Though Aristotelian in spirit, the view known as animalism is a relative latecomer to the debate over personal identity, having been defended only within the past 25 years or so. 1 Its advocates make the following straightforward claim: we are animals. According to the intended reading of this claim, the 'are' reflects the 'is' of numerical identity (not the 'is' of nonidentical constitution); the 'we' is intended to pick out you, me and others of our kind; and 'human animals' is meant to refer to biological organisms of the Homo sapiens species. According to animalism's most sophisticated rival, neo-Lockean constitutionalism, we persons are non-identically constituted by human animals, rather like the way statues are said to be constituted by the lumps of matter with which they coincide. 2 The standard argument for animalism is commonly known as the Thinking Animal Argument (TAA). Very roughly, TAA registers the implausible multiplication of thinkers to which anyone who rejects animalism is committed. 3 Recently, however, a structurally analogous line of argument has been shown

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