On the conceptual, psychological, and moral status of zombies, swamp-beings, and other 'behaviourally indistinguishable' creatures
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 69 (1):173-186 (2004)
| Abstract | In this paper I argue that it would be unprincipled to withhold mental predicates from our behavioural duplicates however unlike us they are "on the inside." My arguments are unusual insofar as they rely neither on an implicit commitment to logical behaviourism in any of its various forms nor to a verificationist theory of meaning. Nor do they depend upon prior metaphysical commitments or to philosophical "intuitions". Rather, in assembling reminders about how the application of our consciousness and propositional attitude concepts are ordinarily defended, I argue on explanatory and moral grounds that they cannot be legitimately withheld from creatures who behave, and who would continue to behave, like us. I urge that we should therefore reject the invitation to revise the application of these concepts in the ways that would be required by recent proposals in the philosophy of mind | |||||||||
| Keywords | Behavior Epistemology Verificationism Zombie | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesMichael P. Lynch (2006). Zombies and the Case of the Phenomenal Pickpocket. Synthese 149 (1):37-58.
Selmer Bringsjord (1999). The Zombie Attack on the Computational Conception of Mind. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (1):41 - 69.
David Robb (2008). Zombies From Below. In Simone Gozzano Francesco Orilia (ed.), Tropes, Universals, and the Philosophy of Mind: Essays at the Boundary of Ontology and Philosophical Psychology. Ontos Verlag.
Selmer Bringsjord (1999). The Zombie Attack on the Computational Conception of Mind. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (1):41-69.
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