After briefly providing a broad outline of Pettit's genealogical account of the emergence of distinctive human capacities from the capacities of imaginary prehuman ancestors—the “humanoids”—I articulate a specific worry concerning what Pettit takes to be the humanoids' starting point as they get on their journey toward acquiring a “human soul”. This is the worry that the humanoids' starting point is not theoretically innocent.
Dorit Bar‐On (2026) studied this question.