The Feeling Animal

Abstract

For good or for ill, we have animal bodies. Through them, we move around, eat and drink, and do many other things besides. We owe much—perhaps our very lives—to these ever-present animals. But how exactly do we relate to our animals? Are we parts of them, or they of us? Do we and these living animals co-inhere or constitute or coincide? Or what? Animalism answers that we are identical to them. There are many objections to animalism, and a dizzying array of rival views. In this article, we do not propose to evaluate those objections and rivals.1 We will instead present a new argument for that view. The argument begins with the fact that we have emotions.