Merricks on the Existence of Human Organisms

Since Merricks believes in human organisms, he needs to explain why the considerations that support BB do not support HO equally well. What is the relevant disanalogy between hypothetical baseballs and hypothetical human organisms? Merricks's answer to this question is this: If baseballs exist, all the facts about them are metaphysically determined by the microphysical facts. By contrast, human organisms, if they exist, have some properties?including consciousness and various more specific conscious mental properties?whose instantiation is not metaphysically determined by the microphysical facts. In the first part of this paper, I will make some critical remarks about Mer ricks's argument for the thesis that consciousness is special in this way. In the second, I will express some doubts about Merricks's claim that if this thesis is true, we have no reason for believing HO. Finally, I will present a dilemma for Merricks's view about the sort of causal efficacy enjoyed by human organisms.