 Promiscuous individualism is not simply the view that there are many legitimate ways to classify the world into biological individuals. It is also the corresponding ontological view that such legitimation is provided by there being multiple biological individuals there to classify. To illustrate this view, consider lichens, which are typically regarded as what have been called corporate organisms (R.A. Wilson 2005: 80–84), in this case made up of a fungus and either a cyanobacterium or some other photosynthesizing agent, such as green algae. Challenging the view that there is just one biological individual (the lichen) or two (the fungus and the cyanobacterium), an advocate of promiscuous individualism can readily make the case that there are three biological individuals (the lichen, the fungus, and the cyanobacterium), pointing to the different purposes and goals one might have in opting for any of the numerical counts here. 