Author’s Conclusion
- Philosophers don't face a choice between the biological truism that we are human animals and the magnetic thesis that we would go with our cerebra. These central claims are reconcilable.
- One option is to assert that our substance kind is HUMAN ANIMAL and that cerebra can constitute humans. As we've seen, however, this stance is difficult to motivate.
- A second option is to assert that our substance kind is LOCKEAN PERSON and that HUMAN ANIMAL is our phase kind. But those who do so are saddled with the repugnant consequence that infants cease to exist at the onset of rationality and self-awareness.
- A third option is to endorse the Hybrid Theory1. What I hope to have shown is that this option is loaded with promise.
[Because …]
- For one thing, Hybrid Theorists avoid the varied difficulties brought to light by the well-known too-many-thinkers objection to neo-Lockeanism, chief among which is the epistemic problem canvassed here.
- For another, Hybrid Theorists can handle the potentially problematic divergence-case in a metaphysically robust way.
- And for yet another, Hybrid Theorists tell a superior story to both animalists and neo-Lockeans about how we come into existence and the kinds of change we can survive. This benefit in particular is well worth the ontological cost.
The Hybrid Theory2 captures the most promising answer to the question: what are we? The task now is to add to the account by addressing two related questions:
- what are our persistence conditions, and
- What is our fundamental nature?
Given that we have already derived facts about the kind to which the Hybrid Theorist assigns us from facts about animals and Lockean persons, I see no reason why satisfactory answers should be out of the Hybrid Theorist's reach.
Relevant Reading List (relevance indicated in footnotes)
- "Arnadottir (Steinvor Tholl) - Functionalism and Thinking Animals", Árnadóttir, 20103
- "Ayers (Michael R.) - Locke (Vol 2 - Ontology)", Ayers4
- "Baker (Lynne Rudder) - Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View", Baker, 20005
- "Blatti (Stephan) & Snowdon (Paul), Eds. - Animalism: Introduction", Baker, 20166
- "Berniunas (Renatas) & Dranseika (Vilius) - Folk Concepts of Person and Identity: a Response to Nichols and Bruno", Berniūnas & Dranseika, 20167
- "Blatti (Stephan) - A New Argument for Animalism", Blatti, 20128
- "Blatti (Stephan) - Headhunters", Blatti, 20169
- "Blatti (Stephan) & Snowdon (Paul), Eds. - Animalism: Introduction", Blatti & Snowdon, 201610
- "Boorse (Christopher) - Wright on Functions", Boorse, 197611
- "Campbell (Tim) & McMahan (Jeff) - Animalism and the Varieties of Conjoined Twinning", Campbell & McMahan, 201612
- "Dretske (Fred) - Knowledge and the Flow of Information", Dretske, 198113
- "Fodor (Jerry) - Psychosemantics", Fodor, 198714
- "Gallois (Andre) - Occasions of Identity : a Study in the Metaphysics of Persistence, Change, and Sameness", Gallois, 199815
- "Gillett (Carl) - What you are and the evolution of organs, souls and superorganisms: a reply to Blatti", Gillett, 201316
- "Hawley (Katherine) - How Things Persist", Hawley, 200117
- "Hawley (Katherine) - Fission, Fusion and Intrinsic Facts", Hawley, 200518
- "Johnston (Mark) - 'Human Beings' Revisited: My Body is Not an Animal", Johnston, 200719
- "Johnston (Mark) - Remnant Persons: Animalism's Undoing", Johnston, 201620
- "Liao (S. Matthew) - Twinning, Inorganic Replacement, and the Organism View", Liao, 201021
- "Locke (John), Nidditch (Peter) - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding", Locke, 197522
- "Madden (Rory) - Human Persistence", Madden, 2016a23
- "Madden (Rory) - Human Persistence", Madden, 2016b24
- "Millikan (Ruth Garrett) - An Input Condition for Teleosemantics? Reply to Shea (and Godfrey-Smith)", Millikan, 200725
- "Nichols (Shaun) & Bruno (Michael) - Intuitions about Personal Identity: An Empirical Study", Nichols & Bruno, 201026
- "Noonan (Harold) - The Closest Continuer Theory of Identity", Noonan, 198527
- "Noonan (Harold) - Animalism Versus Lockeanism: A Current Controversy", Noonan, 199828
- "Nozick (Robert) - Philosophical Explanations", Nozick, 198129
- "Olson (Eric) - Human People Or Human Animals", Olson, 199530
- "Olson (Eric) - Was I Ever a Fetus?", Olson, 199731
- "Olson (Eric) - Personal Identity", Olson, 2002a32
- "Olson (Eric) - Thinking Animals and the Reference of 'I'", Olson, 2002b33
- "Olson (Eric) - What Does Functionalism Tell Us About Personal Identity", Olson, 2002c34
- "Olson (Eric) - An Argument for Animalism", Olson, 200335
- "Olson (Eric) - Animalism and the Corpse Problem", Olson, 200436
- "Olson (Eric) - What are We? A Study of Personal Ontology", Olson, 200737
- "Olson (Eric) - The Remnant-Person Problem", Olson, 201638
- "Parfit (Derek) - Personal Identity", Parfit39
- "Parfit (Derek) - We Are Not Human Beings", Parfit, 201640
- "Shoemaker (Sydney) - Self, Body, and Coincidence", Shoemaker, 199941
- "Shoemaker (Sydney) - Persons, Animals, and Identity", Shoemaker, 200842
- Sydney Shoemaker (201143). On What We Are. In S. Gallagher (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Self (pp. 352-71). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- "Snowdon (Paul) - Persons, Animals, and Ourselves", Snowdon44
- "Sosa (Ernest) - How Must Knowledge Be Modally Related to What Is Known?", Sosa, 199945
- "Van Inwagen (Peter) - Material Beings", Van Inwagen, 199046
- "Wright (Larry) - Functions", Wright, 197347
Comment:
- For the full text, follow this link (Local website only): PDF File48.
- Retrieved from Academia.edu, 11 August 2020
- From his LinkedIn profile it looks like this was his Essay 2 (8,000 words) for his MPhil at Cambridge University, 2017-18.
- Other material from his MPhil:
→ Essay 1 (4,000 words): The Case for Pluralism about the Sources of Moral Worth
→ Thesis (12,000 words): Russell's Theory of Neutral Relations
- The Cambridge MPhil is a one-year course; looks like you can convert to PhD.
- He's currently got a lucrative job in the City, so presumably further research wasn't for him.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 3:
- Árnadóttir – Functionalism and Thinking Animals –
Footnote 4:
- Ayers: Locke - Ontology – Allegedly, p. 291 – ie. of "Ayers (Michael R.) - Neo-Lockean and Anti-Lockean Theories of Personal Identity in Analytic Philosophy" - rejects the view that “we go with our cerebrum” but rather supports the view that “… the conviction that one goes with one's cerebrum is a 'profound illusion' resulting from the consideration of the movement of one's 'rationality, self-awareness and memory... with their seat in the brain'”. I’ve not read the whole of this Chapter recently, but know that Ayers would reject Teletransportation as a means of transport, so that the feeling of the teletransportee of having travelled would be an illusion. But I couldn’t find any explicit references to Cerebra on p. 291, though the immediate context is of transplants (of equine gonads).
Footnote 5:
- Baker – Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View –
Footnote 6:
- Baker – Animalism vs. Constitutionalism –
Footnote 7:
- Berniūnas & Dranseika: Folk concepts of person and identity – Disputes the “experimental philosophy” claims of Nichols & Bruno that our intuitions are that “we go with our cerebrum”.
Footnote 8:
- Blatti – A new argument for animalism –
Footnote 9: Footnote 10:
- Blatti & Snowdon – Animalism: Introduction –
Footnote 11:
- Boorse – Wright on Functions –
Footnote 12:
- Campbell & McMahan – Animalism and the Varieties of Conjoined Twinning –
Footnote 13:
- Dretske – Knowledge and the Flow of Information –
Footnote 14:
- Fodor – Psychosemantics –
Footnote 15:
- Gallois – Occasions of Identity –
Footnote 16:
- Gillett – What you are and the evolution of organs, souls and superorganisms: a reply to Blatti –
Footnote 17:
- Hawley – How Things Persist –
Footnote 18:
- Hawley – Fission, Fusion and Intrinsic Facts –
Footnote 19:
- Johnston: “Human Beings” Revisited
- Supporter of the view that the cerebrum is the “minimal proper part of the human central-nervous-system upon which cognition sufficient for Lockean personhood depends”.
- Argues that “we go with our cerebrum” and raises the 'Remnant-Person Problem'.
Footnote 20:
- Johnston: Remnant Persons
- Examples of the distinction between Substance Kinds and Phase Kinds.
- Objections to TEs: our concepts aren’t up to deciding on Cerebrum transplants, etc, as they only deal with generalities and allow of exceptions.
- The ‘No Creation’ principle. This is the claim – in the case of a cerebrum transplant – that if this Cerebrum is a person, and it’s not the same person as the original person, then you’ve created a person by simply removing non-neural tissue (the rest of the body) that wasn’t suppressing personhood. I think this would work better with Whole Brain Transplants, as Cerebrum transplants leave behind the brain stem.
- Thinks that (p. 111) empirical research supports the idea that the cerebrum supports our mental processing and ensures the same Lockean person.
Footnote 21:
- Liao – Twinning, Inorganic Replacement, and the Organism View –
Footnote 22:
- Locke – An Essay Concerning Human Understanding –
Footnote 23:
- Madden: Human Persistence –
Footnote 24:
- Madden: Thinking Parts – denies Johnston’s ‘No Creation’ principle.
Footnote 25:
- Millikan: An Input Condition for Teleosemantics? –
Footnote 26:
- Nichols & Bruno: Intuitions about Personal Identity – Provides empirical support for the claim that our intuitions are that “we go with our cerebrum”.
Footnote 27:
- Noonan: The closest continuer theory of identity –
Footnote 28:
- Noonan: Animalism versus Lockeanism –
Footnote 29:
- Nozick: Philosophical Explanations –
Footnote 30:
- Olson: Human People or Human Animals? – (Alleged) instigator of the view that the cerebrum is the “minimal proper part of the human central-nervous-system upon which cognition sufficient for Lockean personhood depends”.
Footnote 31:
- Olson: Was I Ever a Fetus? –
Footnote 32:
- Olson: Personal Identity –
Footnote 33:
- Olson: Thinking Animals and the Reference of 'I' –
Footnote 34:
- Olson: What Does Functionalism Tell Us about Personal Identity? –
Footnote 35:
- Olson: An Argument for Animalism –
Footnote 36:
- Olson: Animalism and the Corpse Problem –
Footnote 37: Footnote 38:
- Olson: The Remnant-Person Problem
- Discusses “brain eliminativism”.
- Accepts “No Creation” (p. 149 & 151); but I think he therefore thinks – on this account – that while the displaced cerebrum is a person, it is not “you”, who remain the residual animal.
Footnote 39:
- Parfit: Personal Identity –
Footnote 40:
- Parfit: We Are Not Human Beings
- Supporter of the view that the cerebrum is the “minimal proper part of the human central-nervous-system upon which cognition sufficient for Lockean personhood depends”.
- Considers a case “similar to” one in which a cerebrum is extracted and kept on life support.
- “Believes we are the 'conscious, thinking, and controlling parts of human beings' (p. 38)”
Footnote 41:
- Shoemaker: Self, Body, and Coincidence –
Footnote 42:
- Shoemaker: Persons, Animals, and Identity –
Footnote 43:
- Shoemaker: On What We Are – “
Believes 'we are constituted by biological animals' (p. 370)” Footnote 44:
- Snowdon: Persons, Animals and Ourselves –
Footnote 45:
- Sosa: How Must Knowledge Be Modally Related to What Is Known? –
Footnote 46:
- Van Inwagen: Material Beings –
Footnote 47:
Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2024
- Mauve: Text by correspondent(s) or other author(s); © the author(s)