Eric Olsen's Thinking Animal Argument

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The human animal personal identity without psychology Eric Olsen a believer in animalism says all humans are animals. According to Olsen, “Animalism’ says that each of us is a biological organism: an animal. All that sets us apart from other animals, beyond our being naked and bipedal and slow to mature, is our intelligence” (3AM Magazine RSS). Fundamentally Olsen believes we, as in animals and humans are all the same, living organisms. In Olsen’s view we we are no different than dogs or apes, that we are all merely living organisms with the only difference that separates us apart, or makes us unique, is our intelligence. Olsen gives three principles for what he calls his “thinking animal argument” (Stanford University) which he considers…show more content…
These three principles are one, presently sitting in your chair is a human animal, two, the human animal sitting in your chair is thinking, and third, You are the thinking being sitting in your chair, Therefore, the human animal sitting in your chair is you. Olsen believes very few people would deny any of his three “thinking animal argument” principles, and believes that in order to reject his conclusion that “you are an animal”, you would have to prove at least one of his three principles to be false. Olson goes on to say that even if people find his “thinking animal argument” to be farfetched, that rejecting even just one of his principles is even more farfetched. Lynne Rudder Baker argues against Olsen’s principles. In her constructive view she implies that we are a person, but accidentally animals. In both of her arguments she talks about person idenity and human psychology which in away its similar to what Olsen's says, except shes saying…show more content…
For example our five sense its a lot similar to animals then what we might think. Human and animals ears hear and analyze noises, sound wave goes into the inter ear and travels though the canal to the middle ear. According to the (livescince.com) Katydid ears are arranged similar to human ears, “katydid can also hear above the human range.” not only human can communicate with each other, but even other species can. Animals make sounds to send a warning signal or tell the rest about a danger that's coming their way, animals can also sense human feeling and can communicate accordingly. One of the well known theory by Darwin is the natural selection “survival of the fittest” this theory essentially explains that a person do what ever it takes to survive. Take this situation your driving on the I17 and BAM you see a car accident in front of your, you will probably stop your car in the middle f the road and put your self in danger to save the other person. This natural instance we would assume its only done by a human. In the natural selection theory the animals Darwin used as an example the birds protected their genes. Darwin's theory supported Olsen's hypothesis on animalism, human and animals are alike the only thing that differentiate them is that human are intelligence the animals. According to (Behavioral Psychology) recent article in scientific

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