Reflections on Persimals

S teven L uper offers richly‐textured arguments against the E mbodied P art V iew developed by J eff M c M ahan and offered as an answer to the “too many thinkers” problem. One of the major objections he raises is connected to M c M ahan's claim that the mind, and so the person, is to be identified with the part of the brain in which consciousness is directly realized. This view has the implausible consequence, L uper argues, that persons do not and cannot think or reason or have desires or interests. While this is indeed a worrisome consequence, it is not clear that M c M ahan is committed to the understanding of what constitutes “the part of the brain in which consciousness is directly realized” that L uper attributes to him. Making reference to M c M ahan's T heory of T ime‐ R elative I nterests, I develop an alternate way of reading this phrase, one which avoids the difficulties L uper raises. I acknowledge that my understanding yields a view that, while formally consistent, is unattractive in a variety of ways. I suggest, however, that this should not be taken as a reason to favor animalism, since animalism has its own difficulties, which are not entirely unlike those faced by the E mbodied P art V iew.