That seems a strictly more complicated model (with equivalent or even lesser predictive power), in that it supposes two classes of objects rather than a single class (in some sort of distribution), and supposes there must be some special quality to things, wherein they gain an extra trait.

The simpler assumption (at least to me) would seem to be the animist one, albeit that most wills don't look much like ours (since most things don't look like us).

I mean, I could see if you were arguing that humans don't have a will, but evolution doesn't either -- but to divide them in to categories based on feelings (which seems to be the case) seems to needlessly complexify the model.

I agree. It is a further anthropomorphism to even assume that the integrated sensory and memory perception phenomenon that we apparently experience as consciousness is inherently "human" in its quality rather than something more qualitatively similar to the bending of space-time by matter. An incidental consequence of homeostasis is that arbitrary pieces of matter are somehow a "self" and a cluster of sensory signals are somehow an "experience". The animist view isn't even necessary if we do not insist that "consciousness" be "a state of existence" for thinking creatures to "have" or not.

What we see in the case of microbe cell division is goal-directed behaviour. The physical details of how it happens are very important to cell biologists, but the bigger point is that one way or another the thing will behave in ways that help it grow and divide.

In that light it seems perfectly fine to say that the cell wants to divide. Indeed it is the most correct explanation I can think of -- and then I can invoke evolution as an explanation of how it came to want this.