Anyway, I started reading the article linked in the OP, and I really didn't like it, so I'll leave this issue to the other participants. — Wayfarer

But that details the argument under discussion. In fairness to @NOS4A2, he's tried to keep things on track by providing context.

OK, I think I actually clicked with this comment. The bit about being numerically identical with a human animal makes more sense. The desired answer is No. We are fundamentally something else, and we only have temporary control (a free will thing) over this particular animal. Is that it? — noAxioms

The animalist would claim that those who argue "no" are wrong. That it's incoherent to consider ourselves as fundamentally something other than a human animal.

In that case, my question becomes, at what point in the evolutionary history of h.sapien did this animal suddenly cede its self control to something else? — noAxioms

That's a problem for those who disagree with animalism as a philosophical position.

The argument in the OP still seems to make no sense. It seems to beg that the human animal in the chair is complete, not requiring a separate thing to do its thinking. There's all kinds of problems with the model of the animal not doing the thinking, but that doesn't seem to be the point here. — noAxioms

There are several ways to critique the argument as it's laid out but @Wayfarer's issue seemed to rest on a misunderstanding re human (as in human animal) vs "we" (persons).

It’s fine to quibble about that but according Olson and animalism in general it is statement about our fundamental nature.

But I do find it extraordinary that we are the last extant species of human beings.

I think those who deny it want to believe that there is a human spirit or soul or essence which is not of this world. It seems to me something like that would be the real motivation to deny that we are animals.

This is it. I also wager this motivation is the beginning of all such theories that are platonic or idealistic. It satisfies some impulse to raise man above everything else, simply because he cannot find value in man if he does otherwise.

And what do animals value, then?

The things of this world. What else is there?

So, you think that would mean something to an animal? Sure you're not being a tad anthropomorphic there?

It seems a bit self-congratulatory to invent a concept (like "value", "meaning", whatever) and then pat ourselves on the back for being the only animal to make use of said concept. Might as well brag about being the only animal to play checkers.

And what do animals value, then? — Wayfarer

Food, territory, mates, power in a hierarchy, freedom of movement and lots of other things. Just because animals don't have explicit values they can articulate to us---as they are non-linguistic---does not mean we can't infer from their behaviour that they (depending on their species) value many of the same types of things we do.

In any case, listing differences between us and other animals does not necessarily bear on whether we are animals. Animals differ widely between each other too. Corals are animals and so are apes. The argument could be made that there are more and more striking differences between apes and corals than between us and apes and yet both are indisputably animals.

In any case, listing differences between us and other animals does not necessarily bear on whether we are animals. Animals differ widely between each other too. Corals are animals and so are apes. The argument could be made that there are more and more striking differences between apes and corals than between us and apes and yet both are indisputably animals. — Baden

That's exactly right. So the question becomes why it matters, one way or the other. One obvious candidate is the belief in some version of the immortal soul. Another is some version of the idea that the animal world, like the mineral one, is just there for us to exploit or, more politely, to adapt to our values and needs.

It's not a metaphysical claim, it's a linguistic one. We can define an animal as anything we want. It's a question of values - some people want to separate humans from animals for social, religious, or spiritual reasons. There is no scientific reason to do so. — T Clark

Well, there couldn't be a scientific reason for a definition that was made only for social, religious or spiritual reasons. But there might be good social, religious or spiritual reasons for some definitions. It all depends on what one considers a good reason to be - and, as you say, that comes down to a question of values.
What puzzles me most is why there is no recognition here that a given organism always falls under several classifications. In biology, there are species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, and domain. The method of classification of animals and plants (called cladistics) is according to the proportion of measurable or like characteristics that they have in common. The agenda behind this (or part of it) is that it is assumed that the higher the proportion of characteristics that two organisms share, the more recently they both came from a common ancestor.

I suppose if some one said that human beings are machines, they might be taken to say that human beings are just machines. But that's a misunderstanding. We can think of ourselves as machines for certain purposes in certain contexts, and as animals for other purposes in other contexts, and as people, not to mention as male/female, adult/child and so on. So the substantive question becomes when it is useful or appropriate to think of human beings as animals and when is it not useful or inappropriate to think of them as something else.

I would tend to agree with Philip Cary that a defining feature of the ancient/medieval and modern splits is:
- Modern man worries about becoming a machine.
-Ancient/medieval man worries about degenerating into a brute. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, that seems right. But nothing is that simple. There is also the comfortable reflection that, thank God, we are not either.

So the question becomes why it matters, one way or the other. One obvious candidate is the belief in some version of the immortal soul. — Ludwig V

Well, there couldn't be a scientific reason for a definition that was made only for social, religious or spiritual reasons. But there might be good social, religious or spiritual reasons for some definitions. — Ludwig V

So the substantive question becomes when it is useful or appropriate to think of human beings as animals and when is it not useful or inappropriate to think of them as something else. — Ludwig V

Yes, I agree. For me, the main point is that it is a matter of values and not a matter of fact. In that case, it becomes a question of whether humans should be considered animals rather than whether they are or aren't.

It’s fine to quibble about that but according Olson and animalism in general it is statement about our fundamental nature. — NOS4A2

As I noted in my response to Ludwig V, that's a matter of values and not of fact, which is fine as long as we recognize it.

As I noted in my response to Ludwig V, that's a matter of values and not of fact, which is fine as long as we recognize it.

What would the fact be, then?

What would the fact be, then? — NOS4A2

Applying criteria established based on observation and a consensus of qualified scientists, humans are classified as animals.

Yes, I agree. For me, the main point is that it is a matter of values and not a matter of fact. In that case, it becomes a question of whether humans should be considered animals rather than whether they are or aren't. — T Clark

Yes, for the purposes of biology, h. sapiens is just another species. But it would be absurd to apply economic theory to a hive of bees or termintes. But it is not a question is once-for-all; it is pragmatic. For example, people need food and shelter, just the same as their animals; they suffer and die from diseases, just the same as their animals. But it would be absurd to grant animals the right to vote; that belongs to people. Again, in the context of athletics, working out how best to throw a discus requires regarding the body as a machine; for many medical purposes the heart is just a pump. And so on.

it would be absurd to apply economic theory to a hive of bees or termintes — Ludwig V

And yet...

The Economy of the Hive

Inside the hive there functions a vibrant community, with an economy similar to that of any other society. The bee economy is based upon the harvesting and processing of resources, the trade of products, doting care for the youngsters and parents, wise savings, deficit spending, a hierarchy of jobs, national defense, and an exquisite communication that allows democratic decision making. — Randy Oliver - ScientificBeekeeping.com

But it is not a question is once-for-all; it is pragmatic. — Ludwig V

But not just pragmatic, also ethical, moral.

If we are human animals, and human animals are persons, we ought to extend personal identity to the limits of the human animal’s life instead of limiting its application to the fleeting moments of psychological awareness or memory. Without doing so it is impossible to say whether a person is born or a person dies, and persons that are never born or never die is inconceivable. While it can be said that human animals are born and do die, unless personhood is extended to these limits, the same cannot be said of persons.

I suppose it depends on how you want to define persons. Harry Frankfurt had an influential paper that defined persons as entities that have second-order volitions, i.e. the effective desire to have a certain desire. See: https://philosophy.tamucc.edu/notes/frankfurts-theory

But by this criteria, personhood is something that has to be fostered and developed. On the Platonic view, we might always be persons in some sense, but we become more fully persons and more fully ourselves when reason unifies the person (as opposed to being a seething composite of conflicting passions and appetites).

This doesn't require that we are only persons when conscious though, because reason reaches down and "trains" (to use the imagery of the Phaedrus) the passions and appetites. So, we might consider how Aristotle thinks of virtue as a habit. It is something we can train ourselves to or that we can have trained into us. And this indeed is consistent with contemporary science on habit.

So, even though many of our choices are reflexive or less than fully conscious, it can still be the case that our very reflexes are shaped by our more intentional choices. The same is true of "the environment," since we can shape the sort of environment, we find ourselves in.

I think this is also very relevant for the free will debate, because it shows how, even if conscious, self-aware action built on proper understanding only represents a minority of our acts, it can nonetheless shape the course of are entire lives. A good example might be joining the Marines or the priesthood. Now, this might be done impulsively, but if it is done very intentionally, with full understanding, it is also a way to "lock in" one's environment in a way that is conducive to what one truly thinks is best.

That said, I think animalism gets at something important, which is that the human is a specific sort of biological organism, and facts relative to this shape "the human good." So, while it seems to be the case that the "human good" will always be filtered through culture and social practice (we are a social animal), it is also true that facts outside or prior to culture and social practice shape this good. An understanding of the human as animal can be very important here.

And I like animalism because it isn't reductive. I have a lot of overlap with folks like Sam Harris, who think that science can tell us things about the "human good." However, I think Harris' analysis goes off the rails by being overly reductive, reducing persons to brains and brains to neurons. In many cases though, what we care about in promoting the human good is not neuroscience, but more general principles that allow us to shape the world and understand it and ourselves.

Man as animal gets at this, although I can also see how it can be too limiting. If man is "just an animal," we might start to think that the human good is just sensations of well-being, not the development of the person, the development of freedom and self-determination, etc. Yet the development of self-determination, I'd argue, is key to the human good and to ensuring well-being (e.g. the citizens of A Brave New World have an unstable well-being because it will collapse if their economy is disrupted and they cannot get their drugs and entertainment, whereas folks like Boethius, Socrates, St. Ignatius, etc. can be sublime while sitting in prison cells awaiting death.)

Thanks for the insight, and I think you’re right. The idea that we are animals, and not angels or something, proves to be a good foundation upon which to reach further metaphysical and ethical insights that might not only prove to be beneficial, but accurate. At any rate it leaves the idealistic and dualistic theories wanting.

As far as I can tell the debate around personhood currently evolves around the conditions of our identity through time, the psychological or physical “continuity”. Animalism suggests the latter. If this is so it appears to me, at least, that the only thing that does persist is the animal, and personhood ought to be granted to it rather than its psychological conditions.

I didn't see it, probably missed it; will someone be kind enough to refer me to where the significant terms in this thread are given even a tentative definition?

Why is the idea that we are animals seemingly unpopular among philosophers? — NOS4A2

I didn't know people denied this. Certainly not here at TPF. Most here take it further, and say there is no difference between us and the other species.

The animalist would claim that those who argue "no" are wrong. That it's incoherent to consider ourselves as fundamentally something other than a human animal. — Baden

So then how is animalism vs. not-animalism any different than a stance of physical monism vs dualism?

I didn't know people denied this. — Patterner

Exactly. There are plenty of monist philosophers, and the only difference is that they don't choose this particular term to describe their identical view.

Thanks for the insight, and I think you’re right. The idea that we are animals, and not angels or something, — NOS4A2

It isn't an animal vs angel (or any other non-earth-evolved life form). It is an assertion of us being no more than what any other animal is. There's nothing additional (spirit, whatever goes to heaven say) on top of it that the animals don't have.

I didn't see it, probably missed it; will someone be kind enough to refer me to where the significant terms in this thread are given even a tentative definition? — tim wood

Not sure what terms you need, but per the quoted argument in the OP, this is what I got, and certainly did not get at first:

A human animal is our physical body, that which is an individual of a species evolved from the earliest members of the animal kingdom.

A person (or thinking being) is all of you, including especially any part that persists after death. The argument asserts that the two are the same thing, and its opponents assert otherwise. The argument seems to be more of an assertion and seems to employ zero signficant logic in coming to its conclusion, but those in opposition do little better, typically arguing from incredulity or something.


Professional philosophers are often in the capacity of supporting the beliefs they have been taught. The priests take your money in exchange for promises made regarding your fondest wish: Everlasting pain free life, which requires a fancy story behind it to explain why everybody who has paid the price seems to still obviously not become immortal. So that story has to be rationalized, and that's one of the reasons so many philosophers looks for ways to do so.

Somewhere in my teens I became mature enough to realize that the priests were snake oil salesmen. Not the lower ones who genuinely believe what they've been taught, but the upper ones who make up the stories. So while it took a while to abandon the god and the immortality story, it what a pretty quick death of my opinion of how the church leveraged it all.

And yet... The Economy of the Hive — T Clark

Yes, quite so. I realized after I signed off that I was wide open to that. If economics is about allocation of resources in a system, then an economy will be an aspect of any society.

Tentatively, I wondered whether any animals have an equivalent of money and I'm a bit sceptical about the claim that bees indulge in trade.

If we are human animals, and human animals are persons, we ought to extend personal identity to the limits of the human animal’s life instead of limiting its application to the fleeting moments of psychological awareness or memory. — NOS4A2

I hadn't thought about this. I guess I assumed that a given human is the same machine, the same animal and the same person throughout their life - normally and paradigmatically. But there are questions about psychological identity (self-identity) and social identity that make it more complicated than that.
Worse than that, many animals have capacities that are at least person-like and a certain (complicated\) moral status - though no-one, so far as I know, thinks that they are morally responsible agents.
But I do agree that the identity of persons (and animals and other creatures) ought to be defined in terms of a life-cycle, not as something that is unchanging throughout life. I also think that my identity as a person is, to a great extent, a moral and a social question, not a psychological one.

But by this criteria, personhood is something that has to be fostered and developed. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, that's certainly true. The phenomena around feral children seem to confirm that and, in my understanding, suggest that there is a "window" in our development when those abilities need to be learnt, or are best learnt.

I didn't know people denied this. Certainly not here at TPF. Most here take it further, and say there is no difference between us and the other species. — Patterner

Yes, some people do say there is no difference. But if that were true, the species homo sapiens could not be defined. The issue is what the significance of the differences is. The objection is to the idea of human exceptionalism; I mean the attitude that thinks that animals have no moral claim on us and can be treated in the same way(s) that we treat any other physical resource.

The argument seems to be more of an assertion and seems to employ zero signficant logic in coming to its conclusion, — noAxioms

That may be because the debate is not really about a matter of fact, but a question of attitude and values.

Might as well brag about being the only animal to play checkers. — goremand

As if that is the sum total of our achievements….

As if that is the sum total of our achievements…. — Wayfarer

The analogy holds, any contest or hierarchy we've ever used to put ourselves above other beings has also been of our own invention. To my mind it's really quite a pathetic thing to do, inventing a game just to win it.

As if that is the sum total of our achievements…. — Wayfarer

Beavers practice architecture, ants practice agriculture. Both cannot do this if the environment does not allow them to. Humans on the other hand, through inventions of safety gear, weather-resistant infrastructure, and scientific achievement, can. This is a core differentiator between human beings and non-human animals, I believe? Was human intelligence a fluke? Is it somehow limited only to mammals? Otherwise, according to the theory of evolution, provided enough time is given, other animals would logically one day reach comparable levels of intelligence as human beings, would they not?

We are organisms, that much is certain. "Animals" have different socially-given distinctions (wild, domesticated ie. livestock, companion animals ie. dogs, cat, etc.). When a man calls another man an "animal" that is usually due to a display of non-intelligent, primal-driven, often violent behavior, indicating there is a knowable distinction between human beings and other organisms, whether this is exclusively a social-construct or something a bit more foundational is, rather appears to be, like stated earlier in this discussion, subjective ie. a matter of opinion/utility-dependent.

Yes, some people do say there is no difference. But if that were true, the species homo sapiens could not be defined. The issue is what the significance of the differences is. The objection is to the idea of human exceptionalism; I mean the attitude that thinks that animals have no moral claim on us and can be treated in the same way(s) that we treat any other physical resource. — Ludwig V

My opinion is that people will find a way to justify doing what they want to do. The differences between humans and any other species don't suggest it's morally acceptable to treat other species badly, and I would be more than somewhat surprised to find out anyone who did not think it was acceptable before learning about the differences thought it was acceptable after.

I think premise 2 is false and question begging.

It's the person associated with the human animal who is doing the thinking. That isn't question begging because that leaves open the possibility that the human animal and the person are one and the same. However, if the 'is' in premise 2 is taken to be the 'is' of identity 9and the argument's validity depends on this) then it's question begging, as it takes for granted that the person who is doing the thinking and is associated with that human body is one and the same as that human body. But that's precisely what those who think we are not human animals (merely associated with them) deny.

Imagine there is a weightless box into which a 90 kg person has been placed. We could now say ' the box is 90 kg'. I am the 90kg person in the box. Does it follow that I am the box? No, for in saying 'the box is 90 kg' we are not committing ourselves to the claim that the box itself weighs 90kg, but leaving open the possibility that it is something inside of it that is responsible for the weight. I think exactly the same applies to 'the human animal is thinking'. The 'is' in that sentence should not be read as the 'is' of identity. It's functioning in the same way as it is in 'the box is 90kg'.

The 'is' in that sentence should not be read as the 'is' of identity. — Clearbury

If it was the "is" of identity, everything that is true of the person would also be true of the animal and of the machine. Which is not the case.
The only possibilities in philosophy seem to be reductionism or emergentism. I don't think that either are particularly attractive. As far as I know there hasn't been much work on the logic of cross-categorial relationships, beyond observing that descriptions in one category cannot be meaningfully applied in another category. In the case of human beings, we very much need to understand this.

To my mind it's really quite a pathetic thing to do, inventing a game just to win it. — goremand

:100:
and again illustrated by the post following

It's the person associated with the human animal who is doing the thinking. — Clearbury

Not necessarily. The two could be separate things, and it is the human animal part that is doing the thinking, as is asserted by P2 of the OP argument.
How else do you explain why evolution would put such an energy-expensive thing up top if its function is no more than what can be accomplished by 1/8th the mass and energy intake (as evidenced by a similar mass deer).

magine there is a weightless box into which a 90 kg person has been placed. — Clearbury

OK, to apply that directly to the OP:

(P1) Presently resting on the floor is a box.
(P2) The box masses 90kg
(P3) You are the contents of the box.
(C) Therefore, the box is you.

That doesn't seem to be begging anywhere, yet the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises, and it doesn't follow from them if the mass is due to the box itself or the contents.
Perhaps I did not apply the scenario correctly to the argument.

if the 'is' in premise 2 is taken to be the 'is' of identity 9and the argument's validity depends on this) then it's question begging, as it takes for granted that the person who is doing the thinking and is associated with that human body is one and the same as that human bod — Clearbury

I don't get that from P2. It clearly says it is the animal doing the thinking, not the person. There's no mention of 'you' or the person in P2, except as an adjective expressing what owns the chair. There's no implication that what is thinking is what owns the chair.