Can We Sum Subjects? Evaluating Panpsychism’s Hard Problem

Roelofs, Luke

doi:10.4324/9781315717708-21

Cited by 18 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…2 For explicit discussion of this principle see esp. (Dainton 2011, p. 246;Kriegel 2017, p. 131ff;Roelofs 2019, p. 60ff;Roelofs 2020). 3 Thus we are picking up on the thread left dangling by Sutton when, after making a metaphysical case for the failure of Exclusivity, she remarks that "how to figure a shared pain into a utilitarian calculus is an interesting but separate question that I will leave to the ethicists" (Sutton 2014, p. 622).…”

Section: Rejecting Exclusivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Overlapping minds and the hedonic calculus

Roelofs,

Sebo

2024

Philos Stud

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It may soon be possible for neurotechnology to connect two subjects' brains such that they share a single token mental state, such as a feeling of pleasure or displeasure. How will our moral frameworks have to adapt to accommodate this prospect? And if this sort of mental-state-sharing might already obtain in some cases, how should this possibility impact our moral thinking? This question turns out to be extremely challenging, because different examples generate different intuitions: If two subjects share very few mental states, then it seems that we should count the value of those states twice, but if they share very many mental states, then it seems that we should count the value of those statesonce. We suggest that these conflicting intuitions can be reconciled if the mental states that matter for welfare have a holistic character, in a way that is independently plausible. We close by drawing tentative conclusions about how we ought to think about the moral significance of shared mental states.

show abstract

Section: Rejecting Exclusivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Roelofs, , pp. 3205-3209, 2019(Roelofs, , 2020 Miller, 2017, p. 12).20 For other work in this area see(Mathews, 2003;Buchanan & Roelofs, 2019;Vetlesen, 2019).18 See e.g (Seager, 1995;Chalmers, 2015)…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Overlapping minds and the hedonic calculus

Roelofs,

Sebo

2024

Philos Stud

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Of course, my conceptual arguments cannot in themselves establish that we actually are group agents, and the full defence of this possibility requires discussing several other issues – about the unity of consciousness, the privacy of experience and the structure of the brain – which I address in other work (Roelofs , , Forthcoming‐a, Forthcoming‐b). But showing the correlative possibilities of moderately selfless agents and seamless collective agency is one step towards a compositional view of our own agency.…”

Section: The I‐concept and The We‐conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rational Agency without Self-Knowledge: Could ‘We’ Replace ‘I’?

Roelofs

2017

Dialectica

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It has been claimed that we need singular self-knowledge (knowledge involving the concept 'I') to function properly as rational agents. I argue that this is not strictly true: agents in certain relations could dispense with singular self-knowledge and instead rely on plural self-knowledge (knowledge involving the concept 'we'). In defending the possibility of this kind of 'selfless agent', I thereby defend the possibility of a certain kind of 'seamless' collective agency; agency in a group of agents who have no singular self-knowledge, who do not know which member of the group they are. I discuss four specific functions for which singular self-knowledge has been thought indispensable: distinguishing intentional from unintentional actions, connecting nonindexical knowledge with action, reflecting on our own reasoning, and identifying which ultimate practical reasons we have. I argue in each case that by establishing certain relations between agents -relations I label 'motor vulnerability', 'cognitive vulnerability', 'evidential unity' and 'moral unity' -we would allow those agents to do everything a rational agent needs to do while relying only on plural, rather than singular, self-knowledge. Finally, I consider the objection that any agents who met the conditions I lay out for selfless agency would thereby cease to qualify as distinct agents, merging into a single agent without agential parts. Against this objection, I argue that we should recognise the possibility of simultaneous agency in whole and parts, and not regard either as disqualifying the other.

show abstract

Dennettian Panpsychism: Multiple Drafts, All of Them Conscious

Roelofs

2021

Acta Anal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Can We Sum Subjects? Evaluating Panpsychism’s Hard Problem

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Overlapping minds and the hedonic calculus

Overlapping minds and the hedonic calculus

Rational Agency without Self-Knowledge: Could ‘We’ Replace ‘I’?

Dennettian Panpsychism: Multiple Drafts, All of Them Conscious

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About