Constitution vs animalism Flashcards
What are sortal properties?
Sortal properties are properties that determine the kind of thing something is, carving it up in a way so that it can be counted.
What is the difference between a substance sortal and a phase sortal?
A substance sortal is a sortal property upon which a thing’s persistence depends (e.g. a cat has different persistence conditions than a table), while a phase sortal is a sortal property that things can acquire or lose without consequences for their existence (e.g. being a policeman).
What is the Constitution View by Lynne Rudder Baker?
The Constitution View states that a person is constituted by a human organism, emphasizing the importance of the first-person perspective. It posits that a person is a psychological/moral entity, and a human body is a biological entity. They are distinct, but a person can still be a person even if the human body changes.
What is the Animalism view by Eric Olson?
Animalism argues that each of us is numerically identical to an animal, and our identity conditions derive from us being animals. It posits that our persistence condition is that of a human animal, i.e., the continuation of a life.
How does the Constitution View address the question, “What makes something a human body?”
The Constitution View suggests that a human body has specific biological properties, such as DNA, and its career can be followed from beginning to end without respect to whether or not it was a person’s body. A human body is an organism and a member of the species Homo sapiens.
How does the Animalism view address the question, “What makes something a human body?”
The Animalism view does not directly address the question of what makes something a human body. Instead, it focuses on the idea that we are human animals, with our identity conditions and persistence conditions deriving from our animal nature.
What are the key objections to the Constitution View?
Key objections to the Constitution View include the complexity of the view compared to Animalism and the potential issues with identity conditions.
What are the key objections to the Animalism view?
Key objections to the Animalism view include the incompatibility with psychological continuity and the potential issues with the identity conditions.
What are potential replies to the objections against the Constitution View?
Potential replies include emphasizing the ontological novelty brought by first-person perspectives, explaining why personal persistence conditions seem to sometimes come apart from biological persistence conditions, and addressing the relationship between persons and bodies.
What are potential replies to the objections against the Animalism view?
Potential replies include emphasizing the simplicity and intuitive appeal of the view, addressing the relationship between being an animal and being a person, and responding to the issue of psychological continuity by considering the “phase sortal response” and the “Thinker argument”.
