Materialism with a Human Face
Baker (Lynne Rudder)
Source: Corcoran - Soul, Body and Survival, Chapter 10
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Write-up1 (as at 01/04/2024 20:08:10): Baker - Materialism with a Human Face

Introduction
  1. This Note provides a fairly full summary of – and my thoughts on – "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Materialism with a Human Face", which appears as Chapter 10 (in the ‘Alternatives to Cartesian Dualism’ section) of "Corcoran (Kevin), Ed. - Soul, Body and Survival: Essays on the Metaphysics of Human Persons".
  2. As Baker says in her Philosopher’s Index Abstract below, it provides a useful summary of the Constitution View3 of personal identity.
  3. The Editor’s Summary below is – in my view – not very accurate.

Editor’s Summary3
  1. A relatively new view to appear in the philosophical literature is one according to which human persons are wholly physical, non-simple entities that are neither identical with nor reducible to physical organisms.
  2. The view's most eloquent defender, Lynne Baker, argues in "Materialism with a Human Face" that what makes an entity a human person is its possessing a "first-person perspective5." What makes an entity a human person is its being "constituted by6" a human organism7,8.
  3. Baker argues that8 a thing x "constitutes" a thing y just in case x and y are co-located and stand in a genuine relation of unity.
  4. Persons10 and bodies11, Baker argues, stand in the constitution relation.
  5. What is perhaps most interesting is that according to Baker's constitution view12 a person could start out as a human person and survive through changes which would render him or her nonhuman. Although this last claim appears to make way for the possibility of a human person surviving the death13 of his or her body it also entails that human persons are not essentially13 human.
  6. Many will regard that as a high price to pay14 for the view. Moreover, the view seems to leave such a cleavage15 between human persons17 and the human bodies that "constitute" them that it warrants the charge17 of being a version of dualism19 after all.

Philosophers Index Abstract19
  1. This is a succinct statement and defense of the constitution view21 of persons.
  2. Persons are constituted by bodies with which they are not identical.
  3. The metaphysical difference between persons and their bodies is that persons have first-person perspectives22 essentially.
  4. I reply to some objections and give reasons to accept the constitution view23.

Sections
  1. Introduction24
  2. The First-Person Perspective25
  3. Constitution26
  4. Persons and Bodies27
  5. Replies to Some Objections28
  6. Why Accept the Constitution View?29

Notes29
  1. Introduction
    1. Baker wants to understand the common world we all inhabit, where we have our social relationships and emotions.
    2. This world contains material objects, both natural and artefactual30. Importantly, it contains persons31 such as ourselves.
    3. Baker assumes commonsense materialism: every concrete thing is ultimately constituted by32 aggregates of fundamental particles.
    4. But Baker’s understanding of Constitution is not as an identity relation. Ordinary material things33 are not identical to – or reducible to – these aggregates.
    5. That’s because things fall under different primary kinds34, with different persistence conditions35.
    6. A human person is a material object in the same way36 a statue is.
    7. If a piece of marble constitutes a statue to which it is not identical, the piece of marble could exist in a world without artists or art-institutions but the statue could not37.
    8. A human person is constituted by a member of the species homo sapiens38 but is not identical to that organism. The human organism could exist in a world without psychological properties being exemplified, but the person could not39.
    9. The Constitution View is that a human organism that develops a first-person perspective comes to constitute a new thing – a person.
    10. Just as40 statues can be constituted by different kinds of things – pieces of41 marble, bronze … so persons can (or may, possibly) be constituted by different kinds of things (human organisms, pieces of plastic, Martian matter42).
    11. So, what makes something a person – whatever it is made of – is a first-person perspective. Just as43 what makes something a statue – whatever it is made of – is a relation to an art-world.
    12. What makes a person a human person is constitution by a human organism. A person can start off as a human person, but by gradual replacement of organic parts44 by synthetic parts could cease to be a human person45. But, provided she retained the same46 first-person perspective she continues to exist, but not as a human, though she would cease to do so without the FPP47.
    13. According to the CV the human animal and the human person have different persistence conditions despite there being no intrinsic48 physical difference between them. All animals have biological persistence conditions but those of persons are not49 biological.
    14. Baker doesn’t distinguish between human organisms and human bodies. She claims that ‘my body is identical to a human organism50’, but she is only constituted by one.
    15. Her two key notions – Constitution and the First-Person Perspective – now need explication.
  2. The First-Person Perspective
    1. The FPP51 is the defining characteristic of persons, human or not.
    2. From a first-person point of view you can think of yourself as yourself52 and of your thoughts as your own.
    3. In English53, the ability to conceive of oneself as oneself is marked grammatically by a sentence with a first-person subject of a psychological or linguistic verb and an embedded first-person reference.
    4. Example: When I wonder whether I'll be happy in 10 years’ time, I am wondering about myself as myself; from a first-person perspective, I do not need to pick myself out as one object among many.
    5. Baker claims that the first-person perspective – the ability to consider oneself as oneself in this way – is the basis of all forms of self-consciousness54.
    6. A being can be conscious without having a first-person perspective. Dogs have beliefs and desires and can engage in practical reasoning based thereon. They have a point of view55, but they don’t have a conception of themselves as themselves56.
    7. For example, a dog (if it could talk) might say ‘I am hungry’ but could not say ‘I wonder if I am hungry’. Bertrand Russell and Peter Geach argued that the ‘I’ in ‘I am hungry’ is eliminable57.
    8. If a dog developed a FPP it would be a canine person, and if a gorilla was taught a language sufficiently close to English58 so it could recognise embedded first-person references it would become an ape person. Anything with a FPP59 is a person.
    9. So, what distinguishes human persons from animals60 is not consciousness nor intentional states – these are necessary but not sufficient for being a person.
    10. Our FPPs may well be a product of natural selection but – whether this is so or not – the arrival of an FPP makes an ontological difference in the world. As far as we know, human animals are unique in constituting persons despite otherwise being continuous with the other animals. If biologists don’t recognise the FPP as being biologically significant61, so much the worse for them. ‘Ontology doesn’t recapitulate biology62’.
  3. Constitution
    1. Human persons are distinguished from other persons with a FPP by being constituted by human bodies.
    2. The relation of constitution is perfectly general63.
      Examples:-
      1. Dollar bills64 are constituted by pieces of paper;
      2. Genes65 are constituted by DNA molecules.
    3. Constitution is explicable in terms of ordinary logical and modal ideas. The presentation here will be informal as she has covered the matter elsewhere66.
    4. Constitution makes an ontological difference. When certain kinds of things are in certain kinds of circumstances, things of new kinds67, with new causal powers68 come into existence.
      • Example:-
        The right chemicals in the right environment result in a new kind – an organism69. A world without organisms, even with the right chemicals in the wrong environment, would be ontologically impoverished70.
    5. x’s ‘primary kind’ is what x most fundamentally is71. When x constitutes y, x & y are of different primary kinds, and each has its primary kind essentially72.
      • Example:-
        Michaelangelo’s David is of primary kind statue. The ‘circumstances’ are those background conditions necessary but not sufficient for something to be of a certain primary kind.
      • So,
        1. Statue-favourable circumstances include the existence of an art-world73.
        2. Gene-favourable circumstances74 include processes of reproduction of organisms.
    6. Definition of Constitution: Now, let F be x’s primary-kind property and G be y’s primary-kind property. Then, x constitutes y75 at t if and only if
      1. x and y are spatially coincident at t.
      2. x is in G-favourable circumstances at t.
      3. Necessarily, if anything that has F as its primary-kind property is in G-favourable circumstances at t, then there exists some spatially-coincident thing at t that has G as its primary-kind property.
      4. Possibly, x exists at t and there is no spatially-coincident thing at t that has G as its primary-kind property.
      5. If y is immaterial, then x is also immaterial.
    7. The point of the last clause is allegedly76 to ensure that materiality is not lost by constitution. Baker claims these five conditions establish the coherence77 of constitution.
    8. Constitution is not strict Leibnizian identity but is nevertheless a genuine relation of unity78. It is not just spatial co-location but is as intimate a relation as can be, short of identity.
    9. When x constitutes y, x and y inherit79 many of one another’s properties.
      Examples:-
      1. A driver’s license80 is constituted by a piece of plastic.
        • The piece of plastic borrows the property of allowing airport check-in from the driver’s licence it constitutes.
        • The driver’s license borrows the property of acting as a bookmark from the piece of plastic.
      2. Sam is constituted by a human body.
        • Sam borrows the property of reaching a lightbulb from his body’s being 6-foot tall.
        • Sam’s body borrows the property of being able to sit on the plane from Sam’s purchase of a ticket.
    10. In a footnote, Baker lists 4 categories of property that cannot be had derivatively, the meanings being elucidated – not very helpfully81 – in a couple of her later footnotes that I’ve combined here with this one:
      1. Alethic properties82: expressed in English by ‘essentially, ‘necessarily’ or ‘primary kind’.
      2. ‘Identity / constitution / existence83’ properties: expressed in English by ‘is identical to’, ‘constitutes’ or ‘exists’.
      3. Properties rooted in times other than84 those in which they are had: if necessarily x has the property at t only because it exists at some time other than t.
      4. Hybrid properties85: properties that are conjunctions of two or more properties that either entail or are entailed by two or more primary-kind properties.
    11. There are therefore two ways for an object to have a property: derivatively and non-derivatively. Having a property non-derivatively is to have it independently of the constitution relationship. Having a property derivatively is having it in virtue of being in a constituting relationship with something that has the property independently of the constitution relationship.
    12. Example: Flags:-
      • Flags get their property of rectangularity86 derivatively from the pieces of cloth that constitute them.
      • The pieces of cloth have their ‘rectangular’ property non-derivatively87 since they could exist without constituting anything.
      • The flag has the property of being respected88 non-derivatively, whereas the piece of cloth has it derivatively.
    13. The definitions have the odd consequence that your body has the property of being able to survive the loss of the FPP non-derivatively, because the person cannot survive loss of the FPP. Baker could tamper with the definitions to disallow this, but she considers the oddity benign. But, she does add the epicycle in her next footnote89!
    14. ‘Ordinary’ properties – that do not involve the existence of things at other times or world – may be had derivatively.
    15. So, if x has a property F derivatively, there is some y that has F non-derivatively and which is constitutionally related to x.
    16. At this point, Baker has a complicated footnote that adds further epicycles to her definition, making the above account of ‘having properties derivatively’ a sufficient as well as a necessary condition.
    17. So:-
      • We first introduce a new term: x has F supernonderivatively iff
        1. x has F non-derivatively, and
        2. x’s having F does not entail instantiation of any property such that x has it derivatively.
        Then, x has F derivatively90 iff x is constitutionally related to y and y has F supernonderivatively.
      • In general, x has property F iff there is some y such that
        1. Either x = y or x is constitutionally related to y, and
        2. y has F non-derivatively, and
        3. y’s having F non-derivatively does not entail instantiation of any property such that y has it derivatively.
        Clause (c) is added to address the ‘oddity’ in her previous footnote91. Both (c) and that footnote are attributed to Thomas Senor92.
    18. The concept of having properties derivatively explains why x and y can have so many properties in common when x constitutes y.
    19. In summary, constitution is a relation of unity intermediate between identity and separate existence. It differs from identity in being a relation between objects of different primary kinds with different persistence conditions. It is similar to identity in that objects in a constitution relationship inherit lots of properties from one another (size, location, …).
  4. Persons and Bodies
    1. Baker claims that human persons are necessarily embodied93.
      • They are constituted by bodies which are the objects of first-person reference.
      • You don’t need to refer to your body with a demonstrative pronoun or in the third person.
      • Wondering about the state of your body is wondering about yourself.
      • We think of our bodies ‘from the inside’.
      • Our bodies express our emotional and intentional states and respond to our decisions.
      • I have a first-person relation to my body and no other.
      • A replica of me would have a first-person relation to her body, not mine (says Baker94).
    2. Baker now applies the definition of constitution-without-identity given above96 to persons and their bodies96: in particular to a person, Jones, and his body, named Body. So:-
      • x = Body,
      • y = Jones
      • F = Primary Kind of ‘Human Body’
      • G = Primary Kind of ‘Person’
      • G-favourable circumstances are: ‘Organismic and Environmental conditions favourable to the development of a First-Person Perspective’.
    3. Baker has three comments on the above:-
      1. The ‘organismic and environmental conditions’ are:-
        • Organismic: The organism – in particular the brain – is developed to the extent of a normal human baby at birth97.
        • Environmental: conditions are such that the infant develops a sense of self, as described by developmental psychologists98. Baker thinks her concept of the FPP fits well in this context.
      2. Body can exist but not be conducive to the FPP. Baker’s example is if the body is dead99.
      3. The immateriality rider (e) has it that ‘If Jones is immaterial, then Body is immaterial’. Given that Body is not immaterial, then Jones is not immaterial (by modus tollens). This clause is needed100 to rule out Body constituting a Cartesian person with an immaterial soul.
    4. Baker now compares human animals with dogs, for whom she seems to have an antipathy101.
    5. Dogs and other higher animals are subjects of mental states, are conscious, have beliefs are desires (‘in a severely limited range’) and have a point of view102.
    6. But – says Baker – none of this amounts to them having a First-Person Perspective. For this they would need Second-order beliefs and Desires103
    7. Of course, Baker admits that dogs have – in a sense – a first-person relation to their bodies. They – like us – can move their bodies without moving anything else.
    8. But, a FPP requires us to think of ourselves in a uniquely first personal way. The example Baker gives is the rather odd ability to wonder if your body is shrinking.
    9. When I wonder about my body, I wonder about myself – but I can also wonder in ways not involving my body – whether I’ll be happy next year, for instance.
    10. So, Baker claims, while I am not identical to my body the constitution relation is one of unity: I myself am derivatively an animal without being identical to one.
    11. While I am presently constituted by a body that is essentially an animal, this doesn’t mean that I am essentially an animal. But because constitution is a unity relation, I inherit many of my body’s properties – in particular its physical and biological ones.
      So, the body that constitute me now is essentially – and non-derivatively – an animal but contingently – and derivatively – a person; whereas, I am contingently, and derivatively an animal.
    12. Baker has a footnote to the effect that she’s not claiming that all essential properties are non-derivative. She considers a statue which arguably has its shape essentially even though104 it is derived from something of that shape that constitutes it.
    13. We now move on to mental properties and things get more complicated – and more debateable, it seems to me. As we’ve seen, Baker doesn’t deny that animals can think, only that they can’t think specifically ‘person thoughts’. So, I think Olson is sometimes off-target. Animals which are not persons can – we may suppose – desire food; so, when I desire food, I do so derivatively. Any of my thoughts that a dog might have are had derivatively. If a dog could have such a thought, then so could a human animal that did not constitute a person. Thoughts that a dog couldn’t have – like worrying about being in debt next year – I have non-derivatively. The human animals that constitutes me therefore has such thoughts derivatively105 – by virtue of constituting a person.
    14. Baker concludes by rehearsing her claim that ‘having thoughts derivatively’ means that there are not two thoughts106 going on.
  5. Replies to Some Objections
    1. Baker claims that Constitution without identity has been caricatured by those who cannot imagine a relation of unity intermediate between identity and separate existence. She has a footnote claiming that an orthodox Christian107 cannot deny coherence to such an intermediate relation (apart from proper parthood) on account of the doctrine of the Trinity.
    2. Baker has dealt with objections in detail elsewhere108, so she focuses here on six objections she takes to be her critics’ main worries.
      1. Likeness of Microstructure109:
        • Michael Burke asks what could make the statue and the clay – given that they are qualitatively identical and consist on the very same atoms – of different sorts?
        • Baker’s response is to question the assumption that the nature and identity of a thing is determined solely by its intrinsic physical properties.
        • She gives examples: a statue wouldn’t be a statue in the absence of an art-world110.
        • Baker has argued elsewhere111 that some extrinsic properties can be had essentially, which she thinks solves the problem.
        • Once we admit this, then we can have x and y differing in primary kind despite sharing all their intrinsic properties.
        • Hence112 we can see – she says – how an animal can have certain biological properties essentially, while a person has them contingently.
        • Primary kind and essentiality of properties go together – whether these properties are intrinsic or relational.
        • She suggests that asking why something has the essential properties it has is nonsensical113 – like asking why the number 4 is even, or why animals have cells.
      2. Linguistic Ambiguities:
        • Baker claims that some critics misunderstand her position, suggesting that her use of ‘is’ is ambiguous. As far as I can see from the ensuing discussion, they are right, though Baker thinks the ambiguity is always clear – that is, that it’s always clear which sense of ‘is’ is intended.
        • The situation is muddled by a mistake on Olson’s part114 – repeated whenever he discusses Baker’s views – where he claims that Baker thinks that we can’t say that human animals are sentient in the same way that we can say they are primates. Baker thinks both statements are true in the same way because – for her – sentience isn’t the point of divide between persons and non-persons. She asserts that dogs, human animals and human persons are sentient in exactly the same way115. They are conscious in the same way. It’s the FPP – that persons have but dogs lack – that sets us apart.
        • Baker then claims that ‘x is an H116’ is univocal – but only because117 she cashes out the ‘is’ in a disjunctive way as either ‘is constitutionally related to’ or ‘is identical to’.
        • When she claims that ‘is sentient’ is univocal, she’s referring to the sentience. The sentience of dogs is the same sort of sentience as of human animals and of human persons. But while – I would claim – the sentience is the same, the having of it isn’t the same for human persons and human animals, because human animals have it non-derivatively whereas human persons do not. She explicitly says this.
      3. The Personal Pronoun ‘I’:
        • This objection is attributed to Paul Snowdon118.
        • According to Baker, Snowdon says firstly that we – Baker says ‘animals’ – have evolved to use the personal pronoun ‘I’ (presumably to refer to themselves). So, if we are not identical to animals, when we say ‘I am identical to an animal’ there are in fact two statements uttered: a true one uttered by the constituting animal and a false one uttered by the person. This is absurd, so we are identical to animals.
        • Baker agrees that (human) animals evolved to use ‘I’, but claims that when they evolved to the point of having a FPP they came to constitute persons. According to the CV, when a person says ‘I’ they refer non-derivatively to the person that is constituted by the animal. So, when the animal utters the statement ‘I am identical to an animal’, it is false because it is the person, constituted by that animal, that says it. If I had simply said ‘I am an animal’, that would be true because I have the property of being an animal derivatively by virtue of being constituted by one.
        • Baker asserts that – according to the CV – there are not two statements but one. The truth-value depends on what is said:-
          1. ‘I am identical to an animal’ is said non-derivatively by the person – even though it issues from the animal’s mouth.
          2. ‘The thing that constitutes me is identical to an animal’ – said likewise – would be true.
        • For revision, and useful clarification, Baker repeats her claims.
          1. There are not two referents of ‘I’, which always refers non-derivatively to the person using it.
          2. If I say ‘I am hungry’, I refer to the person, but I – the person – have the property of being hungry derivatively in virtue of being constituted by an animal, which is hungry.
          3. Referring to yourself does not fail to refer to the constituting animal: you refer to an embodied being (yourself) constituted by that animal.
          4. Saying ‘I generally have good digestion’ isn’t referring to two beings or two digestive systems. There’s one digestive system that you have derivatively and the animal has non-derivatively.
        • Consequently – Baker claims – the CV is free from linguistic incoherence119.
      4. Why is an Animal not a Person?:
        • Baker claims that some criticisms – such as the following one due to Olson – just don’t apply to her view.
        • She quotes from "Olson (Eric) - Reply to Lynne Rudder Baker", where Olson claims120 that he fails to understand how:-
          1. Despite having all the necessary biological features he could fail to be an organism.
          2. Despite having all the necessary physical and psychological features he could fail to be a person.
        • In response, Baker says that:-
          1. She most definitely is an organism but is so derivatively in virtue of being constituted by one. She is just not identical to one.
          2. The organism that constitutes her is most definitely a person but is so derivatively in virtue of constituting one. It is just not identical to one.
        • Baker re-asserts that she accepts that anything with the right biological features is an organism and anything with the right psychological features is a person.
        • But Baker allows Olson to press his complaint (via the same reference). Olson claims that, according to Baker:-
          1. Beings physically indistinguishable from human animals are strictly speaking not animals, despite being constituted by them.
          2. Beings physically indistinguishable from human people are strictly speaking not people (despite constituting them).
        • Baker asks what is meant by ‘are strictly speaking121’? She thinks of two possibilities:-
          1. ‘… are identical to’: this is just what Baker claims; basically, Baker has – she claims – argued in great detail that constitution without identity is coherent. To presuppose otherwise as a criticism is to beg the question122.
          2. ‘… are, speaking seriously and literally’: Baker claims this criticism just misfires. She ‘seriously and literally’ thinks that human persons are human animals derivatively in virtue of being constitute by them.
        • In neither case does the criticism have any purchase against the CV.
      5. Duplication of Persons:
        • Several philosophers123. claim that if I am a person, and the animal that constitutes me is a person, then we have too many persons. Similarly, too many thinkers, speakers and the like.
        • The CV denies that ‘if x is not identical to y then x is not the same F as y’ because it allows for the borrowing of124 properties between constitutionally-related individuals. In particular, counting is by ‘identity-or-constitution125’. The argument considered above begs the question126 against the CV.
        • My body is a person solely on the grounds of constituting me, and is not a separate person. Similarly, there are not two animals where I am.
      6. The Constitution View is Dualist127?:
        • I repeat the argument Baker considers:-
          1. If a human person x is a material being, then there is some material object to which x is identical.
          2. x is not identical to x’s body (or any part of it). [the Constitution View]
          3. If x is not identical to x’s body (or any part of it), then there is no material object to which x is identical.
            ∴
          4. There is no material object to which x is identical. ((ii) & (iii), modus ponens)
            ∴
          5. Human person x is not a material thing. ((i) & (iv), modus tollens)
        • According to the CV, premise (iii) is false, so to assume it is to beg the question128.
        • Trivially, I am identical to myself; but, whether the only way I’m a material being is to be identical to my body or a part thereof is the point at issue.
        • I am a material thing because I’m identical to myself and Baker thinks it nonsensical129 to ask if I’m identical to something else.
        • She claims it would beg the question130 against the CV to deny that Human Person is a material-object category any more than denying that marble statue131 is.
        • Baker now sets up a parallel argument that she claims would prove that are bodies are immaterial – which not even substance dualists believe – if the above argument-form were valid. Baker notes that human beings are organisms but are not identical to any particular aggregate of cells, or even any disjunction of such aggregates (say, all the aggregates a human being may be constitutes by throughout his life). The reasons the latter won’t do is for modal reasons – you might have lost a cell here or there at the barber’s.
        • Baker now formalises this argument132 to the ‘CV is Dualist134’ one above, with a similar false third premise:-
          1. If Smith’s body is a material being, then there is some material object to which Smith’s body is identical.
          2. Smith’s body is not identical to any aggregate of cells (or to any disjunction of aggregates of cells).
          3. If Smith’s body is not identical to any aggregate of cells (or to any disjunction of aggregates of cells), then there is no material object to which Smith’s body is identical.
            ∴
          4. There is no material object to which Smith’s body is identical. (ii) & (iii),
            modus ponens)
            ∴
          5. Smith’s body is not a material thing. ((i) & (iv), modus tollens)
    3. In summary, neither the linguistic nor metaphysical objections have any traction. Baker claims that there are two key errors:-
      1. Attributing to the CV some consequence it doesn’t have: eg. claiming that the CV denies that we are animals.
      2. Begs the question134 against the CV by including a premise it denies135: eg. ‘If I am a material object, then I must be identical to my body or some part of it’.
  6. Why Accept the Constitution View?
    1. Baker summarises progress: she’s set out the CV of persons in some detail, deflected objections and shown that Constitution without Identity is coherent. But what are its positive advantages?
    2. For Baker, the CV locates persons in the material world without reducing them to something non-personal. She says that the CV of human persons shows how human persons are like – and unlike – other material things – ‘from genes to statues to passports136’.
    3. Additionally, the CV gives a general account137 of material beings.
    4. She gives two examples of the supposed benefits of the CV over its main rivals, Substance Dualism and Animalism:-
      1. Substance Dualism138:
        • Basically, the CV gives us everything we might want that’s distinctive of Substance Dualism without the need for positing immaterial substances with the well-known problems this raises. In particular, the CV agrees with Substance Dualism that:-
          1. A human person is not identical to her body and can survive a complete change thereof.
          2. Not all truths about human persons are truths about bodies.
          3. A person has causal powers139 that a body would not have if it failed to constitute a person.
          4. Persons have ontological significance: personhood is not just a contingent and temporary property of some fundamentally impersonal thing.
      2. Animalism140:
        • Animalism has two consequences that Baker thinks discredit it:-
          1. It implies that replacement of body – or bodily transfer – is metaphysically impossible141, as is my having had a body other than the one I do have.
          2. Being a person is irrelevant to the kind of individual one fundamentally is. Since – as "Olson (Eric) - The Human Animal - Personal Identity Without Psychology" (p. 17) argues – an individual in a PVS may no longer be a Person, one can continue to exist without being a person, just as you could continue to exist without being a philosopher … or a fancier of fast cars … which are metaphysically on a par142 with being a person.
        • Since she has already argued against animalism in "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View", she contents herself here with posing what she sees as a dilemma for the animalist: are human animals continuous with the rest of the animal kingdom or do they differ in some fundamental way from – say – apes? She agrees that biologists see only a difference of degree, not of kind, between human and nonhuman animals.
        • If this is so, how can animalists account for the vast differences between nonhuman animals and those human animals that are – or constitute – persons? She cites143:-
          1. The cultural achievements of mankind: art, science, religion, literature, government and the like;
          2. Our understanding of evolution and our interference in its processes to achieve medical advances;
          3. Our ability to assess and modify our goals, to own up to what we do and take responsibility for our actions, to be moral agents, to wonder what kind of beings we are.
        • So, the animalist’s dilemma is either to posit a biologically unmotivated144 gap between human and nonhuman animals or deny the ontological significance of what is distinctive about human persons.
        • The fact that the FPP may have arisen naturally does not – for Baker – reduce its ontological significance. Beings with the capacity for a FPP are – she says145 – fundamentally different from other beings.
        • Baker closes her rebuttal of animalism with – what seems to me to be – a further rant. If we were not persons146, there would be no ‘us’; there would be no ‘me’ to consider my own persistence conditions. The CV states that our FPP indicates what we are: beings able to ask ‘what am I’, to make life plans and consider how we’ll die.
    5. Baker concludes by reiterating three features of the Constitution View that she takes to recommend it over both Substance Dualism and the Animalist View:
      1. The Constitution View situates human persons firmly in the material world, without reducing them to something nonpersonal.
      2. The Constitution View allows for the possibility that a human person could have a different body from the one that she actually has.
      3. The Constitution View ties what is distinctive about us and what we care most deeply about — our ideals, values, life plans; our status as rational and moral agents — to what we are most fundamentally: persons. The existence of persons makes an ontological difference in the world.


In-Page Footnotes

Footnote 1:
  • This is the write-up as it was when this Abstract was last output, with text as at the timestamp indicated (01/04/2024 20:08:10).
  • Link to Latest Write-Up Note.
Footnote 3: Footnote 8:
  • This is a very brief and somewhat partial description of Baker’s view.
  • What the Editor says would make the Constitution relationship symmetrical, which it isn’t.
Footnote 13:
  • This is because – for Baker – a person is individuated by her FPP. We are to imagine that this stays constant as parts of the human being are replaced by inorganic parts.
  • Baker is a bit quick on how FPPs persist, and it’s an open question whether it would persist as bits of the brain are ‘siliconized’, say.
  • I do view this as an advantage over Olson’s form of animalism, whereby I – as I’m ‘Cyborgized’ – get smaller and smaller (because the inorganic parts don’t count as parts of the organism.
Footnote 14:
  • Really? Why should they?
  • Most people want to live forever, and don’t imagine they’d spend eternity as ‘humans’ (at least not in the terrestrial sense).
  • I dare say there’s much confusion in this context about what it means to be ‘human’ (presuming this to mean ‘identical to a Human Being’.
  • Isn’t the issue – for Christians –to do with being made ‘in the image and likeness of God’? Is God ‘human’? Could we be differently embodied yet still reflect this image (whatever that is supposed to mean)?
  • It’ll be interesting to read what "Peckham (Jeremy) - Masters or Slaves?: AI And The Future Of Humanity" (Chapter 4) has to say on the matter.
Footnote 15:
  • Where does he get this from? Baker claims that her ‘unity relation’ is as close to identity as you can get – short of identity itself.
Footnote 17:
  • I imagine that Baker would have been amazed at this claim!
  • She actually has a section rebutting it!
Footnote 19:
  • This seems to be by Baker herself.
  • I’ve added the bullets and links to my own Notes.
Footnote 29:
  • What follows is a fairly full but abbreviated summary of Baker’s text.
  • My own comments appear – at least in the first instance – as footnotes.
  • My intention has been to summarise the text first and only make the comments that I’m likely to forget!
  • Now that I’ve completed the summarisation, I now need to complete the annotations. Except in cases of obscurity, my comments are based on my summary rather than on the original text. I will re-read both in parallel after completing the commentary so that I can make any necessary adjustments.
  • I note in passing that the topics that are covered in this Paper come up over and over again in my research, so I’m doubtless both repeating and maybe contradicting myself at my understanding and opinions evolve.
Footnote 30:
  • This is an important distinction, but one that Baker tends to elide somewhat.
  • Exemplars of Natural Kind terms have persistence conditions that we can to some degree discover, while those for Artifacts are to some degree arbitrary.
  • There may, therefore, be little direct analogy between the two classes of object.
Footnote 31:
  • So, Persons such as us are material.
Footnote 32:
  • I’ve checked the text, and Baker does say ‘constituted by’. Constitution has a technical sense for Baker which is not what is often intended in common-sense usage. She doesn’t usually use it in the mereological sense of ‘composed of’, which looks like all she needs in this context to assure us that she’s a (Christian) materialist.
  • She goes on to explain the distinction between composition and constitution and – on reflection – I think she does intend ‘constitution’ here (rather than ‘composition’).
Footnote 33:
  • What material things are not ‘ordinary’? Not that this matters much in this context.
  • All she is saying in this sentence might be not much more than the uncontroversial claim that a thing is more than the sum of its parts.
  • But she’s probably saying much more than this.
    1. She would deny mereological essentialism. A material object isn’t identical to the specific set of particles that constitute it at a time, or it would not persist from one moment to the next, or would become an increasingly scattered object.
    2. If I understand her correctly, a statue is not merely not the sum of its parts (in that it requires form as well as matter) but is not even essentially made of the kind of matter it is in fact made of. A marble statue might – by gradual repairs – be converted into a bronze statue that is – for Baker – the very same statue – that was once constituted by a piece of marble and is now constituted by a piece of bronze.
Footnote 34: Footnote 35: Footnote 36:
  • This is a rather alarming claim. A human person is (constituted by) an Organism whereas a statue is constituted by a ‘lump’. Organisms and ‘lumps’ have very different persistence conditions.
  • What Baker means is that both human persons and statues are material objects – in the sense of being constituted by them – but are not (she claims) identical to these material objects.
Footnote 37:
  • Later on I discuss the minimalist situation where we have an unreconstructed cowrie shell used as a piece of currency.
  • See Wikipedia: Shell money.
  • There’s a parallel discussion in "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Constitution" (see the Section When does constitution occur?).
  • Note that – in this world with no artists – what Baker is claiming is that the lump of marble indistinguishable from a statue would not be a statue.
  • Watch out for the non-parallel situation for persons!
Footnote 38: Footnote 39:
  • When Baker says that the species homo sapiens could exist without any psychological properties, what modality does she have in mind? She must be talking about the species as obviously individual members may have no relevant psychology. But if the species had no psychology, would it be the same species? ‘Sapiens’ and all that …?
  • Also, I might add, what is the parallel with the ‘statue’ situation, which relies on extrinsic relations? There’s nothing parallel cited for persons. Baker seems to think of personhood as a purely intrinsic matter, though we might argue that extrinsic factors are essential: language, forensic matters, and so on.
  • This is lack of parallelism is brought out by the thought that it is not possible for an organism that has the structure it does not to be a person, if it in fact qualifies as such. The same applies if all typical members of the species so qualify. There has to be a material difference for it to be the case that typical members would not have had a FPP.
Footnote 40:
  • This seems a fair analogy, unlike some others Baker makes, but it doesn’t really demonstrate anything about whether statue-hood or personhood is a substance term or a property of a substance.
Footnote 41:
  • I think ‘pieces of’ is critical here. The piece of marble is ‘composed of’ marble but the statue is not ‘composed of’ anything – it is ‘constituted by’ the piece.
  • Having said that, we noted above that Baker thinks that all material things are constituted by fundamental particles.
Footnote 42:
  • These examples are rather inept: plastic isn’t a conductor and Martian matter is no different to terrestrial matter. But we get the point.
  • Quite matter – and how organised – can constitute a person is an empirical matter.
Footnote 43:
  • As noted, this is a weak analogy. Indeed, making analogies with artifacts strikes me as a mistake that weakens the case for the CV.
  • Can Baker do without such (dis-)analogies? I think they are more motivational than logically necessary and supportive.
Footnote 44:
  • This is an important and interesting claim.
  • For Olson, the human animal (organism) diminishes in size as its parts are replaced by inorganic replacements.
  • What would Baker’s view be? She would have the person constituted by this Cyborg (and – ultimately – by an Android).
Footnote 45: Footnote 46:
  • Baker doesn’t cover persistence of the FPP at this point, other than that it either exists or it doesn’t.
  • As far as I can see, there’s no account of this anywhere in this paper or – as far as I remember – anywhere else in her work.
  • But I think this is critical for her theory. My view is that the FPP is had – and individuated by – the individual that has it. Much like smiles.
  • Hence, the CV may suffer from fatal ‘cart before the horse’ objections – like those raised against Bundle Theories and the PV generally.
Footnote 47:
  • The conditions for having a FPP are rather strict – according to Baker – and she’s open to the accusation that people might pop into and out of existence throughout the lives of their human animals.
Footnote 48:
  • While this is true of the supposedly parallel case of the Statue and the Clay, in that case there’s an extrinsic difference (recognition of the clay as being a statue by an ‘art-world’). But there’s no such extrinsic difference for persons and their bodies.
  • True, there are extrinsic factors in some of the conditions of personhood – possession of language, forensic matters – for Baker it’s the FPP that’s definitive, and this is intrinsic.
  • I’m not sure how the FPP is supposed to subsist, but it would seem to be ‘generated’ – for human persons – by the human animal that constitutes it.
Footnote 49: Footnote 50:
  • If Bodies and Organisms have different persistence conditions, then this equation doesn’t – or shouldn’t – make sense, at least for Baker.
  • If Corpses are ‘bodies’ – as Olson points out – they have different persistence conditions to those of organisms.
  • But I’ll leave further comment until Section III (Persons and Bodies).
Footnote 51: Footnote 52:
  • This idea is very Lockean, but Locke receives no credits in this Paper.
Footnote 53: Footnote 54: Footnote 55:
  • This conscious ‘point of view’ is so important, and by having such a restrictive take on the FPP, Baker downgrades this important fact.
  • Some of the TEs of PID depend on this ‘point of view’, this ‘window on the world’.
  • Take the Future Great Pain Test, used to smoke out whether we think a future individual will be us. While a dog may not have the cognitive capacity to think in this way – ‘of itself as itself’ – it knows that it is it that will receive future goods or ills.
  • This isn’t just (or isn’t best explained as) ‘behaviouristic conditioning’. An ill-treated dog cowers before a beating because it anticipates what is about to befall it, just as much as an ill-treated child (or partner) would.
Footnote 56:
  • How does Baker know this – that dogs have no ‘conception of themselves as themselves’?
  • They are social animals that need to fit into a hierarchy, cooperate in packs and yet – as companion animals – associate with animals of other species. They get jealous and seek attention. What more is required for an ‘ontological difference’?
Footnote 57: Footnote 58: Footnote 59:
  • I would agree, but wouldn’t make the conditions as strict as Baker’s.
Footnote 60:
  • I agree that neither phenomenal consciousness nor intentionality are sufficient and agree that both are necessary.
  • However, I don’t take personhood to be a natural kind concept, but an honorific, and quite who qualifies is something we decide rather than discover.
  • Going back to Bentham, the higher non-human animals (at least) can suffer and know that they are suffering (when they are) and can anticipate future suffering (and the same goes for pleasures).
  • This is ontologically more important than wondering whether you’re hungry or ruminating on your own impending death (assuming the higher non-human animals can’t do this).
Footnote 61:
  • I think biologists would recognise the biological significance of the realisation in an animal that it is a distinct individual with a perspective on the world and with the ability to make short or long term plans, to form social relationships, to be phenomenally conscious in a non-dozy way … all things that the higher animals can do.
  • The neural underpinnings of all this in the brain are on a continuum between related species.
  • The biological facts that give homo sapiens (and maybe some extinct hominids) such an advantage over the other great apes (and the higher animals generally) are bipedalism, opposable thumbs, and flexible vocalisation to allow detailed communication.
  • The ‘special’ features that Baker wants to stipulate as definitive of the FPP are ‘just’ the consequences down the line of these ontological changes that enable them.
Footnote 62:
  • This is intended as a witty allusion to the largely discredited Recapitulation Theory (see Wikipedia: Recapitulation theory) that ‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny’ (embryogenesis mirrors evolutionary history).
  • I doubt it has much relevance to the argument.
Footnote 63: Footnote 64:
  • Dollar bills – like statues – are artifacts, so whether they are a fair analogy for the relation between a person and their body is moot.
  • Any value had by a dollar bill is an extrinsic relation between the bill and a community. The bill may be fake (but still accepted), defaced (so only redeemable at a bank, say), out of date (say there’s been a redenomination), and so on …
  • I suppose it may still be a dollar bill, for all that, even if subject to one of these qualifications. But it would need to have been made with a certain intention.
  • Any comparison between this relation – dollar bill versus piece of paper – and the relation between a person and her body is very slight.
Footnote 65:
  • This is a much better analogy, in that genes fall under natural kind concepts. That the constituting strings of DNA are any use depends on the environment in which the genes are expressed. So, their use or value is an extrinsic relation. But is this the same as their very existence?
  • I’m not yet convinced whether even this relation is analogous to the relation between a person and her body. We’ll see …
Footnote 66: Footnote 67: Footnote 68:
  • See my Note on Causality.
  • I’m suspicious of this. Just what ‘powers’ are intended. I suspect they can either be attributed to the constituting entity or are down to relations between that entity and the environment.
  • I suppose an example would be ‘causing joy’ when I find my lost £50 note.
Footnote 69:
  • It is a very long way from ‘chemicals’ to an organism!
  • At the very least, we have organisms as an assembly of organs, constituted by cells. And cells are themselves very complex structures, with various parts and including other structures – organelles and the nucleus – which are themselves highly complex and contain yet more structures …
  • The examples that Baker gives elsewhere … of one whole thong being constituted by another whole thing is very different, and this example is no analogy.
  • I suspect that Baker has fallen into the trap she accuses others of falling into – of confusing Constitution with Mereological Composition.
  • Note: check that she actually does make this accusation – it may just be something I imagine I’ve noticed.
  • Added to this, later on Baker denies that an organism is constituted by any disjunction of cells.
Footnote 70:
  • Well, yes it would, but once an organism has been assembled, there’s no more to say. It has the properties it has and is responsible for all that’s of value in its existence.
  • There are lots of questions about Reductionism, but this has nothing to do with Constitution.
Footnote 71:
  • The primary Kind an object belongs to is often a matter of judgement, and there is a hierarchy: statue, artwork, artifact.
  • Sometimes we won’t know what an artifact was intended for if we’re too remote from the culture.
Footnote 72:
  • See my Note on Modality.
  • So, Baker rules out Metamorphosis? If an individual changes its primary kind, then it would cease to exist? How does this work out with biological metamorphosis?
Footnote 73:
  • Just what is an ‘art world’? I think there’s a distinction between the intentions of the sculptor and the response of subsequent viewers.
  • Maybe it’s easier to consider with paintings. These can (initially, at least) be rejected. ‘Take away that nasty green thing’ (for Constable’s ‘Water-meadows near Salisbury’ landscape when first exhibited: see V&A: Constable - Water-meadows near Salisbury).
  • But … it was a painting for all that, irrespective of the opinion of the then art-world.
  • Similarly, a book may be written – such as a private diary – with no intention of a ‘literary establishment’ – or, indeed, anyone other than the author – ever catching sight of it.
Footnote 74:
  • As noted before, the relationship between genes and the DNA that constitutes them is complex and unlike the other examples. As far as I can see, a gene is just a gene, and in the absence of the right environment, it is simply a wasted gene.
  • I suppose the point is that – had the DNA come together by random processes – it would not be a gene, but just the collection of DNA. Maybe.
  • I’m reminded of a paper by – "Putnam (Hilary) - Brains in a Vat" – that I read as an undergraduate but made no notes on. It asks whether a random sketch drawn by an ant in the sand that looked like Winston Churchill would be a picture of the great man. Of course it would not, as it had been produced unintelligently and unintelligently.
Footnote 75:
  • I find these precise formulations difficult to follow. Baker will apply this schema to persons and their bodies in the next section, but for the moment I’ll illustrate the situation by the simplest example – the Statue and the Clay.
  • So:-
    1. The Clay (x) and the Statue (y) are spatially coincident at t.
    2. The Clay (x) is in G-favourable (Statue-favourable) circumstances at t.
    3. Necessarily, if anything that has F (Clay) as its primary-kind property is in G-favourable (Statue-favourable) circumstances at t, then there exists some spatially-coincident thing at t that has G (Statue) as its primary-kind property.
      • Presumably, x (Clay) is statue-shaped, and
      • There’s an appreciative art-world.
    4. Possibly, Clay (x) exists at t and there is no spatially-coincident thing at t that has G (Statue) as its primary-kind property.
      • So, either Clay (x) is not Statue-shaped, or
      • There is no appreciative art-world.
    5. If Statue (y) is immaterial, then Clay (x) x is also immaterial.
Footnote 76:
  • I don’t understand this. How can two immaterial things be spatially coincident (as in (a))? Shouldn’t clause (e) say ‘material’ (twice)? Even so, it’s superfluous.
  • It is possible – I think – for both Constitution and Mereological Composition to occur for immaterial objects.
  • A book – let us say a literary masterpiece (like a Dostoevsky novel) – is an abstract object that can be instantiated in paper or on computer disks. It has words as parts. It might also – by Baker’s lights – require a literary establishment to be recognised as a literary masterpiece.
Footnote 77:
  • This is very important for Baker. She invokes the alleged ‘coherence’ of the CV whenever she thinks the questions are begged against it.
  • However, as we will see, various epicycles have to be added to defend the concept against objections, which make me think that it is not as coherent as she would like.
Footnote 78:
  • For Leibnizian identity, see my Notes on Leibniz and Logic of Identity.
  • Presumably this ‘unity relation’ is Baker’s own invention.
Footnote 79: Footnote 80:
  • I wonder if the piece of plastic is just evidence that you have a driver’s license (or that you are legally entitled to drive vehicles of certain categories)? Much as paper money is (or used to be) a promissory note.
  • Do such quibbles matter? Linguistic conventions are important in these cases – eg. to avoid charges of multiple occupancy, double-counting and the like.
Footnote 81:
  • I’ll need to check with the above reference ("Baker (Lynne Rudder) - The Very Idea of Constitution") even to see what they mean, via examples, and to see whether there is gerrymandering going on.
  • My suspicion is that – with all these epicycles being added – constitution – as developed by Baker – is a construct rather than a discovery.
  • However, I’ll have a go at appraising them in a few footnotes below.
Footnote 82:
  • Alethic properties: It’s reasonable that such can’t be had derivatively.
    1. Sam is tall because his body is tall. But he’s not necessarily tall since he – the person – might have been constituted by a short body. Mind you, even Sam’s body isn’t essentially tall – it might have been short.
    2. The primary kind obviously cannot be inherited as the two coincident individuals are supposed to be of different primary kinds.
Footnote 83:
  • Identity / constitution / existence: I’m not sure about these; let’s see:-
    1. Identity: Well, if x and y are in a constitution relationship, then they are of different kinds, so whatever x is identical to cannot be what y is identical to.
    2. Constitution: If x is constituted by y, then y cannot be constituted by y (itself) as y is identical to itself, and constitution is a unity relation, not an identity relation.
    3. Existence: I’m not sure about this one. Surely if x constitutes y, then x and y must have the same existence conditions?
Footnote 84:
  • Time-rooted properties: apparently, this is Roderick Chisholm’s idea.
  • I think an example is required. It’s a presently had property that’s only had because its possessor existed at some earlier time.
Footnote 85:
  • Hybrid properties: I’ve no idea what these might be.
Footnote 86:
  • No they don’t – flags are rectangular – if they are (pennants aren’t) – because this is their design.
  • The cloth is cut according to this design.
  • So, the flag has the property of being rectangular in virtue of constituting the flag.
  • I’m not sure this objection undermines Baker’s account of the having of properties derivatively, but it shows it’s complicated.
Footnote 87:
  • See the above objection.
  • The cloth has all (or almost all) its properties in virtue of constituting a flag of a particular design.
  • However, a Union Jack can be made of cloth or plastic, so the material is had non-derivatively … but that’s all there is to the ‘piece of cloth’ other than what it has in virtue of constituting the flag.
  • The flag could – I suppose – have the design it has and not be a flag. If it was created by chance, or is not recognised as such, or …?
  • A bit of cloth with no design would not – in normal circumstances be a flag. The exception may be a ‘white flag’, but even this flag has a minimalist design. A white flag cannot be black.
Footnote 88: Respected flags:
  • This is a typical US sentiment. ‘The Stars and Stripes’ doesn’t have the property of being universally respected – it is vilified and burnt by enemies of ‘The Great Satan’.
  • A particular cloth flag may be respected and vilified at the same time by different individuals (imagine an Israeli flag waved during a confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians).
  • So, ‘respect’ is a relation rather than a property.
  • Even so, we might say that the piece of cloth is simultaneously respected and vilified in virtue of constituting a flag.
  • Yet, it is the flag and not the piece of cloth that is respected or vilified. The piece of cloth doesn’t inherit this property. Or so it seems to me.
Footnote 89:
  • I’ve not ‘footnoted’ these footnotes in my abstract! They appear in the main text.
  • Personally, I can’t see the problem with this.
  • The analogy for flags would be: the piece of cloth has the property of being able to survive the loss of being a flag non-derivatively (because a flag cannot survive the loss of the property of being a flag, as it is a flag essentially).
  • Presumably the piece of cloth would no longer constitute a flag if it was defaced, or civilisation ended, or …
Footnote 90:
  • This is the new definition of ‘having a property derivatively’.
  • It is subject to the various caveats on the sort of property that can be had derivatively.
Footnote 91:
  • I’ve not ‘footnoted’ these footnotes in my abstract! They appear in the main text.
Footnote 92: Footnote 93:
  • While we might be willing to accept this claim, what are Baker’s grounds for making it?
  • The list of relationships we have to our bodies are all fine – they would be just as true if we were identical to them.
Footnote 94:
  • This is rather interesting from the perspective of the CV.
  • What does ‘a replica of me’ mean? I suppose that – by Baker’s lights – a replica of me would be a replica of my body. It would have a FPP, but it would not be my FPP but would just be exactly similar to it, at least momentarily.
  • It would have this FPP in virtue of its functioning brain (and body) – I think this shows that the FPP – and therefore the person – is not an independent entity but is an experience generated by its physical realisation.
Footnote 96: Footnote 97:
  • Baker is fiddling the books here. She doesn’t want to deny that human infants are persons, despite the fact that they don’t have a FPP according to her own strict rules.
  • Her provision here would be sufficient for the development of a FPP in normal circumstances (ie. subject to the environmental provisions below).
  • However, it would exclude certain categories of ‘mental defectives’ from constituting persons.
Footnote 98:
  • Baker gives a couple of references from the 1980s which I have no intention of acquiring, though I probably need to get a handle on Developmental Psychology.
  • "Gray (Peter) - Psychology", Part 6 would be a start:-
    → "Gray (Peter) - The Development of Thought and Language", and
    → "Gray (Peter) - Social Development"
  • As noted above, Baker’s choice of birth might seem rather arbitrary and counterfactual if she claimed that the FPP was there at birth, but I think all she needs is that the new-born has a normal brain and a suitable environment for it to develop an FPP and hence become a person in the normal course of psychological development.
Footnote 99:
  • This is a rather feeble – because uncontroversial – example.
  • Situations in which the human animal is alive, but not conducive to having a FPP, would be more testing of her intuitions.
  • Also, this points out the difference between Bodies and Organisms, a Corpse (at least when ‘well dead’; death is a process) – is not an organism.
Footnote 100:
  • See my earlier comments.
  • As before, I can’t really see why this clause is necessary, but – it seems to me – Baker’s supposedly ‘general’ definition of constitution seems to be gerrymandered to tie in with her particular understanding of what we are.
Footnote 101:
  • When admitting that a dog with a FPP would be a ‘canine person’, she added the rider ‘per impossibile’.
Footnote 102: Footnote 103:
  • Baker doesn’t use these terms – ‘Second-order beliefs and desires but –given her examples – this is what she means.
  • As such, Baker claims that dogs are Wantons, as described in "Frankfurt (Harry) - Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person", or in fact, worse than wantons. Not only do they in practise not care what their beliefs and desires are, nor reflect on them – as might be the case with human wantons – but they are not capable of doing so.
  • I’m not sure how Baker thinks she knows all this about dog-psychology, but she’s probably right. It’s certainly popular wisdom to think so.
  • However, most humans are very unreflective. True, they are capable of reflecting but in practise they spend most of their lives not doing so, as Bertrand Russell (and many others, according to Quote Investigator: Most People Would Die Sooner Than Think — In Fact, They Do So) said.
  • Also, human beings don’t spend much time thinking about their mortality. Indeed it has been claimed that – at the practical day to day level – we don’t really believe we’ll die: see Ivan Ilych.
  • So, what Baker takes to be definitive of Persons is not something that most people are comfortable with. Are they not then Persons? Frankfurt thought that Wantons – in his terms – weren’t.
  • I think that Baker is unduly influenced by her Christian beliefs that the Self, and its perfection, is the essence of personhood, though I might add that New Testament Christianity isn’t univocal on this (I need to provide some evidence for this claim!). But Buddhists and Parfit think that the Self and our focus on it is pretty much the root of all evil.
  • All this may suggest that Baker’s prescriptions for what counts as a person are somewhat culture-relative.
Footnote 104:
  • I need to consider this very carefully. Baker makes lots of analogies – or what seem like analogies.
  • She says that the statue – arguably – has its shape essentially. The marble – or whatever – is fashioned into the shape it is because the artist had in his mind a certain form, we may suppose. This is analogous to the objection I made above about Flags.
  • She claims that a human person can be constituted by different bodies, but can a statue really be constituted by different lumps?
  • OK, a broken statue might be repaired and thereby be constituted by a different lump (strictly-speaking, it’s constituted by a different lump from one second to the next as the lump loses atoms).
  • But could a statue – having its shape essentially – really be constituted by different material? Could the Venus de Milo – that very statue – be made of bronze?
  • Saul Kripke asked such questions: ‘could this lectern have been made of ice?’, though this refers to origins (in particular ‘origins essentialism’) rather than future possibilities. See "Kripke (Saul) - Naming and Necessity" (Lecture III) and my Note on Origins.
Footnote 105:
  • This is where Olson gets exasperated, I think, and I have to agree with him.
  • Irrespective of whether there are ‘too many thinkers’ – surely the worrying is done by the human animal? True, it can only worry because it has the mental capacity that makes it a person, but it has this capacity ‘because it does’ (it is intrinsic to it) and is a person ‘because it has this capacity’ (and others).
  • For example, Baker is qualified to give her lecture because she’s a professor. But her professorship is based on her mental capacities combined with the existence of academia. She’s not a professor ‘constituted by’ the human animal. She couldn’t be a professor in the absence of academia, but this doesn’t mean that she (the human animal) and the professor are different individuals in some sort of close unity relation.
Footnote 106:
  • I can just about buy this, but I don’t see any reason to accept Baker’s theory in the first place.
  • There’s a clever human animal that thinks its thoughts – some shared with lower animals, others unique to human animals (or some human animals). We give it the epithet ‘person’ in recognition of its abilities, like we give it the epithet ‘professor’.
  • The first-person perspective is important, but it’s something the human animal just has. That’s all there is to it.
Footnote 107: Footnote 108: Footnote 109: Footnote 110:
  • Certainly, what counts as an artwork can depend on the art-world. Take the famous Wikipedia: Fountain (Duchamp). This is only an artwork – rather than a signed urinal – because the art-world says it is. But it’s just a urinal for all that. A new thing didn’t come into existence just because of the intention of Duchamp and the acquiescence of elements of an art-world.
  • This is a general question for artifacts. Also, cowrie shells have been used as currency.
  • Generally, this is a difficult question. I remember a discussion – I think at a London ‘Philosophy Now’ gathering – about what aliens would make of our artifacts. It was before I studied philosophy formally, and I fell into the trap of saying that aliens would recognise a chair as a chair.
  • There’s also William Paley’s ‘watch on the beach’ argument: artifice requires an artificer.
  • Presumably aliens would recognise an artifact as an artifact, even if they didn’t know what it was used for.
  • I suppose there’s also a distinction between what an artifact is ‘intended as’ and what it is ‘used for’. There’s a discussion in "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Constitution" about the use of an anvil as a doorstop.
Footnote 111: Footnote 112:
  • Why ‘Hence …’?
  • I currently fail to see the analogy between statues and clay – on the one hand – and persons and their bodies – on the other.
Footnote 113:
  • This is claim to nonsensicality is itself nonsense. Gold has all sorts of properties essentially. The definitive property is its atomic number. But this was discovered.
  • Maybe many natural kinds have properties we are yet to discover or are yet to confirm. So, it’s not nonsense to ask whether they have them.
  • Does this matter for Baker’s argument?
Footnote 114: Footnote 115:
  • This is all very muddled. I’d thought that dogs and human animals are sentient non-derivatively (because they would be sentient even if they didn’t constitute a person) but that human persons are sentient derivatively – in virtue of being constituted by a human animal.
  • But is this so?
Footnote 116:
  • Here’s the footnote that I referred to above in the definition of Constitution.
Footnote 117:
  • Surely Baker is trying to have her cake and eat it.
  • Can you really claim something is ‘univocal’ when it has different meanings according to context?
Footnote 118: Footnote 119:
  • I’m willing to accept Baker’s defence against this objection. It is described as ‘linguistic revisionism’ in "Olson (Eric) - What Are We? Constitution", but I don’t think it’s that far-fetched or counterintuitive.
  • I think the best attack against the CV is firstly to ask just what the FPP is – in particular to deny that it can be reified – and secondly to say that the CV isn’t the best explanation of the phenomena.
Footnote 120:
  • I need to cross-refer these claims to Olson’s paper, "Olson (Eric) - Reply to Lynne Rudder Baker", as he and Baker routinely talk past one another.
  • However, on these issues, I suspect it’s simply that Olson doesn’t take Baker’s views seriously – in particular her idea of having properties derivatively, and her different senses of ‘is’ – the ‘is’ of identity and the ‘is’ of constitution.
  • As for the previous objection, I don’t think this one hits the mark and that Baker has an adequate defence.
  • Consequently, I have nothing much further to say on it at the moment.
Footnote 121:
  • I need to check against Olson’s paper just what he means by ‘strictly speaking’, and whether there are alternatives to those Baker gives.
  • But I think Olson prefers ‘is’ to be univocal and to mean ‘is identical to’.
Footnotes 122, 126, 130, 134:
  • It’s not always clear when Olson and others are arguing against Baker’s views or ‘begging the question’.
Footnote 123: Footnote 124: Footnote 125: Footnote 127: Footnote 128:
  • As I’m always saying, I’m never quite sure when there really is ‘question begging’ going on and when it’s an argument against the CV.
  • So, is Baker is right to object to this premise?
  • Surely Baker denies that she is identical to her body – because she could be constituted by another one.
  • She agrees that she ‘is’ and animal, using her disjunctive revisionary linguistic usage, where ‘is’ either means ‘is identical to’ or ‘is constituted by, but premise iii is restricted to the former meaning.
Footnote 129:
  • Baker is strictly correct, of course, as the identity relation is an equivalence relation.
  • So, any two things to which I’m identical would be identical to one another.
  • But it still makes sense to ask what anything is identical to – saying it’s identical to itself is no help.
  • Basically, asking ‘to what is x identical’ is asking ‘what kind of thing is x’.
Footnote 131:
  • This may be so on the CV; the animalist would agree.
  • However, I think any analogies with artifacts are mistaken. Because a urinal can be an artwork and a cowrie shell a piece of currency – despite being identical throughout their existence (there can be no modal differences due to squishing; though I suppose a very battered cowrie shell would be little use as currency). Best to treat them like ‘students’ – they have a temporary property that they can lose without the substance-term ceasing to exist.
Footnote 132:
  • I’d hoped this analogy would be enlightening, but I don’t think it is.
  • There’s nothing wrong with the form of the argument, it’s just that there’s a premise that’s (claimed to be) false.
  • I’d hoped this would be an analogy to the Thinking Animal argument, whose form I think can lead to many absurdities.
Footnote 135:
  • The actual premise iii is:-
    → If x is not identical to x’s body (or any part of it), then there is no material object to which x is identical.
  • But the ‘question-begging’ premise is:-
    → If I am a material object, then I must be identical to my body or some part of it.
  • While the second does seem to beg the question, does the first?
Footnote 136:
  • I find these analogies hard to follow.
    1. The two artifacts listed require something external to give them their meaning and use.
    2. Genes require something external both for them to achieve their ‘aim’ and to enable them to survive and replicate.
    3. Human Persons require their constituting animals to be in a situation where they can flourish and develop into persons. But so does the ‘property’ view of persons given by animalism.
  • Are these analogies really parallel?
  • The CV is really a bundle of views – in particular, Baker’s ‘distinctive’ views of what a person is, what a FPP is and recognising an ‘ontological change’ once certain psychological capacities – those she herself happens to find particularly important – have developed.
Footnotes 137, 138: Footnote 139:
  • This is rather disingenuous. The extra causal powers that a person constituted by a body has are entirely down to that body (they are had derivatively). The person – unlike the soul – has no causal powers in its own right.
Footnote 140:
  • Baker describes Animalism as the view that persons are identical to human animals, whose persistence conditions they have.
  • She has a footnote on David Wiggins, claiming that – while he is well known for developing a theory of constitution-without-identity – he doesn’t apply it to persons and animals.
  • Baker says Wiggins takes persons to be identical to animals, but that animals are not identical to their bodies.
  • The CV takes the opposite stance on both these claims.
  • I imagine there’s a lot of misunderstanding of Wiggins’s views, which are never very clear, but I think Olson would agree with Wiggins (as expounded here by Baker).
Footnote 141:
  • Well, maybe so. But your metaphysics shouldn’t be guided by what you wish to be the case, unless it really is the case.
  • See my Note on Religion (in this context).
Footnote 142:
  • Again, maybe so – as far as metaphysics is concerned.
  • But Baker’s objection gets its purchase from our equating all these properties as equally important. No animalist claims that being a person is morally – forensically – the same as being a ‘fancier of fast cars’.
Footnote 143:
  • I deal with this in a moment. For now, I just note that this rant – preaching to the choir – is just that – a rant.
  • No animalist denies that human animals have very special properties when compared to non-human animals. But we are (very special) animals for all that.
  • I suppose many animalists would be less contemptuous of ‘the beasts’ than is Baker and her fellow travellers. Many of them have special properties that we don’t have. But taking this too far plays into Baker’s hands.
  • I’ve got a lot of literature on Animals and their capacities, covered in my Notes on Animals and Animal Rights. However, I had a quick look for ‘easy reading’ on human exceptionalism and language with respect to animals, and found a few free articles on Philosophy Now:-
    → "Forsey (Jane) - Humans and Dumb Animals"
    → "Phillips (Patrick) - Talking to the Animals"
    → "Wells (J'aime) - Language-Using Apes".
Footnote 144:
  • How can this be right? A human animal has these special properties which the person inherits.
  • Baker tries to say that the animal has them in virtue of constituting a person, but how is this supposed to work? All these wonders are down to our animal brains.
  • There’s nothing ‘biologically unmotivated’ in the differences between ourselves and other animals. All these special properties and abilities – individual and social – are a consequence of our amazing biology.
Footnote 145:
  • Well, so she does. But she jerrymanders the FPP so that other animals don’t have it. A window on the world, a perspective, a sense of self (as distinct from others), anticipation of future events, … none of this is good enough.
Footnote 146:
  • The fact of our being persons isn’t in question.
  • The issue is whether we are essentially persons. We human animals can still engage in the thoughts Baker thinks so important – even if rather rarely – during the times we qualify as persons without our being persons essentially.
  • I suppose those extra special qualities of persons aren’t really the properties of individuals but of communities that develop and pass on ideas and culture through language.
  • So, there are biological differences between ourselves and other apes: our bipedalism, opposable thumbs, greatly expanded cerebral cortex and a larynx capable of the vocal modulations that ultimately enable speech.
  • That’s where the ontological difference lies – firmly in our animal nature. It’s just that we are rather special animals.

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