Abstract
I don’t think Lynne Rudder Baker’s constitution view can account for personal identity problems of a synchronic or diachronic nature. As such, it cannot accommodate the Christian’s claim of eschatological bodily resurrection-a principle reason for which she gives this account. In light of this, I press objections against her constitution view in the following ways: First, I critique an analogy she draws between Aristotle’s “accidental sameness” and constitution. Second, I address three problems for Baker’s constitution view [‘Constitution Problems’ (CP)], each more problematic than the next: CP1: Her definition of constitution lacks explanatory power; CP2: If there is a plausible definition of constitution, constitution implies either too many persons or no human persons at all; CP3: Constitution yields no essential distinction between human and divine persons. If my argument(s) go through, her constitution view has neither an explanation for diachronic personal identity nor personal identity through resurrection.
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Notes
Thanks to Ryan Mullins and Roger Turner for helpful comments on previous drafts.
In this paper, Baker uses, instead of the Theseus example, a similar thought experiment with a piece of marble, Piece, and the statue it composes, David. The idea is that Piece and David have different modal properties and so are not identical.
Baker’s is not the only constitution view on offer. But it does seem to be the most widely discussed in the literature, particularly with respect to resurrection metaphysics. This is particularly so with respect to Christian philosophical views of the human person and the resurrection of the dead. Kevin Corcoran also holds a constitution view; however, his differs in important ways. See Corcoran (1999) and Rea (2000).
This definition has been amended from her original version found in Baker (2000, p. 95).
Baker likewise uses ‘Jones’ and Body’ in this way in (Baker 2001a).
Baker wants clause (2) of (C*) to render ‘spatially coincident’ ‘loosely’ because she thinks it difficult to figure out how to understand ‘absolute spatial coincidence.’ Cf. Baker (2007b, p. 161, note 3). On the same page she says, “Hence, when we require that the constituter and the constituted object be spatially coincident, we cannot be requiring absolute spatial coincidence.” Baker asks the reader to look into her argument in Persons and Bodies concerning this ‘absolute spatial coincidence’ to make her point. In Baker (2000, pp. 209–212), she runs some such argument about constituters and constituted objects not being wholly spatially coincident through the example of a Body and an ectoplasmic Ghost. I am not at all sure how it is supposed to be relevant to Body and Jones. How does a person not share the same exact location as the body by which it is constituted? Surely Jones is just at one time and one place only. The ‘Ghost’ story is about two nonderivatively material objects, but presumably Jones qua person is only derivatively material—he borrows his material from Body.
See, for example, Olson (2001).
A condition like this seems like a potential candidate for relieving a human animal of the ability to carry on the first-person perspective of a human person, Baker’s necessary and sufficient condition for personhood. See, for example, Baker, (2007b, p. 69ff).
For her explanation of the kinds of conditions within which a human body would not constitute a human person, see Baker, (2000, p. 91ff). The particulars do not matter for the purposes of my current task.
According to Baker, excluded properties are things like ‘is essentially a G’. So, while an object may have ‘G’ derivatively, it cannot have ‘is essentially a G’ derivatively. See below on ‘derivative’ and ‘nonderivative’ properties.
I couch ‘Body’ in gender-neutral terms, i.e., ‘it’. But this raises an interesting question for Baker. Are human animals male and female on account of genetic makeup and anatomical physiology or are human animals only designated male and female on account of their constitution relations with particular persons? If particular persons are designated male and female wholly apart from the animal organisms that constitute them, what about a particular person makes one male or female (at least, in a non analogical way)? This seems to me an interesting question, but one for a later time.
I take it that properties had derivatively by an object x are properties accidental to x.
See, for example, Baker (2007b, p. 69ff).
I realize that even this is a contentious claim. However, I simply take it as given that there is such a thing as numerical identity even if the definitions are or appear to be circular. If anything, I think that numerical identity is just the definition of ‘identity’ and is not further analyzable. I do not know what to take as more basic than a thing is identical to itself and nothing else. Identical twins, for example, are ‘identical’ in an equivocal sense. There are obviously two separate things here, hence ‘twin’. What one means by ‘identical’ in this sense just means something like ‘qualitatively extremely similar’ and ‘born at the same time and from the same womb’. In other words, there is at least one quality that identical twins do not share (e.g., location). For further discussion, see: Noonan (2011).
See her (2007b, p. 170). She states explicitly that she does not want to undo the ‘classical notion of identity’. Well, the ‘classical notion’ is that numerical identity is strict identity.
Her parenthetical phrase. My emphasis.
In an earlier paper, Baker explicitly notes that “...constitution, our target relation, is not identity of any sort. Constitution is rather one of those relations ‘that behave in some respects like identity but do not hold of necessity.”’ See: Baker (1997, p. 612). I am unsure whether this statement clarifies her metaphysics goals or not.
She cites an unpublished version of Matthews’s manuscript entitled “Aristotle’s Theory of Kooky Objects.” The topic of Coriscus and accidental sameness (i.e., accidentally one) is taken up by Aristotle in Book \(\Delta \) of Aristotle (1966).
See, for example, Aristotle’s discussion in Aristotle (1966, p. 59–64). Also, this is precisely what Aristotle seems to imply in his discussion of Coriscus in Aristotle (1966, p. 79): “...it is by accident that [masked] and “a man” are predicates of some one individual as Coriscus. However, the two belong to him not in the same way, but the one perhaps as a genus and in the substance [man], the other as a habit or an affection [masked] of the substance. All things that are said to be one by accident, then, are so said in this way.” My inserts. Aristotle’s example uses ‘musical’ instead of ‘masked’. I changed it to keep with it consistent with the picture above.
As Marc Cohen rightly notes on this issue, ‘entity’ in its primary Aristotelian sense means ‘substance’. This is not the kind of entity about which Aristotle speaks in relation to the accidental unity of the masked man and the unmasked man. But, for Baker, the constitution relation is not between ‘entities’ in a non-substantial sense, as she makes clear. So, asking for Aristotle’s help will not do. See: Cohen, (2008, p. 4–6). Further, it might also be worth noting that, if Alvin Plantinga is correct, certain properties accidental to a particular possible world are still essential to particular persons as ‘world-indexed properties’. So, for Coriscus, it might be the case that ‘being masked at t in world W’, say, is an essential world-indexed property. In W*, then, Coriscus still has the property ‘being masked at t in world W’, even though, in W*, Coriscus it not masked. If something like world-indexed properties is true, accidental differences across possible worlds do nothing to demonstrate anything remotely like numerical distinction or non-identity in the strict sense. Coriscus will have world-indexed properties essentially. So, he will have ‘being masked at t in W’ and ‘being not-masked at t* in W*’ in all possible worlds. Sharing all of these modal properties indicates that Coriscus in W is numerically identical (strictly identical) to Coriscus in W*. See Plantinga (1974, p. 60ff).
I submit that this statement does not bode well for Trinitarian theology, a theology to which I hold. However, suffice it to say, in my opinion, Trinitarian discussions are quite distinct from the metaphysics of concrete physical things (e.g., dogs, humans, statues, ships, etc.). In any case, maybe constitution works for Trinitarian theology. But, even if it does, it does not follow that it likewise works for the Triune God’s creatures. This, though, is a topic for a later time. For a recent discussion and use of constitution metaphysics on the Doctrine of the Trinity, see Hasker (2013).
This is a charge Baker lays against Eric Olson: “(a) Olson takes as a premise in an argument against me that if x is a person and y is a person and x and y are not “numerically identical,” then there are two persons. This cannot be a premise in a non-question-begging argument since it is just a denial of one of my premises (see (P1) on p. 173).” From Baker (2001b). So, here she asks the reader, and presumably Olson, to check the first premise of an argument she has already addressed. That argument, in Baker (2000, p. 173), is this:
(\(\hbox {P}_{1}\)) If x is an F & y is an F & x \(\ne \) y & x is spatially coincident with y, then there are two spatially coincident Fs.
(\(\hbox {P}_{2}\)) David is a statue, and Piece is a statue, and David \(\ne \) Piece, and David and Piece are spatially coincident.
\(\therefore \) (\(\hbox {C}_{1}\)) There are two spatially coincident statues.
She claims here that (P1) begs the question against the constitution view because it does not take into account the possibility of a constitution relation. It needs, she says, an ‘augmented’ antecedent in this way: “...and neither x constitutes y nor y constitutes x...” Since (P1) does not have this augment, she thinks it begs the question.
And, of course, it could be an ‘is of predication’ such that ‘x is an F’ just means that ‘x has the property F’.
She says: “Constitution is a relation between things of different primary kinds [e.g., person and human organism]. Constitution brings into existence new objects of higher-level primary kinds than what was there before [e.g., a human person].” My inserts.
See the quote from (Baker 2005, p. 384) above.
Notice that I am not committing Baker to the claim that ‘when the human person ceases to exist, the person ceases to exist.’ I do, though, think Baker is committed to the claim that ‘when the human person ceases to exist, the person ceases to exist, but the human does not.’ Thanks to Roger Turner for bringing up this needed clarification.
Eric Olson offers a similar critique in his Olson (2001). He suggests that, what I refer to as ‘bare persons’ are those who are essentially persons and what I call ‘human persons’ those that are accidentally persons. I think my view is a bit more precise. For Baker can always counter that human persons are both essentially person and animal where neither the person nor the human animal is. Because of this possible rejoinder, I offer that there are either no human persons or else there is a person and a human person.
See “preliminaries: primary kinds and constitution” section.
Perhaps there is one more option. At constitution, Jones is killed and Sjones comes into existence. Then, at the death of the human organism, and the breaking of the constitution relation, Sjones dies and Jones comes back to life. This is an odd possibility, probably one that Baker will not endorse. It seems to imply that Jones can pop in and out of existence whilst retaining identity, among other bizarre features. Notice, also, that if Jones is a mere person and Sjones a human person, they are two distinct primary kinds—this is fundamental to Baker’s constitution. And, since they are two distinct primary kinds, they are substances. Since they are both substances and they are non-identical (they have differing persistence conditions), they are two persons (one with the essential properties of person simpliciter and one with the essential properties of both human organism and person simpliciter. The question, then, is whether they both coexist in the constitution relation or whether one dies (Jones) or never begins to exist (Sjones). Thanks to Roger Turner for pointing out a need for this clarification.
But that does not keep her from trying! She says: “First, according to the Constitution View, I am essentially embodied; although I do not necessarily have the body that I in fact have now, I never can exist without any body at all” (Baker 2001a, p. 16). But here is the problem. Lynne Baker, on Constitution, is not essentially a human person, she is essentially a person. And, persons qua persons are not essentially embodied!
Oddly enough, this does not stop Baker from claiming that persons are essentially embodied. Olson calls her out on this in Olson (1999, p. 164).
Notice that Baker’s constitution implies that persons neither need embodiment for personhood nor existence. Perhaps, though, Baker will insist that ‘Jones’ and ‘human person’ are interchangeable for the variable ‘F’ in the (Same-F) criteria. In this way, Person and Body are the same Jones/Human Person just in case Person and Body are in constitution relations. In this way Baker can say that Jones is identical to a human person because Jones is the product of a constitution relation between a person and Body. But this seems disastrous for Baker. On her view, if a human person goes out of existence by virtue of his human animal going out of existence, the person supposedly continues to exist. But who is this person? Surely it is not Jones for Jones is numerically/strictly identical to a human person. The continuing person would have to be someone else. Might, then, a human person constitute Jones? No, because, if so, this means that a human person—a person in its own right—constitutes Jones, presumably a person in her own right. This leads to the charge of overcrowding. Brian Garrett is utterly dumbfounded by Baker’s notion that “although human persons are not essentially human (they may have [i.e., survive in] inorganic bodies), anything that begins existence as a human person is essentially embodied” (Garrett 2001). He stresses that he finds no argument for this thesis. Obviously, I share with Garrett (at least!) this confusion.
I take it that, if disembodied things exist in the order of creation (e.g., angels), then ‘physically possible’ is used here extremely loosely just to mean ‘whatever is possible in the order of creation.’
Or, if one wants to quibble, if God is not one person but three (which I take to be true), then ‘divine nature’ is, in some way, said of the three divine persons. At any rate, given Baker’s constitution, it turns out that I, as a primary kind person, and The Father, as a primary kind person, are essentially the same. We just happen to be constituted by different things.
If one counts Mormonism as a Christian sect, then it seems like Mormonism might be open to this possibility. I take it that Lynne Baker is not a Mormon.
Name any individual person you like. Being a kind of person will be essential to her. This will entail a rejection of the idea that constitution, if such there be, is a contingent relation.
This is a criticism that relates closely with what J. P. Moreland says in Moreland (2009, p. 133).
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Turner, J.T. No explanation of persons, no explanation of resurrection: on Lynne Baker’s constitution view and the resurrection of human persons. Int J Philos Relig 76, 297–317 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-014-9463-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-014-9463-4