Philosophy Research Works
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1626
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Item Suffering without Subjectivity(Springer Netherlands, 2004-11) Carruthers, PeterThis paper argues that it is possible for suffering to occur in the absence of phenomenal consciousness − in the absence of a certain sort of experiential subjectivity, that is. (‘Phenomenal’ consciousness is the property that some mental states possess, when it is like something to undergo them, or when they have subjective feels, or possess qualia.) So even if theories of phenomenal consciousness that would withhold such consciousness from most species of non-human animal are correct, this needn’t mean that those animals don’t suffer, and aren’t appropriate objects of sympathy and concern.Item Consciousness: Explaining the Phenomena(Cambridge University Press, 2001) Carruthers, PeterCan phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Many people argue not. They claim that there is an ‘explanatory gap’ between physical and/or intentional states and processes, on the one hand, and phenomenal consciousness, on the other. I reply that, since we have purely recognitional concepts of experience, there is indeed a sort of gap at the level of concepts; but this need not mean that the properties picked out by those concepts are inexplicable. I show how dispositionalist higher-order thought (HOT) theory can reductively explain the subjective feel of experience by deploying a form of ‘consumer semantics’. First-order perceptual contents become transformed, acquiring a dimension of subjectivity, by virtue to their availability to a mind-reading (HOT generating) consumer system.Item Sympathy and Subjectivity(Taylor and Francis Group, 1999-12) Carruthers, PeterThis paper shows that even if the mental states of non-human animals lack phenomenological properties, as some accounts of mental-state consciousness imply, this need not prevent those states from being appropriate objects of sympathy and moral concern. The paper argues that the most basic form of mental (as opposed to biological) harm lies in the existence of thwarted agency, or thwarted desire, rather than in anything phenomenological.