Abstract
Critics of functionalism about the mind often rely on the intuition that collectivities cannot be conscious in motivating their positions. In this paper, we consider the merits of appealing to the intuition that there is nothing that it’s like to be a collectivity. We demonstrate that collective mentality is not an affront to commonsense, and we report evidence that demonstrates that the intuition that there is nothing that it’s like to be a collectivity is, to some extent, culturally specific rather than universally held. This being the case, we argue that mere appeal to the intuitive implausibility of collective consciousness does not offer any genuine insight into the nature of mentality in general, nor the nature of consciousness in particular.
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Notes
To our knowledge, the first occurrence of this question as a philosophical discussion of experience occurs in Farrell (1950). However, the example is likely to have a familiar history within the philosophy of mind.
This includes work on psychological development, autism, and the social reasoning capacities of non-human primates. For an overview of the literature, as well as an interesting positive theory, see Nichols and Stich (2003).
In a recent conversation, Steven Quartz, informed BH of the results of a recent fMRI study demonstrating that regions of the brain classically associated with the ascription of mental states were activated when participants made predictions about the behavior of a market. We contend that this data provides further evidence for the claim that the ascription of mental states to at least some collectivities recruits the mechanisms that are used in ascribing mental states to individuals.
Knobe and Prinz (2008) conceive of phenomenal states in line with Block’s (1995) distinction between phenomenal-consciousness from access-consciousness. A mental state counts as access-conscious when it has a content in virtue of which it is poised for reasoning and rational control of action; it counts as phenomenally conscious when there is something that it is like for a subject to be in it. Block argues that phenomenal-consciousness is conceptually distinct from access-consciousness.
An anonymous reviewer suggested that our claim is also weakened by the fact that the mean response of participants from CUHK for the ascriptions of phenomenal states to groups range from 3.71 to 4.71 on a 7-pt scale. So, although participants from CUHK were more willing than UNC participants to ascribe phenomenal states to groups, they did not judge group phenomenal states to be clearly natural. However, it is important to recall that participants from CUHK judged ascriptions of phenomenal states to groups to be no less natural than ascriptions of mental states to individuals, suggesting that the ‘intuitive’ disanalogy between collective and individual mental states may not be strong enough to motivate an objection to functionalism. Yet, the fact that even the ascriptions of mental states to individuals did not sound natural is troubling. Perhaps by presenting the questions in English—a second language—we offered a task in which none of the ascriptions seemed particularly natural. In order to examine the generality of our data, we conducted a follow-up study in Mandarin Chinese with 35 college age people at Shanghai University (a population less ‘Western’ than our Hong Kong sample) and 49 students from Boston University; these data were collected in accordance with the procedures required by the Institutional Review Board at Tufts University. Participants read 4 mental state ascriptions (two phenomenal, two non-phenomenal) and offered judgments on a 6-point scale. Unsurprisingly, participants at BU judged it acceptable to say that a corporation could ‘be happy’ (M = 3.17) but it could not ‘feel upset’ (M = 3.0)—replicating results reported by Knobe and Prinz (2008). However, our Shanghai participants judged that a corporation could ‘feel upset’ (M = 3.40) yet not ‘be happy’ (M = 2.69). Participants in Shanghai saw significant differences between the acceptability of the various mental state ascriptions, F(3, 102) = 4.82, p = .004. However, subsequent Bonferonni corrected post-hoc tests revealed only two significant differences (intending and planning, mean difference = 1.429, p = .014; intending and being happy, mean difference = 1.371, p = .043). Strikingly, this analysis revealed no significant difference between intending and feeling upset (mean difference = .657, p = 1.00). Thus, although these data replicated our finding that some so-called phenomenal states are rightly attributed to collectivities, there may be relevant differences that do not cleanly track the phenomenal/non-phenomenal distinction (cf., Sytsma and Machery, submitted). We thus suggest that the ascription of mental states to collectivities is sensitive to cultural considerations; however, the precise range of collective mental states that are acceptable will require further empirical analysis.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Adam Arico, Joshua Knobe, Shaun Nichols, Orion Richardson, Rob Rupert, Susanne Sreedhar, and the audiences at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology (Toronto 2007) and the Center for Human Sciences (Chapel Hill 2007).
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Appendix 1: Experimental Materials
Appendix 1: Experimental Materials
1.1 Experiment 1
The Ming Dynasty felt relief after the rebellion was quelled.
Denmark feels embarrassed about losing the war.
Destiny’s Child is feeling insecure after its poor performance last night.
The Catholic Church is vividly imagining the crucifixion.
Sony is experiencing great joy at its increased sales.
The Ming Dynasty thought that China was the greatest country in the world.
Denmark is proud of its Viking heritage.
Destiny’s Child wants to put on a better show tomorrow night.
The Catholic Church knows that Christmas is coming soon.
Sony intends to release a new product in January to increase sales.
Tanya feels relieved after her mother’s successful surgery
Agassi felt embarrassed after he lost the tennis match.
Paul McCartney is feeling insecure after his poor performance last night.
That bee is vividly imagining honey.
Dmitri is experiencing great joy at his new job.
Tanya believes that China is the greatest country in the world.
Agassi is proud of his American heritage.
Paul McCartney wants to put on a better show tomorrow night.
That bee knows where the honey is located.
Dmitri intends to start selling winter hats in January
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Huebner, B., Bruno, M. & Sarkissian, H. What Does the Nation of China Think About Phenomenal States?. Rev.Phil.Psych. 1, 225–243 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-009-0009-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-009-0009-0