Abstract
Animalism is the view that we are animals: living, breathing, wholly material beings. Despite its considerable appeal, animalism has come under fire. Other philosophers have had much to say about objections to animalism that stem from reflection on personal identity over time. But one promising objection (the `Elimination Argument') has been overlooked. In this paper, I remedy this situation and examine the Elimination Argument in some detail. I contend that the Elimination Argument is both unsound and unmotivated.
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Notes
“I imagine that most philosophers could easily rattle off half a dozen arguments against “Animalism”, as the view that you and I are animals is sometimes called. Here are a few favourites: (i) 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. (ii) Persons and animals have different persistence conditions: the organism that is you 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. (iii) 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. (iv) 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” (Olson 1998, pp. 396–397).
Hudson (2007, p. 218).
Indeed, Hudson identifies and dismisses five others. Hudson (2007, p. 233).
Hudson’s presentation of the argument proceeds through a fascinating discussion of Four-Dimensionalism, Universalism, the Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetached Parts, and more. Since I will not take issue with anything Hudson has to say about those matters, I will concentrate my attention just on this short version of the Elimination Argument.
F is characteristic of G-ness, let us say, just in the case that either (a) what it is to be an F is (perhaps among other things), to be a G, or (b) it is a generic truth that Fs are Gs. (Generics, as I understand them, admit of exceptions—ducks lay eggs is a generic truth even though no male duck lays an egg).
Thanks to Brad Rettler for this story-kernel.
Thanks to an anonymous referee for pressing this point.
References
Hudson, H. (2007). I am not an animal! In P. van Inwagen & D. Zimmerman (Eds.), Persons: Human and divine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Merricks, T. (2001). Objects and persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Olson, E. (1995). Why I have no hands. Theoria, 61, 182–197.
Olson, E. (1997). The human animal. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Olson, E. (1998). Human atoms. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 76, 396–406.
Olson, E. (2007). What are we? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
van Inwagen, P. (1990). Material beings. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to an anonymous referee, H.E. Baber, Hud Hudson, Al Plantinga, Mike Rea, Alex Skiles, and audiences at the Alabama Philosophical Society and the Central APA for comments and criticism. A special thanks to Brad Rettler for helping me---in this and in all of my projects---to think more clearly.
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Bailey, A.M. The elimination argument. Philos Stud 168, 475–482 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0132-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-013-0132-8