In arguing against the theory of animalism, which claims that personal ontology is grounded in only the physical body, one avenue of objection is to provide counterexamples which show how there might be a body but no person, or multiple persons coexisting within one body. In his book, Persons, Animals, Ourselves, Paul Snowdon targets the animalism counterexample of multiple personality disorder. Though multiple personality disorder is a confusing mental condition of psychology which is highly debated, the potential for a multiple personality case is still applicable as an objection to animalism (144-145). Thus, Snowdon sets out an entire chapter of his book to attempt to dissuade readers that the intuition foundational to multiple personality
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The pictures are blurry, but what appears to be some of her husband’s features are recognizable. Anna’s husband told her he was currently on a business trip and not in town, yet the pictures appear to show otherwise. We see this all the time in movies, television shows, books - it’s a common plot, where a member of a couple discovers something seemingly devastating about their relationship. Let’s suppose Anna’s immediate reaction to seeing the pictures is to deny that it is her husband, convince herself that if it is him, the lunch is harmless, the other woman is a co-worker or an old friend. Under Snowdon’s line of reasoning, when we enter such a state of denial it might actually be saying something about the truth of the situation even though we clearly can see that her reactions say nothing about the truth of the matter. It could go either way as to whether her husband is telling the truth or a lie, but the important factor is that her reaction isn’t telling to what is actually going on. So, it seems that in asking the reader to take this subjective point of view in these specific situations, Snowdon is improperly appealing to emotion to further his stance. He may not be doing so intentionally, but it is apparent that the chaos of emotions tied to thinking of parents or children in distressing scenarios manipulates the reader as opposed to convincing them through a sound logical
The pictures are blurry, but what appears to be some of her husband’s features are recognizable. Anna’s husband told her he was currently on a business trip and not in town, yet the pictures appear to show otherwise. We see this all the time in movies, television shows, books - it’s a common plot, where a member of a couple discovers something seemingly devastating about their relationship. Let’s suppose Anna’s immediate reaction to seeing the pictures is to deny that it is her husband, convince herself that if it is him, the lunch is harmless, the other woman is a co-worker or an old friend. Under Snowdon’s line of reasoning, when we enter such a state of denial it might actually be saying something about the truth of the situation even though we clearly can see that her reactions say nothing about the truth of the matter. It could go either way as to whether her husband is telling the truth or a lie, but the important factor is that her reaction isn’t telling to what is actually going on. So, it seems that in asking the reader to take this subjective point of view in these specific situations, Snowdon is improperly appealing to emotion to further his stance. He may not be doing so intentionally, but it is apparent that the chaos of emotions tied to thinking of parents or children in distressing scenarios manipulates the reader as opposed to convincing them through a sound logical