Patrick Toner

Animalism is the doctrine that you and I are animals. Like any substantive philosophical position, animalism faces objections. For example, imagine a case of conjoined twins, where there are two heads, but only one “body,” and where each head seems to have its own typically human and fully discrete mental life. It would be natural to assume that each of the twins is a thing like you and me—each twin is one of us. But it appears that each twin cannot be a distinct human animal, since it appears in this case that there is only one animal. So it appears that animalism renders the wrong verdict in this case. I present two responses to this worry, drawing on Aristotelian claims about the centrality of sensation to animals, and on an account of organism-hood from Maureen and Samuel Condic. I close by considering craniopagus parasiticus and cephalopagus, and show the Aristotelian response is effective in such cases as well.

“Stand Your Ground” (SYG) laws are subject to controversy within both the philosophical literature and the legal literature; and of course they are hotly debated outside of academia as well. In this paper I show that a great part of these discussions is predicated on often very serious errors about what SYG is or isn’t, and I explain them in the context of self-defense law. Though my main purpose is clarification and the correction of some errors in the literature, I close with some brief thoughts about the moral status of SYG and a proposal regarding SYG laws.

This is a critical study of Fabrizio Amerini’s recent book, ‘Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life.’ It briefly summarizes the book’s main line of argument, and then raises some objections, principally to Amerini’s contention that St Thomas’s metaphysical views should lead the Thomistically-inclined philosopher to accept delayed hominization even given modern embryological knowledge. The topics discussed include abortion and euthanasia, although the first of these is dealt with at greater length. Issues related to personhood and personal identity are also addressed in the context of the beginning and end of human life.

When elements join together in a mixture, those elements remain in the mixture, but only virtually. They are present with their powers, but without their substantial forms. When the mixture corrupts, the elements come to be actually present. And so my question: according to St. Thomas, are the elements that come to be actually present as a result of the corruption of the mixed body numerically identical with the elements that came together to create the mixture? I answer yes. This answer entails not only that St. Thomas believes in the doctrine of “gappy existence”, but that he believes gappy existence can occur purely naturally, with no Divine intervention required. Both entailments are controversial. The second will be widely viewed as entirely indefensible: this paper provides a defense.

Many Christians believe that persons who, at the moment of death, are in rebellion from God, are damned, while those in right relationship with Godare saved. This is what, for instance, the Catholic teaching regarding the fate of those who die in mortal sin amounts to. In this paper, I argue that this “last moment view” is incompatible with a popular theory of time known as eternalism, according to which all times are equally real. If that’s right, then those who accept the last moment view are committed to an alternative theory of time known as presentism.

Abstract: There is no such thing as ‘the’ hylemorphic account of personal identity. There are several views that count as hylemorphic, and these views can be grouped into two main families—the corruptionist view, and the survivalist view. The differentiating factor is that the corruptionist view holds that the persistence of the soul is not sufficient for the persistence of the person, while the survivalist view holds that the persistence of the soul is sufficient for the persistence of the person. In this paper, I argue that hylemorphists should prefer the corruptionist view. This project ought to be of interest to anyone working on issues of personal identity, not only because hylemorphic views are historically important, but also because they are currently receiving significant attention in the personal identity literature

I defend an old argument against co-location—the view that human animals are distinct from, but co-located with human persons. The argument is drawn from St. Thomas Aquinas. In order to respond to the argument, co-locationists have to endorse at least one of a trio of claims, none of which is obviously correct. Further, two of the options do not seem to be the sort of positions that should be flowing out of the acceptance of a general metaphysical position. I conclude that co-locationism is more costly than generally thought

Objectivists insist on the primacy of existence—the axiom that existence exists. This axiom is taken to entail that the universe exists independent of any consciousness, human or divine. Objectivists hold that a straightforward consequence of this axiom is that God does not exist. The central argument of this paper is that the Objectivist atheological argument based on the primacy of existence fails. Atheological arguments based on the alleged incoherence of the Divine attributes are at best inconclusive. Theism has not been shown to be incompatible with Objectivism

There are at least two versions of the famous Wager argument to be found in Pascal’s Pensées. In contemporary work on the Wager, attention is almost always focused on the second. In this paper, we take a look at the first, which is often quickly dismissed as a failure. Indeed, it seems to be generally believed that Pascal himself quickly dismissed it as a failure. We fi rst argue that Pascal himself accepted the argument. Then we argue that those who accept a virtue theoretic account of human flourishing ought to agree with Pascal in accepting the argument.

Aristotelian substance theory tells us that substances have structures (read: forms) as proper parts. This claim has recently been defended by Kathrin Koslicki who dubbed it the ‘Neo-Aristotelian Thesis.’ Strangely, Aristotelianism has not yet been universally embraced by philosophers – partly because some of its claims, such as the Neo-Aristotelian Thesis – are viewed by some as counterintuitive at best. In this paper, I argue for Aristotelianism by showing its philosophical usefulness: specifically, I put it to use in saving the metaphysical doctrine of endurantism and some central mereological doctrines (such as Transitivity) from recent attacks. This utility gives us reason to endorse Aristotelianism. Along the way, I defend Koslicki's argument for the Neo-Aristotelian Thesis from a recent criticism, thus helping provide still more reason to endorse Aristotelianism: namely, Koslicki's vindicated argument

In his recent book, Aquinas and the Ship of Theseus, Christopher Brown has argued that the metaphysics of St. Thomas is preferable to contemporary analyticviews because it can solve the “problem of material constitution” without requiring us to relinquish any of the common-sense beliefs that generate that problem. In this critical study, I show that in the case of both substances and aggregates, Brown’s Aquinas endorses views that are extremely implausible. Consequently, even if it is granted that the solutions to the PMC fall right out of his views, it is still not clear that this gives us reason to prefer his ontology to its competitors. I also consider Brown’s take on the status of the human being after death.

Since St. Thomas Aquinas holds that death is a substantial change, a popular current interpretation of his anthropology must be mistaken. According to that interpretation – the ‘survivalist’ view – St. Thomas holds that we human beings survive our deaths, constituted solely by our souls in the interim between death and resurrection. This paper argues that St. Thomas must have held the ‘corruptionist’ view: the view that human beings cease to exist at their deaths. Certain objections to the corruptionist view are also met