:Humans; D012933:Social Identification; D019737:Transplants; D014428:Twins, Conjoined / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Bioethics; Empirical explication; Epigenetics; Identity; Post-genomics