Theo Todman's Web Page - Paper Abstracts

Write-up₁ (as at 28/07/2026 11:13:55): Animalism - Objections

Plug Note²

• Thesis Text:
  1. In "Olson (Eric) - Human Atoms", Olson mentions four “favourite objections”, though these strike me as being rather feeble, and I suspect them of being straw men: they may be favoured by objectors, but are also Olson’s ‘favourites’ as they are easy to bat away. I will assess them :-
     1. If you were an animal, you would be identical with your body (or at any rate with some human body). But no human body can think or feel or act, as you can.
     2. Persons and animals have different persistence conditions: the organism that is your body could outlive you (if you lapsed into a persistent vegetative state), or you could outlive it (if your brain were transplanted and the rest of you destroyed). But a thing cannot outlive itself.
     3. Persons and animals have different criteria of synchronic identity: any human animal could be associated with two different persons at once (as cases of split personality). Thus, no person is an animal.
     4. These experiences – the ones I am having now – are essentially mine. But they are only contingently associated with any particular animal. Hence, I have a property that no animal has.
     The above paper is intended, however, to rebut the argument against animalism in "Lowe (E.J.) - Subjects of Experience", which has the unlikely consequence that we are “mereological atoms”.
  2. Otherwise, a convenient starting-point for reviewing objections to Animalism is in "Olson (Eric), Etc. - Abstracta Special Issue on 'The Human Animal'". The symposium starts with "Olson (Eric) - Precis of 'The Human Animal'", a very brief account that hardly does what it says on the tin. Otherwise, the symposium contains the following papers:-
     → "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Big-Tent Metaphysics"
     → "Markosian (Ned) - Three Problems for Olson's Account of Personal Identity"
     → "Zimmerman (Dean) - Problems for Animalism"
     → "Olson (Eric) - Replies to Baker, Markosian & Zimmerman"
     → "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Response to Eric Olson"
  3. "Hudson (Hud) - I am Not an Animal!" argues against animalism via the “Elimination Argument”. "Bailey (Andrew M.) - The Elimination Argument" seeks to rebuff it.
  4. The objections from the above papers may be lidted as follows. I intend to elucidate and answer these objections – or supply and critique Olson’s answers – below, though some may require – or be already covered by – their own Notes appearing later in this Chapter or elsewhere:-
     1. Baker’s ‘Big Tent Metaphysics’
     2. Markosian’s ‘Mummy’ problem.
     3. Markosian’s ‘Corpse Problem’
     4. Markosian’s ‘Salamander Problem’
     5. Zimmerman’s critique of Olson’s Master Argument³.
     6. Zimmerman’s presentation of Chisholm’s Entia Successiva Argument.
     7. Zimmerman’s ‘Vagueness of Animals’ Argument.
     8. Hudson’s ‘Elimination’ Argument.
        
  5. Elselijn Kingma has accused animalists of not taking Pregnancy⁴ as an important issue for Animalism. She thinks that the Fetus⁵ is a part of the mother. My view is that animals can share parts, as seems to be necessary for Conjoined Twins⁶, which are another supposed objection to animalism if it could be successfully argued that there is only one animal in these cases.
  6. Otherwise, objections – which may be eaten up by the papers above – include:-
     • The most obvious objection is to the initial implausibility of Animalism’s basic contention that – because I was once a fetus⁷ and may one day suffer from dementia or end up in a Persistent Vegetative State⁸ – psychological continuity⁹ or connectedness¹⁰ can have nothing to do with my persistence criteria¹¹. Animalists can be accused of not taking persons sufficiently seriously¹².
     • Additionally – covered above by Markosian – Animalists are said to have a “corpse problem¹³”. Because I am co-located with my “corpse-to-be”, the Animalist is hoist by his own petard, in that he has the analogue of the “fetus problem¹⁴” he alleges against the₁₅ Psychological View¹⁶. I cover this exhaustively in my Note on Corpses¹⁷ in Chapter 11.
     • A spin-off from the alleged irrelevancy of psychology for human identity is the need to deny the Brain Transplant¹⁸ intuition – that “I go where my brain goes”. The Transplant Intuition has been defended from an animalist perspective in "Madden (Rory) - Human Persistence".