Constitution theorists have argued that due to a difference in persistence conditions, persons are not identical with the animals or the bodies that constitute them. A popular line of objection to the view that persons are not identical with the animals/bodies that constitute them is that the view commits one to undesirable overpopulation, with too many minds and too many thinkers. Constitution theorists are well aware of these overpopulation concerns and have gone a long way toward answering them. However, there (...) is one mental excess worry that remains especially problematic. It is argued here that the worry about too many thoughts, or too many instantiations of mentality in general, remains a serious threat to the constitution view of persons. What exactly the threat is and how it arises is described in detail in Section III. It is then shown that attempts to allay the concern are unsuccessful. I argue, in particular, that appealing to the distinction between derivative and non-derivative instantiation fails to solve the problem. (shrink)

Among your closest associates is a certain human animal – a living, breathing, organism. You see it when you look in the mirror. When it is sick, you don't feel too well. Where it goes, you go. And, one thinks, where you go, it must follow. Indeed, you can make it move through sheer force of will. You bear, in short, an important and intimate relation to this, your animal. So too rest of us with our animals. Animalism says that (...) this relation is nothing short of identity. According to animalists, we do not only coincide with or constitute or inhabit or otherwise hang out with these close associates, our animals: we are them. In this article, I offer an opinionated take on what animalism might be and situate it against contemporary rivals. Then, I outline a simple case for animalism. Finally, I sketch non-standard routes for animalists to take in light of standard challenges. My goal in all of this is to open up some new avenues of animalist thinking. (shrink)

The view known as animalism asserts that we are human animals—that each of us is an instance of the Homo sapiens species. The standard argument for this view is known as the thinking animal argument . But this argument has recently come under attack. So, here, a new argument for animalism is introduced. The animal ancestors argument illustrates how the case for animalism can be seen to piggyback on the credibility of evolutionary theory. Two objections are then considered and answered.

Among the questions to be raised under the heading of “personal identity” are these: “What are we?” (fundamental nature question) and “Under what conditions do we persist through time?” (persistence question). Against the dominant neo-Lockean approach to these questions, the view known as animalism answers that each of us is an organism of the species Homo sapiens and that the conditions of our persistence are those of animals. Beyond describing the content and historical background of animalism and its rivals, this (...) entry explores some of the arguments for and objections to this controversial account of our nature and persistence. (shrink)

We argue that animalism is the only materialist account of personal identity that can account for the autonomy that we typically think of ourselves as possessing. All the rival materialist theories suffer from a moral version of the problem of too many thinkers when they posit a human person that overlaps a numerically distinct human animal. The different persistence conditions of overlapping thinkers will lead them to have interests that conflict, which in many cases prevents them both from autonomously forming (...) and acting on the same intentions. These problems are exacerbated by problems of self-reference plaguing the overlapping thinkers. We contend that the impossibility of simultaneous autonomous action by animals and persons provides a reason to favor animalism over Neo-Lockeanism, Four-Dimensionalism, Constitution theory, and brain-size views of the person. We anticipate and reject arguments that the autonomy of the person and the animal can be shown to be compatible by relying upon either the Parfitian thesis that identity isn’t what matters or claiming that animals acquire the interests of the person they constitute. (shrink)

It has often been claimed that orthodox thinking about personal identity undermines the moral authority of advance directives in dementia by implying that the signer of the directive is numerically different from the severely demented patient. This is the ‘identity problem'. I introduce the problem, outline some well‐known solutions, and explain why they might be deemed unattractive. I then propose an alternative solution. It promises to be compatible with orthodox thinking about personal identity. I discuss three ways in which it (...) might be challenged and find that none is convincing. Personal identity is no bar to the moral authority of advance directives. (shrink)