Again Souls

"The Master Key."

There is already a lot about Souls on this blog.

When Per Stenvik asks whether Cainites lack souls, van Rijn replies:

"'We leave that to the theologians... They get paid to decide.'" (p. 291)

Theologians decide for their co-religionists but not for the rest of us! I consult philosophers, not theologians. But religious traditions change. I was taught that revealed theology was preceded by natural theology which was a branch of philosophy. Natural theologians reasoned to the conclusion that intellect and will are faculties of immaterial souls which exist in human beings but not in animals, still less in any human artefacts. If this were true, then Cainite intellect and will would already entail Cainite souls. 

Nowadays, I think that the main philosophical distinction is between conscious and unconscious states of being. Animals, of course, are conscious - although Cartesian body-soul dualists deny this. Naturally selected organismic sensitivity to environmental alterations quantitatively increased until it was qualitatively transformed into conscious sensation. Cooperative action on the environment led to communication and thought about the environment. Thus, a materialist explanation of mental processes is more sophisticated than an impossible leap from physics to psychology.