David Shoemaker is an Associate Professor at Tulane Univeristy
ABSTRACT: In discussions of personal identity, animalism is the view that you and I are essentially animals, and our identity across time consists in the perseverance of our biological organisms. A serious Challenge to animalism goes as follows: (1) animalism lacks the proper fit with the set of our practical concerns; (2) if a theory of personal identity lacks the proper fit with the set of our practical concerns, it suffers a loss in plausibility; thus, (3) animalism suffers a loss in plausibility (in particular to psychological criteria). I investigate three responses to Challenge-from DeGrazia, Schechtman, and Olson-and find them all wanting. A better response is revealed by looking at the individual concerns at issue. They are, it turns out, not a unified set, nor are they grounded in the way most advocates of Challenge have long assumed. Given this pluralism (along with other factors), the best approach to thwarting Challenge will consist in a denial of the strongest interpretation of (2), a denial having significant implications for the general methodology of theorizing about personal identity.
