The Normative Challenge for Illusionist Views of Consciousness

Abstract

Illusionists about phenomenal consciousness claim that phenomenal consciousness does not exist but merely seems to exist. At the same time, it is quite intuitive for there to be some kind of link between phenomenality and value. For example, some situations seem good or bad in virtue of the conscious experiences they feature. Illusionist views of phenomenal consciousness then face what I call the normative challenge. They have to say where they stand regarding the idea that there is a link between phenomenality and value. If they accept that there is such a link, they might be committed to revisionary normative consequences (and some of them may prove to be uncomfortable). If they deny that there is such link, they might avoid revisionary normative consequences (without being guaranteed against them) but then they have to give reasons to deny that such link obtains, which is not a trivial task. The existence of the normative challenge does not show that illusionism is false, but it shows that illusionism might have important consequences in the normative domain, which have to be clarified.

Introduction

Here is an attractive thesis: there is a link between phenomenal consciousness and value. For example, some situations seem good or bad in virtue of the particular phenomenal states they feature. Think about someone being in pain: virtually everyone thinks that this situation is bad. Moreover, it is not only that we think that pain is bad; it seems bad in virtue of its peculiar phenomenal feel. We think pain is bad because it feels awful. Some philosophers have even gone further in asserting the link between phenomenal consciousness and value. They have claimed that nothing, without phenomenal states, can have value. For them, phenomenality is a crucial ingredient to make something—anything!—good or bad.

Illusionists about consciousness claim that phenomenal consciousness does not exist, but merely seems to exist. That puts them in a difficult situation when considering the attractive view that there is a link between consciousness and value: they face what I call the normative challenge for illusionist views of consciousness. They have to say where they stand regarding the link between phenomenality and value. If they accept that there is such a link, they are led to revisionary consequences regarding what has value (more or less radical, depending on the kind of link they recognize). They then need to be clear about how far these consequences extend, and whether they can be limited. If, on the other hand, they deny that there is such a link, they might avoid revisionary consequences regarding what has value. However, they must then give reasons to reject this link, given that it is an attractive thesis. Moreover, even then, their views are not entirely guaranteed against some potential revisionary consequences regarding what has value, and these potential consequences ultimately need to be clarified.

Because each branch of the alternative raises difficulties, I take it that illusionists face a genuine challenge. However, that illusionism faces the normative challenge does not imply that it is false. Whether or not the normative challenge could ever constitute the basis of a robust argument against illusionism is in fact quite debatable. However, we must face up to the fact that illusionism encounters difficulties when one examines its consequences in the normative domain. Illusionists have to live up to this challenge by saying whether (and how) radical revisionary consequences can be avoided. If they cannot be avoided, illusionists have to explain how far exactly these consequences extend—and, ideally, how we can live with them. Besides, some philosophers seem to think that illusionism necessarily has disastrous revisionary consequences in the normative domain. These consequences appear to constitute one of their motivations (though arguably not the only one) to reject illusionism.[1] This gives illusionists another reason to seriously discuss the consequences of their position in the normative domain.

I intend to show that illusionism does not necessarily have revisionary consequences in the normative domain. However, we would be wrong to think that illusionism can easily avoid all revisionary normative consequences. The most plausible ways to deal with the normative challenge probably lead to some revisionary consequences.

I first give definitions in order to explain what I mean by “phenomenal consciousness”, “illusionism” and “value” (§1). I then present two theses, designed to express two versions of the idea that phenomenality is linked to value (§2). I show why these theses are attractive (§3). I then present the normative challenge for illusionist views of consciousness (§4). I explore the main options open to the illusionist and I show that all of them create difficulties (§5–6). I conclude with some remarks about the consequences of the normative challenge (§7).

1. Definitions

Phenomenally conscious states (or “phenomenal states”, “conscious experiences”) are putative mental states endowed with phenomenal properties (or “qualia”), in virtue of which there is “something it is like” to be in them. Seeing a green patch, smelling a rose, feeling pain, are supposed to be typical examples of phenomenally conscious states. A subject who is able to enter into such states possesses phenomenal consciousness. Phenomenally conscious states must be notably distinguished, at least conceptually, from access-conscious states, defined as mental states bearing content available for use in reasoning, and rational control of speech and action (Block 1995). Valenced phenomenal states are “affective” phenomenal states, which are either attractive (positive valence) or repulsive (negative valence). Pain and sorrow are supposed to be typical examples of negatively valenced phenomenal states; pleasure and joy are supposed to be typical examples of positively valenced phenomenal states.

Illusionism about phenomenal consciousness (sometimes also called “eliminativism”[2]—here I do not distinguish between the two) is the thesis that phenomenal consciousness does not exist, but merely seems to exist. For illusionists (as opposed to realists) about phenomenal consciousness, we never enter phenomenal states and there is nothing it is like to be anyone. We simply enter states (introspective states) that incorrectly represent that we are in phenomenal states, thus creating the illusion of phenomenal consciousness. First versions of such views have been suggested in the 1960s (Feyerabend 1963; Rorty 1965); this position has found prominent defenders in the late 1980s (Dennett 1988; 1991; Rey 1995). It has been recently receiving more attention (Dennett 2017; Frankish 2016; Graziano 2013; Pereboom 2011).

Interest for illusionism has been growing fast in the last ten years, probably because it provides a robust (though counter-intuitive) defense of physicalism regarding the human mind—an otherwise very attractive metaphysical position, which has been threatened by arguments and thought experiments focusing on the alleged non-physical nature of phenomenal consciousness (Chalmers 1996; Jackson 1982). For many years, most philosophers of the mind have endorsed physicalism but have favored a realist view of consciousness. The most popular position has probably been the one David Chalmers dubbed “type-B” physicalism (Chalmers 2002). According to this view, phenomenal consciousness reduces to physical processes, even though such reduction will forever remain somewhat opaque—in some views, to the point that we should expect consciousness to persistently seem distinct from physical processes (Aydede & Güzeldere 2005; Balog 2012; Kriegel 2009; Loar 1997; Papineau 2002; Sturgeon 1994). This was supposed to give a way to maintain physicalism about consciousness, while accounting for the persisting difficulties encountered by all attempted reductions of consciousness to some physical process. However, there has been a growing concern that such views cannot ultimately succeed, and that it is impossible to conjoin physicalism about consciousness with a satisfying account of why consciousness seems persistently distinct from the physical (Chalmers 2007; Demircioğlu 2013; Goff 2011; Levine 2001; 2007; Nida-Rümelin 2007). This point is still widely debated (Diaz-León 2014; Elpidorou 2013; 2016; Schroer 2010; Shea 2014), but the idea that we really can “have it both ways” (Loar 1997: 598)—account at the same time for the ontological reducibility of consciousness and for its persistent epistemic irreducibility—seems somewhat less plausible than it once did. For that reason, illusionism, which allows us to defend physicalism about the human mind in a simple (but radical) way, by simply denying that the most problematic aspect of the mind (consciousness) really exists, has been receiving a renewed interest in the last years. Though it remains a minority view, it has found vocal support, both from proponents (illusionism has been described as the “obvious default theory of consciousness”, Dennett 2016) and from opponents (“if I were a materialist, I would be an illusionist”, Chalmers 2018).

A few things to note. First, what I describe here is what Keith Frankish (2016: 15–16) calls “strong illusionism”. Some philosophers have defended a position he dubs “weak illusionism”, according to which phenomenal consciousness exists, but does not have many of the properties it is usually thought to have (it merely seems to have these properties). My focus here is on strong illusionism (I will briefly go back to weak illusionism at the end of this paper). Second, illusionists think that there are no phenomenal states in reality. To talk about the real states and properties which are usually thought to be phenomenal, they talk of “quasi-phenomenal” states/properties (as suggested by Frankish 2016: 15). A quasi-phenomenal property is a non-phenomenal, physical property (possibly a wildly disjunctive property), plausibly a brain property, that we typically misrepresent as phenomenal—for example, through introspection. States that have quasi-phenomenal properties are quasi-phenomenal states. According to an illusionist, when I look at a red apple, I have a quasi-phenomenal perception of red, endowed with quasi-phenomenal redness; when I jam my finger in a door I enter quasi-phenomenal pain, etc. Third, in order to talk about what happens to me when I look at a red apple or when I jam my finger in a door in a way which remains neutral between illusionism and realism, I will talk of “allegedly phenomenal states/properties”. Allegedly phenomenal redness and allegedly phenomenal pain are properties and states that are phenomenal if the realist is right, but merely quasi-phenomenal if the illusionist is right. Fourth, in this paper, I will presuppose that, if we take the set of physical truths about the world as fixed, the existence and the non-existence of phenomenal consciousness are both conceivable. That is, that both zombies and genuinely conscious beings are conceivable, given physical truths about the world.[3] So, if we are realists about consciousness, we think that we are genuinely conscious beings, but zombies are nevertheless conceivable. If we are illusionists, we think that we are zombies, but genuinely conscious beings are nevertheless conceivable.

Let us turn to value. I will presume that the bearers of value are situations: situations are good or bad. I will also talk of states (i.e., property-instantiations) which can compose situations as grounding value, when situations including these states have such value in virtue of these states being the case. A property, the instantiation of which grounds value, is a “value-making property”; the corresponding state a “value-making state” (A. Lee 2018). A distinction is often made between full and partial grounding (Fine 2012): A grounding B can mean either that B obtains entirely in virtue of A (full grounding) or that B obtains in part in virtue of A and in part in virtue of something else (partial grounding). When left unspecified, “grounding” here means full grounding.

We also have to distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic value. Situations have intrinsic value when they have value in themselves, for their own sake, in a non-derivative way (Zimmerman 2015). Pleasure, happiness, friendship, beauty and knowledge, are often cited as states that may ground intrinsic value (for an exhaustive list, see Frankena 1973). Situations have extrinsic value when their value is derivative; for example, when they have value merely in virtue of the fact that they tend to bring about situations that have intrinsic value. When I talk about value without qualification, I mean intrinsic value. Philosophers sometimes also distinguish between various heterogeneous kinds of intrinsic value, for example, between epistemic value, ethical value and aesthetic value (Kriegel in press). I will not presuppose any such distinction here and will simply talk of intrinsic value (as something that may or may not be correctly thus specified), although my attention will be mostly focused on what people usually call “ethical value”.

The way I think about it, value can be positive or negative: situations are good when they have positive value, bad when they have negative value. I think values are comparable (some situations are better or worse than others) but I will stay neutral on whether or not they are commensurable (so that one situation can be, say, two times better than another one), though I suspect they are. I will also remain neutral on the relation between value and other normative notions such as duties and rights (when I am not, I will be explicit about it).

Finally, judgments about values are normative judgments. In this paper, I will make the (substantive) assumption that normative judgments have a truth-value (i.e., I will assume cognitivism regarding judgments of value). When adopting a new theory implies that we should revise our judgments regarding what has value (or the ordering of values), I will say that this theory has revisionary normative consequences. I will also assume—and this assumption will not be used as a premise in any argument, but is important in order to grasp the general spirit of the paper—that we are prima facie resistant to revisionary normative consequences. Thus, we all have some kind of motivation (which is not the same thing as a justification) to avoid theories which have such consequences, particularly when the revision they imply is radical.

2. Two Theses Regarding the Link between Phenomenality and Value

I now turn to the idea that there is a link between phenomenality and value. I will present and discuss two theses regarding the relation between phenomenality and value. Let us start with the weaker of the two—an attractive, widely accepted thesis I call Phenomenal Value.

Phenomenal Value states that there are at least some phenomenal properties such that their instantiation fully grounds (or would fully ground) intrinsic value. It specifies that these properties must be standard. Here, by “standard”, I mean that these properties are of a kind that phenomenal realists take to be commonly instantiated. This is necessary in order to make it clear that the thesis would not be made true by some rare and complex value-making phenomenal properties. This thesis is compatible with there being only one value-making property (say, phenomenal pain), as long as it is a standard one.

Phenomenal Value is compatible with the idea that, even if some phenomenal states fully ground some intrinsic value, the total value of the situations in which they take place can sometimes only be partially grounded in these phenomenal states—for example (but not only) if the situations include some non-phenomenal states (or complex states including non-phenomenal states) also fully grounding value. Importantly, the thesis is formulated in such a way (“grounds (or would ground)”) that even an illusionist could accept it. Indeed, even someone who believes that phenomenal properties are never instantiated in reality could also believe that, were some of them to be instantiated, they would ground value.

This thesis, I think, is very widely accepted. In fact, many philosophers who believe that there is a link between phenomenal consciousness and value have gone further than that. They have not only stated that some phenomenal states ground value, but also that only phenomenal states could do it, thus endorsing a stronger thesis, which I call Exclusive Phenomenal Value.

This thesis conjoins Phenomenal Value with the restrictive thesis according to which no instantiation of a non-phenomenal property fully grounds intrinsic value—note that this is merely supposed to hold for instantiated non-phenomenal properties.[4] A very rough approximation of this thesis is that “nothing has value without consciousness”. Note that Exclusive Phenomenal Value does not prevent non-phenomenal properties from partially grounding value. It is therefore compatible with the thesis that value does not supervene on the total set of phenomenal states of a situation, and it can accommodate the intuition that, for example, life in an experience machine is not as valuable as life in a “real” world, even if they are phenomenally identical. Note also that, as I think of it, the second clause of Exclusive Phenomenal Value should be read in a way that does not prevent non-phenomenal properties from grounding value if they do it by being identical with phenomenal properties, or by grounding phenomenal properties.

Exclusive Phenomenal Value, compared to Phenomenal Value, is quite a strong thesis—though many philosophers have (at least implicitly) endorsed it. Again, it is formulated in such a way that, in principle, it is not incompatible with illusionism.

3. Support for the Link between Phenomenality and Value

What support is there in favor of these two theses? First, it is worth considering that they are entailed by a great many philosophical views. Numerous views state that nothing in reality grounds intrinsic value but some phenomenal states (or larger states partially composed of phenomenal states), such as, notably, phenomenal pain and phenomenal pleasure. This entails Exclusive Phenomenal Value. This is notably the case of hedonism,[5] according to which nothing is good or bad but felt pleasure and pain—a view which has found prominent defenders in Ancient times (the Cyrenaics and the Epicureans) as well as in the 18^th and 19^th centuries (La Mettrie, Bentham, Mill) and (with some complexities and qualifications) more recently (Crisp 2006: 103–109; Sprigge 1988: ch. 5; Tännsjö 1998: 84; for an overview, see Moore 2013). Besides, even philosophers who do not embrace hedonism have often claimed that nothing can ground intrinsic value but phenomenal states (Brentano 1952; Kriegel 2018: ch. 9; in press; Seager 2001; van der Deijl 2019). Some other philosophers state that phenomenal consciousness is valuable for itself, which entails at least Phenomenal Value (Glannon 2016; Nagel 1979; for a discussion, see A. Lee 2018). Others assert that most (if not all) of the value of our own lives depends on us being phenomenally conscious (Siewert 1998; 2014), which comes close to endorsing Exclusive Phenomenal Value.

Some philosophers have recently tried to downplay the importance of phenomenal consciousness when it comes to value (Carruthers 1999; 2004; G. Lee 2014; Levy 2014). However, it is worth noting that their goal is often to insist that some non-phenomenal mental states can have value, which entails a rejection of Exclusive Phenomenal Value, but not necessarily of Phenomenal Value. Not all of them explicitly question the idea, for example, that the instantiation of certain phenomenal properties in itself grounds value. This idea seems in fact to be accepted in Levy and Shepherd (in press) and entails Phenomenal Value. G. Lee 2014 comes close to denying Phenomenal Value, but he focuses on the epistemic value of consciousness and does not say much about the other kinds of intrinsic value it might ground.

In conclusion, numerous views endorsed by philosophers throughout history entail Exclusive Phenomenal Value. A number of them reject Exclusive Phenomenal Value but remain compatible with Phenomenal Value (which they often seem to implicitly accept); and it is difficult to find a view which explicitly denies Phenomenal Value.

Now, what about arguments in favor of such theses? While many such arguments could be devised, I will simply present one for each thesis. Let us start with Phenomenal Value. Given that it is enough to show that there is one standard value-making phenomenal property to prove the thesis, I think the strongest arguments focus on the case of the best candidates to this status: valenced phenomenal properties, and notably phenomenal pain. Let us consider the following situation.

I take it to be extremely intuitive that Pure Suffering has negative value. I also take it to be very intuitive that it has negative value in virtue of the pain felt by Piotr (the thought experiment eliminates some—but not all—of the non-phenomenal candidates for the grounding of negative value: trauma, negative memory, aversive behavior, etc.). Therefore, this thought experiment makes it intuitive that phenomenal pain grounds negative value, which entails Phenomenal Value.

It is important to note that, prima facie, even an illusionist can accept this argument for Phenomenal Value. After all, even if consciousness does not exist, we can still conceive of it (at least, that is what I presupposed). Which means that Pure Suffering is conceivable. Once we conceive of this situation, it elicits intuitive judgments of value—and I take it that almost everyone, illusionists included, will intuit (at least at first glance!) that this situation has negative value in virtue of how Piotr feels.[6] True, an illusionist thinks that Pure Suffering is at least nomologically impossible, but that in itself does not prevent her from recognizing that this situation would be bad if it were actual. Similarly, I can recognize that dragons “are” frightening or that the Garden of Eden “is” a delightful place, even if I think that they are nomologically impossible—as long as I recognize that, if dragons, or the Garden of Eden, were real, they would be frightening/delightful.

Aside from this direct argument, it is important to note that Phenomenal Value arguably plays a central role in justifying some of our deep normative beliefs, themselves crucial in our practices. Consider this: first, we believe that conscious states are often much more normatively important than non-conscious states. This is arguably why we care a lot about conscious pain, say, but not about unconscious pain. For example, we use analgesics in surgery to suppress conscious pain, and we do not care much about potential unconscious, subliminal pain happening somewhere in the brain of the patient during anesthesia. In other words, we endorse the following thesis, which I call Consciousness Contrast: allegedly phenomenal states have an importantly different value from their non-allegedly-phenomenal counterparts.[7]

Second, we usually believe that sentient creatures (who have allegedly phenomenal pain or pleasure) have more importance (or more dignity, or more rights) than non-sentient creatures. This is arguably why we care (at least a little bit) about what happens to creatures we judge to be sentient (dogs, cows, pigs, birds, etc.) while we do not care—except for instrumental reasons—about creatures and things we judge to be non-sentient (bacteria, trees, rocks, computers, etc.). Deciding whether or not some creatures are sentient (particularly for “limit cases” such as fish, lobsters, bees, etc.) usually directly affects our opinions on whether or not we should care about them. Generally speaking, we seem to consider that allegedly phenomenal consciousness is crucial for the status of a creature as a genuine moral patient (Levy & Shepherd in press; Seager 2001; Sebo 2017; Shepherd 2016; Singer 2011). In other words, we endorse the following thesis, which I call Sentience Contrast: creatures that enter allegedly phenomenal pain and pleasure (“sentient creatures”) importantly matter more than the creatures that do not (“non-sentient creatures”).[8] Consciousness Contrast and Sentience Contrast are two very intuitive normative theses, which are part of the normative consensus, and are arguably crucial for many of our practices.

I think the conjunction of Phenomenal Value with phenomenal realism is the thesis that most people would naturally appeal to in order to justify these two theses. The reason why allegedly phenomenal states have a different value from their non-allegedly-phenomenal counterparts is that they are phenomenal, and that phenomenal states (or at least some of them) ground intrinsic value. And it is this extra value had by such states that gives in turn more importance (or dignity, or rights) to the creatures able to enter into such states—sentient creatures.

Now that we have examined the support for Phenomenal Value, as well as its role in justifying some central normative beliefs, let us turn to Exclusive Phenomenal Value. What are the arguments in favor of this thesis? I think that the best arguments appeal to thought experiments featuring worlds devoid of consciousness, which aim to elicit the intuition that such worlds have no value. Of course, there is disagreement about which worlds devoid of consciousness are possible/conceivable. Some people think that a possible/conceivable world devoid of consciousness is also a world devoid of creatures with our physico-functional properties, or maybe even a world devoid of a certain kind of functional/informational complexity. It seems plausible that, if someone has such an austere conception of a world without consciousness, intuitions that such worlds are valueless are easier to generate. On the other hand, people who believe in the conceivability/possibility of zombies will have a “richer” conception of what worlds devoid of consciousness can be, which hypothetically makes intuitions that such worlds are valueless harder to get. So, the most challenging (and therefore, the most robust) way to argue in favor of Exclusive Phenomenal Value is through thought experiments involving zombie worlds: worlds identical to ours from the physico-functional point of view, but devoid of consciousness.[9] Given that I presupposed earlier that zombies are conceivable, it seems in any case best to take that route. Let us consider the following thought experiment.

Does Zombie World have value? My own intuitions are not particularly clear at this stage—and I suppose that readers will be divided here. Some people will intuit that such a world has exactly the same value as a world populated with genuinely conscious beings. Others will intuit that it does not, but that it still has some value (for example, grounded in some non-phenomenal features that ground value in our own world: informational complexity, cosmic beauty/harmony, the existence of true representations, the existence of functionally conceived desires and attitudes, etc.). However, I suspect that a number of readers would tend to answer that Zombie World has no value; that its existence is entirely indifferent. This intuition is the one needed to support Exclusive Phenomenal Value. Note that an illusionist (who believes that we live in Zombie World) could in principle have any of these intuitions, and that she could therefore end up accepting this argument for Exclusive Phenomenal Value.[10]

4. The Normative Challenge for Illusionist Views of Consciousness

That there is a link between phenomenality and value—the one expressed by Phenomenal Value, or the stronger link expressed by Exclusive Phenomenal Value—is, I think, quite an attractive position. As I showed, it is entailed by a great variety of influential philosophical views, it is directly supported by arguments, and it plays (in its weak version, when conjoined with phenomenal realism) an important role in justifying some of our central normative beliefs and practices.

Because this position is attractive, it creates a challenge for illusionists: the normative challenge. Illusionists must decide whether or not they accept that there is such a link between phenomenality and value, and say where they stand regarding these two theses. Depending on their answer, they might be led or not to revisionary normative consequences. If they end up being committed to such consequences, the challenge for them is to explain what these normative consequences exactly are, see if they can be limited in scope, and eventually show how we can live with them. If they avoid being committed to revisionary normative consequences (which, I will show, probably requires them to reject Phenomenal Value), the challenge for them is to explain why the idea that there is such a link between phenomenality and value seems true even though it is false. Moreover, rejecting Phenomenal Value does not entirely guarantee illusionists against all revisionary normative consequences; they still have to make sure that their view of the non-phenomenal ground of value salvages our intuitive view of what has value. If it does not, then again they have to clarify which exact revisionary normative consequences they accept, and show how we can live with them.

Let us now examine the options an illusionist can take regarding the thesis that there is a link between phenomenality and value. There are three main options: (1) the nihilist option, (2) the moderate option, (3) the conservative option.

This is the structure of the normative challenge. Illusionists must take one of these three options, and all of them create difficulties. These difficulties are quite obvious in the case of the nihilist option. The normative challenge facing the illusionist who takes this route is not unique to illusionism: it is “simply” the more general problem of nihilism. Given that nihilism has been widely discussed by philosophers for at least a century, I will not explore this option any further here—which does not mean I do not take it to be worth discussing. I will focus on the two other options: the moderate option and the conservative option.

5. Answering the Normative Challenge: The Moderate Option

6. Answering the Normative Challenge: The Conservative Option

7. Concluding Remarks

There is an intuitive link between phenomenality and value. However, according to illusionists, phenomenality does not exist. This creates the normative challenge for illusionist views of consciousness. I think that illusionists should ultimately face up to this challenge. If we take illusionism to be true—or even merely to be one of the serious contenders amongst theories of consciousness—then we have to understand what it implies in the normative domain. If we embrace illusionism, should we revise our judgments concerning what is good and bad, what is better and worse? This, I think, is to a great extent an open (and fascinating) question; but it is a question which, as I tried to show, is not easy to answer, as any stance towards the normative challenge encounters problems.

I have defended illusionism regarding consciousness elsewhere (Kammerer 2016; 2019), and I still think that this is probably the true view of consciousness. One could then wonder which kind of stance towards the normative challenge I recommend. My goal here was not to defend a particular position towards the normative challenge (which would require more arguments), but rather to map the options. However, given what precedes, here is where my preference lies. My favorite option is the “moderate option”, as I find it hard to justify the rejection of Phenomenal Value in a satisfying way. Indeed, all the routes I examined for doing so raise serious issues (even though I see a bit more hope in the one I called “Skepticism about our value intuitions given our realist intuitions”). I therefore think we should probably accept some revisionary normative consequences (admit that pain and pleasure are not as bad as thought, and weaken Consciousness Contrast and Sentience Contrast), while also providing views that justify and explain the value of valenced quasi-phenomenal states. The explanatory part will probably have to focus on the attitudes and desires that usually accompany or partly constitute valenced quasi-phenomenal states. As for the justificatory part, I think I am attracted by a second-person epistemology of the value of mental states (where empathy plays a crucial role), but I am not sure it can be worked out satisfactorily in the end. In fact, I suspect the justificatory part is going to correspond to the hardest part of the normative challenge for illusionism.

More generally, I am a bit suspicious of views that would manage to avoid revisionary consequences altogether. Revisionary normative consequences may often appear undesirable; but it would be very strange, after all, that a radical revision of our conception of what reality (in general) and the mind (in particular) are—and illusionism really is such a revision—should leave our conception of the value of the states of affairs (in general) and of states of mind (in particular) completely untouched.

Now, in conclusion, let us admit for one second that the best illusionist answer (or maybe all acceptable illusionist answers) to the normative challenge has deeply revisionary normative consequences (nihilism being one of the most striking examples of such deeply revisionary consequences). It would give us a motivation to reject illusionism, as we are usually resistant to normative revisions. However, will this also give us a justification to reject illusionism? In other words, does the normative challenge have epistemic upshots? This will depend on whether or not we have good justifications for our antecedent normative judgments. And here things may quickly become tricky, as illusionism itself might not only lead to contradict these antecedent normative judgments, but might also undercut their justification (for example if these antecedent normative judgments were supposed to be justified by introspection, the status of which, as a reliable justificatory process, is threatened by illusionism).

For the sake of the argument, let us now take our antecedent normative judgments to be independently justified. In this case, the normative challenge would potentially provide the basis of an argument against illusionism.[21] How should the philosopher who has illusionist inclinations react?

One way to go would be to choose weak illusionism over strong illusionism (which I simply called “illusionism” in this paper). Weak illusionists claim that phenomenal consciousness exists, but does not have many of the problematic properties it is usually thought to have—it merely seems to have these properties. Weak illusionism does not deny the existence of phenomenality, which might seem to help in escaping revisionary normative consequences. However, I think that weak illusionism is at heart an unstable position: that it is either a merely verbal variation on strong illusionism, or that it is in fact incoherent, in the sense that it is implicitly committed to the existence of full-blown phenomenality (endowed with the kind of problematic properties that the weak illusionist explicitly denies).[22] Another difficulty for weak illusionists in the context of the normative challenge stems from the fact that they believe we are the victims of illusions regarding phenomenality: phenomenal states seem to have essential properties they do not really have. But once you admit that our grasp of phenomenality is systematically mistaken in important respects, it becomes difficult to support the idea that the capacity of phenomenal states to ground some form of value is not itself amongst these illusory properties. In that sense, weak illusionists too might have to face revisionary normative consequences. One could also retreat to reductive materialism, which is a variety of phenomenal realism (but still seems closer in spirit to illusionism than, say, dualism or neutral monism). However, I take it that the most plausible versions of reductive materialism will be forms of weak illusionism, which means that they also face the difficulties just described.

Therefore, to the question “Can the normative challenge be used to argue against illusionism?” the answer is “Yes”. However, building such an argument will not be easy. Substantive suppositions are needed. Moreover, I doubt such an argument would comparatively give support to neighboring views, such as weak illusionism or reductive materialism: an argument against illusionism based on the normative challenge will probably be an argument against materialism in general (or at least against the most plausible forms of materialism).

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Romain Bourdoncle, David Chalmers, Keith Frankish, Thibaut Giraud, Uriah Kriegel, Andrew Lee, Tricia Magalotti, Johannes Martens, Luke Muehlhauser, Sonia Paz-Higgins, Andrea Peacocke, Henry Shevlin, Carl Shulman, Jonathan Simon, Cecily Whiteley for their helpful remarks and comments, as well as audiences at the Institut Jean Nicod, at the Université Catholique de Louvain and at New York University. I also want to thank the two anonymous referees for their useful remarks, as well as Robert Mason for his corrections.

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Notes

1. See for example what Galen Strawson writes about Dennett’s illusionism:

   If [Dennett is] right, no one has ever really suffered, in spite of agonizing diseases, mental illness, murder, rape, famine, slavery, bereavement, torture, and genocide. And no one has ever caused anyone else pain […] We must hope that [this idea] doesn’t spread outside the academy, or convince some future information technologist or roboticist who has great power over our lives. (Strawson 2018)

2. In the framework suggested by Irvine and Sprevak (in press), illusionism as I understand it would be equivalent to entity eliminativism (as opposed to discourse eliminativism).

3. At the end of this paper, I will say a word about views that reject this presupposition.

4. This thesis might also come in a stronger flavor (Strong Exclusive Phenomenal Value), in which Phenomenal Value is conjoined with the following proposition: “there is no non-phenomenal property such that its instantiation grounds (or would ground) intrinsic value”. While Exclusive Phenomenal Value states that there are no actually instantiated non-phenomenal properties which grounds value, Strong Exclusive Phenomenal Value goes further and asserts that, even in the realm of uninstantiated properties, there is no non-phenomenal value-making property. I will set aside here such subtleties and focus merely on Exclusive Phenomenal Value.

5. Of course, this is only true of hedonism if hedonism is conjoined with a phenomenalist understanding of pleasure and pain (according to which pleasure and pain are particular phenomenal feelings) and not, for example, to an attitudinal understanding of these mental states, according to which pleasure and pain are intentional states (Feldman 2002). Traditional hedonistic theories were unclear on whether they take pleasure and pain to be constituted by certain feelings, or by attitudes towards feelings, although I think it is fair to say that most of them were implicitly phenomenalists. This, at least, is very likely to be true for 18^th and 19^th century hedonists such as Bentham and Mill (as claimed by Moore 2013) but not of Sidgwick (1907), who is arguably one of the first modern thinkers who developed an attitudinal view of pleasure.

6. I suppose that, in order to have the intuition, it is enough for the situation to be conceivable—it does not have to be possible. As William Seager (who goes even further) puts it: “Questions of value assignment are independent of the kind of possibility which the thought experiment depends upon or exploits. We can assign, if only hypothetically, value to things that are physically impossible or even metaphysically impossible (perhaps even to things that are logically impossible – I might wish that arithmetic had not “turned out to be” incomplete for example)” (2001: 3). I will come back later to the problem of ascribing value to impossible situations.

7. I use the “allegedly phenomenal” locution here because I want to describe this normative thesis (as well as the next one, Sentience Contrast) in a way that remains neutral between illusionism and realism. Nota bene: (1) it is only for the phenomenal realist that allegedly phenomenal pain is the same as phenomenal pain. The illusionists think it is only quasi-phenomenal pain. (2) Non-allegedly-phenomenal pain is not zombie pain nor quasi-phenomenal pain, as it is arguably functionally different from allegedly phenomenal pain. Non-allegedly-phenomenal pain is the form of “unconscious pain” occurring in our world that even phenomenal realists will accept as not being phenomenally conscious—for example, subliminal pain. Some people would argue that such a state does not fully deserve the name “pain”—but nothing substantive here depends on this semantic decision.

8. Again, this normative thesis as such is neutral between illusionism and realism.

9. To the best of my knowledge, the first zombie argument in favor of a link between phenomenality and value has been put forward by Charles Siewert (1998), in order to support the view that phenomenal consciousness is essential to our lives having value. Note that Siewert’s thought experiment is a zombification thought experiment, in which a conscious being becomes a zombie.

10. One might note that, by formulating this thought experiment in terms of “zombies”, we might tend to presuppose (implicitly) the falsity of illusionism and the truth of phenomenal realism. This could in turn pump our normative intuitions in some particular directions (possibly problematic from the point of view of an illusionist). For more on the difficulties we might face when we try to get rid of our realist intuitions, as well as the effect it might have on our intuitions regarding what has value, see Section 6.3, item iv.

11. Phenumb is a conscious agent gifted with conscious desires and conscious beliefs, but who does not feel any conscious frustration or sadness whenever his desires are frustrated. Carruthers argues that, when Phenumb is frustrated or sad, he is an appropriate object of sympathy even if his sadness/frustration are not conscious.

12. Another more attractive, less ad hoc option for the illusionist is of course to say that there are not two full grounds of value in all of these situations, but only one full ground—which is not phenomenal. But this option requires one to deny Phenomenal Value, and it will therefore be examined later.

13. On a side note: if someone holds the view that nothing grounds value in the world but allegedly phenomenal states, conjoined with Phenomenal Value, and then comes to embrace illusionism, she is certainly committed to the idea that allegedly phenomenal states are not as good/bad as what she thought. However, depending on how she then determines the value of the states she thinks are actual (quasi-phenomenal states), she may simply “rescale” all of the values of real situations, so that the ordering of the value of all situations remains similar to what she believed before embracing illusionism. She would conclude that things are not as good or as bad as what she thought, but that all comparative relations of value (better/worse) still hold exactly as before. Such an option is closed if the subject holds the view that at least one actual thing outside of allegedly phenomenal states grounds value. Thanks to Johannes Martens for pressing this point.

14. I differentiate these two steps because I think they can be separated. For example, let us consider the statement: “Mary’s car is yellow”. I can justify this statement by appealing, say, to perception or to testimony; I can then give an explanation of what makes this statement true (appealing to the reflectance profile of the surface of Mary’s car). These two processes seem quite different, although they can eventually be linked.

15. This seems to be the strategy suggested by Luke Muehlhauser when he states that illusionism regarding consciousness might have no consequences when it comes to the value of pain:

    What are the implications of illusionism for my intuitions about moral patienthood? In one sense, there might not be any. After all, my intuitions about (e.g.) the badness of conscious pain and the goodness of conscious pleasure were never dependent on the “reality” of specific features of consciousness that the illusionist thinks are illusory. Rather, my moral intuitions work more like the example I gave earlier: I sprain my ankle while playing soccer, don’t notice it for 5 seconds, and then feel a “rush of pain” suddenly “flood” my conscious experience, and I think “Gosh, well, whatever this is, I sure hope nothing like it happens to fish!” And then I reflect on what was happening prior to my conscious experience of the pain, and I think “But if that is all that happens when a fish is physically injured, then I’m not sure I care”. (Muehlhauser 2017)

    Muehlhauser actually rejects this interpretation of his position (as this passage simply describes one of his moral intuitions, but not his ultima facie moral judgment), but I nevertheless think that it would constitute an interesting position, attractive at least to some illusionists.

16. For the idea that the badness/goodness of pain/pleasure are uniquely justified, see also (Sinhababu 2012).

17. Here is an example (rather innocuous): if phenomenal states were the case (as the realist think they are), beliefs (that most people have) that we enter into such phenomenal states would be true, which in turn would arguably ground some kind of (epistemic) value. The “same” beliefs do not ground the same value if the illusionist is right. So, that would be at least one (rather modest) revisionary normative consequence that illusionism could have even if Phenomenal Value is false (as it does not presuppose that phenomenal states fully ground value).

18. I presupposed earlier that zombies are conceivable, which notably implies that there is no a priori derivation from physical truths to phenomenal truths. The conceivability of Inverted Bliss-Suffering actually requires more than that, as it also requires that there is no a priori derivation from phenomenal truths to physical truths. So one could technically accept the conceivability of zombies, but not of such inverted qualia. However, it seems to me that philosophers who usually accept that zombies are conceivable should also naturally accept the conceivability of inverted qualia. Moreover, claiming that there is an a priori derivation from phenomenal truths to even simply some physical truths would have all kinds of strange consequences: it would make phenomenal idealism (the view that nothing exists but phenomenal experience), contradictory, and a priori false. That would also make skepticism about the physical world contradictory and a priori false. However, such views do not seem contradictory nor a priori false.

19. For reasons of space, I cannot discuss it in details, but I want to point out that this view is not endangered by the existence of medical conditions such as pain asymbolia, as here I use “pain” to refer to pain as normal subjects introspect it.

20. To the best of my knowledge, the only views which have been developed and which entail the impossibility of consciousness also claim that the very concept of consciousness is incoherent (Dennett 1988; Rey 1995; 1997). That does not fit well with what I presupposed in this paper (i.e., the conceivability of consciousness). I know of no attempt to develop the view that consciousness is conceivable, but metaphysically impossible (which would require to deny modal rationalism: the thesis that what is conceivable is possible).

21. For an argument against reductive materialism in that spirit, see Cutter (2017).

22. In Keith Frankish’s (2012) terms there is no “diet qualia” between “zero qualia” and full-blown qualia: there is no coherent conception of phenomenality which amounts to more than quasi-phenomenality but is still distinct from “classic” phenomenality. The weak illusionist is either a strong illusionist or a phenomenal realist in disguise.