Abstract
Roughly, animalism is the doctrine that each of us is identical with an organism. This paper explains and defends a hylemorphic version of animalism. I show how hylemorphic animalism handles standard objections to animalism in compelling ways. I also show what the costs of endorsing hylemorphic animalism are. The paper’s contention is that despite the costs, the view is worth taking seriously.
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Notes
The more common spelling is “hylomorphic,” but David Oderberg has convinced me to substitute this spelling. After all, the Greek term in question is hyle, not hylo.
For a very nice study of the problem of saying just what animalism is, see Johannson (2007).
For example, Johannson’s own account fares no better than the many alternatives he surveys, in terms of meeting his own standards of success. He tells us “x is a human person = df. (i) x is a person who can move a human animal just by intending to move and who is able to perceive the physical world via alterations to the sense organs of a human animal, and (ii) if x is material, then x is wholly organic.” Then he says that animalism is the view that “All typical human persons are identical with animals,” or perhaps “All or nearly all human persons are identical with animals.” But his account of human personhood rules that someone who becomes wholly paralyzed is no longer a human person, and his account of animalism allows for some human persons to be non-animals, which seems contrary to the whole thrust of animalism.
This is Boethius’s famous definition. For discussion of why it is not an entirely adequate definition, see Geddes (1911). The problems pointed out there aren’t relevant to my purposes here.
Plausibly. It’s no part of my project here to argue for either of those claims. Note, however, that it is essential to qualify the claim that water molecules are substances (if at all) only when they are not part of, say, a dog. For if the dog is a substance, and the water molecule is a part of the dog, then the water molecule isn’t a substance.
Cf. Loux (2006).
Of course, I’m oversimplifying my angelology here, since angels don’t fall under species in the way humans do. I take it I can ignore these details in present company.
For a brief defense of this argument, see my 2007.
This isn’t a safe assumption for the animalist to make when trying to say what human persons are, and trying to do so in a neutral way. But once they’ve said what animalism is, and argued for the view, it’s a different story.
Notice that there is no similar response available to the thinking animal problem. I have cut off the corpse problem before it could even get going, by denying the premise that death doesn’t bring about the existence of a brand new body. There is no comparable premise in the thinking animal problem.
The exception to what I’ve just said is “psychological persons.” These things, I take it, are things whose persistence conditions are psychological. I deny there are any such things (or at least that I share space with any such things), but then these are hardly commonsense objects, and so I feel no cost at all in issuing that denial.
Book 2, Lecture 3.
Book 1, Lecture 2.
De Anima pp. 417a22–417b12.
Book 2, Lecture 11.
Actually, the issue of the whole brain transplant is a tougher one here. For imagine the whole brain—stem and all—is removed from the organism. That leaves a dead body on the table (or, maybe, it leaves a very large amputated “limb” on the table). The whole brain then gets put into a brain-less body, which then “comes to life” because the brainstem of the whole brain begins to take control of the metabolic and other functions of that body. Animalists might be inclined to say that the detached whole brain is an animal—an animal that started out the day full-size, is currently very small and damaged, and will soon be full-sized again when it receives its transplanted body—and that thus you go with the brain. The brain has no sense organs, and hence cannot sense in sense two or three. But can it sense in sense one? Well, if it remains an animal it can. But what criterion do we apply to find out if it’s still an animal? In this case, we’d have to ask whether it can still sense in sense one (for our criterion for animality is sensation, and we know it can’t sense in senses two or three). But we can’t answer that, because in order to know that, we have to know if it’s still an animal. That is, I can’t claim the brain isn’t an animal without begging the question. The same point holds if I try to approach the issue from the side of the remainder. When I look at the brainless body on the table, I’m inclined to say that there has been a substantial change here: an animal has died and left its corpse. If there’s been a substantial change, and we have a dead animal on the table, then the brain is not the same animal we started out with, and hence we have no reason at all to affirm that it’s an animal at all. But the claim that an animal died during the surgery obviously presupposes that the brain is not the animal. It may be that this worry can be settled, but if so, I don’t think it will be settled simply be invoking hylemorphism.
This line of objection might seem to gather strength from ST Suppl. 81, 4, where St. Thomas asks whether the we will rise again to animal life, and answers: no. This could be read as a denial that resurrected people are animals. That would be a misreading, however. St. Thomas says no such thing. Rather, he says that we will not perform certain animal actions (such as eating, drinking, sleeping and begetting), not that we will lose the capacity to perform such action by losing our animal nature altogether. Indeed, he points out that the risen Christ was able to eat (this ability is demonstrated when Christ actually did eat), although eating was unnecessary for him.
David Oderberg has argued for this conclusion on independent grounds. Cf. Oderberg (2007).
Lee and George make a similar point in their 2008, p. 40.
The soul’s persistence is necessary, but not sufficient, for our persistence.
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Toner, P. Hylemorphic animalism. Philos Stud 155, 65–81 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9522-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9522-3