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(Text as at 21/10/2007 10:07:41)
The reason for making a conceptual difference between persons and human animals is two-fold.
- Firstly, because of the difference in persistence conditions, and the suggestion that a human animal can exist when it is not a person.
- Secondly, because we can conceive of persons who are not human beings. Favourite candidates are God, angels, aliens and (maybe) certain higher mammals.
From a quick scan, it seems to me that Wiggins doubts that these examples of non-human persons1 are cogent. I am assuming that animalists do not deny that there can be non-human persons2; Wiggins, who may or may not be an animalist, seems to deny this (his favoured description of his approach to personal identity is as “a human being theorist”: see SSR p. 195, bottom, etc.). I need to examine Wiggins’s arguments in detail.
Jen’s Response3.
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