Is an account of identity necessary for bioethics? What post-genomic biomedicine can teach us

• I recall some points of the relationship between identity and bioethics.
• I review the main features of what has been called the epigenetic account of identity.
• I focus on three issues: transplantation; conjoined twins; definition of death.
• I analyze three bioethical issues dealing with the above issues.

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.