<p>Sergio Canavero made headlines in 2017 for a controversial medical procedure – the world’s first human head transplant (HHT). Though the operation was only carried out on a corpse, and has yet to be successfully tested on any living person (if it ever is) the mere possibility itself raises serious questions for the philosophy of personal identity as well as form medical ethics in general. This paper explores an often neglected perspective on this intersection of personal identity and bioethics: the Confucian tradition. While most existing debates are framed through Western metaphysical and individualistic ethical assumptions, Confucianism offers a fundamentally different account of what persons are and what medicine is for – one that shifts the terms of the discussion in interesting and profound ways. Confucianism’s relational conception of identity and role-based ethical framework provide a unique take on the questions of who the post-transplant person would be, and what counts as legitimate medical intervention. Understanding these differences is important beyond merely increasing cross-cultural understanding, but for expanding the normative tools available to contemporary transplant ethics and revealing assumptions that standard Western approaches often leave unexamined. Ultimately, we argue Confucianism would treat HHT as impermissible – not due to metaphysical or religious objections, but because (given the foreseeable medical consequences) it does not preserve the embodied, relational, and functional conditions necessary for moral cultivation and the good human life.</p>