Evaluating Olson's animalism against major objections

Abstract

Animalism, in its basic form, claims that we are animals. It is a theory of personal ontology that answers the question of what we are. Olson is a notable proponent of this form of animalism, for which he coined the term “weak animalism” to distinguish it from others. The primary justification for animalism is known as the too-many-thinkers problem: there would be too many thinkers if our animals think but are not identical to us. This thesis aims at evaluating Olson’s animalism against major objections. In particular, I will focus on the constituted person objection based on Baker’s constitution view, the embodied person objection based on Parfit’s embodied person view, and the conjoined twins objection proposed by Campbell and McMahan.

Baker’s constitution view claims that we are persons constituted by, but not identical to, our animals. It is mainly justified by an argument from analogy with the marble statue case – the statue is constituted by, but not identical to, the marble piece. Being a rival theory of personal ontology, if such a view is justified, it will object to animalism. Although the debate between animalism and the constitution view is a vast topic, I will show that Baker’s view is overall more plausible than Olson’s view in certain regards. Contrary to Olson’s assumption that there is an ordinary sense for the claim that we are animals, I argue that it means differently to people with different metaphysical mindsets. And it would be in the derivative sense for a constitutionalist. I will also explain Baker’s definition of “having properties derivatively” to resolve the misunderstandings between Olson and Baker.

Parfit’s embodied person view claims that we are persons identical to our brains that are now embodied by our animals. It is mainly justified by offering intuitive solutions to problems, including the transplant problem and the remnant-person problem, to which animalism has offered unintuitive answers. However, Olson has successfully pointed out two problems in Parfit’s theory – the dead-brain-in-formaldehyde problem and the too-many-brains problem, as I call them. Hence, Parfit’s view is not better than Olson’s view and does not amount to a strong objection to animalism.

The conjoined twins objection is the strongest among all three. As an objection by counterexamples, it remains uncommitted to a specific personal ontology on which Olson can cast doubts. I evaluate both Olson’s and Liao’s defences for animalism and find them unsatisfactory. I argue that animalists can dissolve both the cephalopagus argument and the dilemma for animalism by arguing that a human cephalopagus is biologically implausible. Since the dicephalus argument should be what remains that challenges animalism, I strengthen it by developing spectrums of cases based on the Hensel twins case. I argue that, with any sensible definition of animal, it is difficult for animalists to count there being two overlapping animals in certain dicephalus cases on the spectrums. I conclude that the too-many-thinkers problem should be answered in a non-animalist way.