Animalism (philosophy)
In the philosophical subdiscipline of ontology, animalism is a theory of personal identity according to which human persons are animals.[1] The concept of animalism is advocated by philosophers Eric T. Olson, Paul Snowdon, Stephan Blatti, and David Wiggins.[2] The view stands in contrast to positions such as John Locke's psychological criterion for personal identity or various forms of mind–body dualism, such as Richard Swinburne's account. Whilst the animalist is committed to something like the claim that human persons are essentially animals, the animalist is quite content to allow non-human persons, e.g., sufficiently advanced robots, aliens, or other animals.
Use of term in ethics
A less common, but perhaps increasing, use of the term animalism is to refer to the ethical view that all or most animals are worthy of moral consideration.[3] It may be similar, though not necessarily, to sentientism.
References
Footnotes
- Olson 2007, sec. 2.1.
- Blatti & Snowdon 2016; Garrett 1998; Snowdon 2017.
- The Animalist. "What Is Animalism?". Medium. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
Bibliography
- Blatti, Stephan; Snowdon, Paul, eds. (2016). Animalism: New Essays on Persons, Animals, & Identity. Oxford University Press.
- Garrett, Brian (1998). Personal Identity and Self-Consciousness. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-16573-0.
- Olson, Eric T. (2007). What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology. Oxford University Press.
- Snowdon, Paul (2017). Persons, Animals, Ourselves. Oxford University Press.
Further reading
- Baker, Lynne Rudder (2005). "When Does a Person Begin?". In Paul, Ellen Frankel; Miller, Fred D., Jr.; Paul, Jeffrey (eds.). Personal Identity. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. pp. 25–48. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511759345.003. ISBN 978-0-511-75934-5.
- Blatti, Stephan (2020). "Animalism". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 ed.). Stanford, California: Stanford University. ISSN 1095-5054. Retrieved 30 November 2020.