<サーヴェイ論文＞私たちとは何であるか : 動物説と構成主義

Abstract

In personal ontology, animalism and constitutionalism are rival answers to the metaphysical question "What are we?" or "What is our nature?" Roughly, animalism says that we are biological animals, while constitutionalism says that we are not identical to animals but are constituted by them. Each side has a notable defender: Eric Olson and Lynne Rudder Baker, respectively. In this article, I isolate and explain some of the key features of both theories in a way that non-specialists can easily understand, by focusing on each standard and typical line of thought. I contrast Olson's animalism with Baker's constitutionalism, and I make clear where the differences between the two competing theories lie. The article is divided into six sections. In section 1, I sketch the historical background to the recent debates on personal ontology and explain some reasons that I deal only with animalism and constitutionalism among others. In section 2, I offer a survey of animalism in its basic form, the varieties of it, and some arguments for the claim that we are animals, including what is called the thinking animal argument. In section 3, I take up at least three problems of animalism, the transplant intuition problem, the thinking brain problem (as well as the remnant person problem), and the corpse problem, and then overview the standard animalist responses to these. In section 4, I offer a survey of constitutionalism in its basic form, the varieties of it, and an argument for the claim that we are not identical to animals—what I call the non-identity argument. In section 5, I take up at least three problems of constitutionalism, the 'we are animals' problem, the too many thinkers problem (or the zombie problem), and the grounding problem, and then overview the constitutionalist responses to these. In section 6, I clarify a disputed point between animalism and constitutionalism.