JULIA TANNEY’s research while affiliated with University of Kent and other places

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Publications (1)


On the Conceptual, Psychological, and Moral Status of Zombies, Swamp‐Beings, and Other ‘Behaviourally Indistinguishable’Creatures
  • Article

July 2004

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69 Reads

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11 Citations

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

JULIA TANNEY

In this paper 1 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, 1 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.

Citations (1)


... They would seem to be ordinary participants in the moral community, and they would presumably act outraged, distraught, or at least perplexed by the suggestion that they lacked inner mental lives. I suspect that we would (or at least should; Antony, 1996;Tanney, 2004) sooner doubt whichever scientist or authority figure told us they lacked phenomenal consciousness than we would withhold our sympathy or resentment towards them (this is effectively the plot of countless tales of science fiction and fantasy: a non-human 10 See Sytsma and Machery (2012) for studies ostensibly suggesting that participants sometimes judge that individuals with sophisticated cognitive capacities but impoverished experiential capacities deserve significant moral consideration, but I agree with Jack and Robbins (2012, p. 402) that Sytsma and Machery's cases do not involve the total absence of phenomenal consciousness. ...

Reference:

Equal Rights for Zombies? Phenomenal Consciousness and Responsible Agency
On the Conceptual, Psychological, and Moral Status of Zombies, Swamp‐Beings, and Other ‘Behaviourally Indistinguishable’Creatures
  • Citing Article
  • July 2004

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research