A2 Philosophy

Philosophical Zombies

definition: a system that is functionally isomorphic to a human being but exists without qualia or a ‘mind’. A duplicate of a human being, it is the same thing physically, but lacks conscious experience. Chalmers (the guy who talks about them)

Why are they a problem?

The suggest that we cannot really know for sure if other minds exist. If it is the case that zombie are theoretically possible, how would we know that any other human is not a zombie?

Conceivability of a zombie - doesn’t matter if they exist or not, they are still problematic because there is still a logical possibility. We can conceive of the possibility of an identical being that lacks qualia. If zombies are logically possible, then physical facts alone are not enough to explain the existence of consciousness. If consciousness was just physical, then they would not be conceivable. If the physical systems were all identical in every way to a human being, then how can one have consciousness and the other not?

Materialist theories of the mind are therefore false, because they don’t alone account for consciousness. This would rule out functionalism, behaviourism, identity theory.

This could essentially be an argument in favour of dualism.

Behaviourism: zombies are emitting the same behaviour and potential behaviour as a human

Functionalism:We can imagine a functionaly isomorphic thing that lacks consciousness.

Identity Theory: Reduces mental states to the part of the brain which is firing off at that particular time. We can conceive of a zombie that has a brain having the same bits of the brain firing off, and they would be responding the same way, and yet they are missing the same sense of awareness of whats going on .

e.g. when I am sad, my c fibre goes of and I start crying. The zombie would do exactly the same but would not have the same qualitative experience.

Mary’s room example: she knows everything about the neuronal aspects of the brain and all the physical properties of red, but she has never experienced red. She has learnt something new when she does experience red, because she has actually experienced it. (a zombie could know all this but still be lacking the extra qualitative, conscious experience).

Responses:

One way we can break down this argument is by questioning the logic. Just because something is concievable, doesn’t mean it is possible. Arguably, as a materialist, you could not really conceive of the idea of philosophical zombies.

e.g. we can coneive of the possibility that water isn’t H2O. However, the ontological fact is that is not actually possible.

Bringing it back to materialism:

The materialist could respond to this by saying just because something is conceivable doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. If its not possible, then something that is functionally isomorphic, the conclusion would be that it is actually a human, not a zombie.

Additionally, it is not a necessary conclusion that we should go back to substance dualism. Biological naturalism, property dualism.

Problems with dualism:

God..?

Issue of interation… how are we supposed to account for the interation between the physical and the mental?

Distributive Justice

Distributive justice can be defined as the fair distribution of society’s benefits and burdens

Society’s Benefits: things that we benefit from being memebers of society e.g. police protection, welfare, shared resources, management of resources (parks etc.) education, military protection

Society’s Burdens: things about society that are not so fun… e.g. taxation, market regulations, legal restrictions, (conscription .. Greece)

The problem with distributive justice is how to define what is ‘fair’. So many things factor into tyrying to decided what is and isn’t fair, what do we consider?

Equality?

Utilitarianism?

Need?

How do we share out benefits and burdens in a way that is fair

Should Wayne Rooney earn more than a care worker? Some people argue that the wealth should be distributed more equally between him, and the care worker, the two both work equally as hard as eachother, so why is it that he deserves more pay ?

I think that when you break it down its not quite as black and white as ‘he does this and the care worker does that’, given the size of the industry that he works in he is still probabally only earning a lot less than the total industry. The skill that the footballers like him have draws in a lot of people, who are willing to pay a lot of money for tickets, food, transport to get to matches, football shirts and other merchandise. All of this then creates jobs, taxes, revenue and realistically the industry does a lot to help the country. 

There are things to consider in this matter:

Desert vs entitlement

What is the difference between legal/positive + natural rights>

Natural Rights are non-consequentialist, and are based around set morals. They are pre-legal. Some argue that these rights and morals come from God, such as Locke who argued that we have the God given. They are absolute, and universal. This would mena that morals are compeltley set and should be preserved irregardless of what the person has or hasn’t done. e.g. Deontologists would argue that it is wrong to use the death penalty on a murderer, as they should still have the basic natural right to live.

Legal and positive rights are created by humans to protect humans, and they are enforced only by the law, and are not derrived from ‘natural law’. They are only rights that have been given to us by governement, who make a decision to enforce them. They can be based on morality, but are unlike natural rights in that they could be changeable depending on the moral code of a particular society. For example, in the Victorian era homosexuals did not have the legal right to have a homo-sexual relationship, where as they do now.

The problem of other minds

Materialist or Dualist?

Searle is criticised because he fails to commit fully to either a materialist theory or a dualist theory. He claims that consciousness is an ordinary biological process, implying it is materialist, but then claims that it is also irreducibly subjective, which gives a dulalist account for consciousness.

Searle’s response:

Searle claims that there are mistakes in the way we have previously have seen what mental can be. Typically we assume that mental things cannot be spatial, and Searle argues that in fact mental things can be spatial.

Criticisms of Biological Naturalism

Problems are created for Searle in that he gives mental states full causal powers. This leads to the problem of over determination associated with property dualism. This means that he is essentially saying that M can cause M*, which then detracts from his orgional ideas, that mental states supervene from biological goings on in the body. It then ends up that M* becomes over determined in that it can happen because B triggers B* then M* or that M trigger M*, or That B triggers M then B* then M*.

Searles reply

Searle argues that this is a problem for property dualism, and as his theory is not propety dualism, it does not apply. He also says that the above view of causation is a mistake.

“This objection rests on a mistkake about causation. We have been tuaght by Hume that causation is always a relation between discrete events ordered in time… lots of causal relations are like that, but not all.”

Searle is arguing that consciousness and brain activity are actually simultaneous. Something does not happen in the brain, and then we are conscious. Rather, conscious states are realised at the same time as when the brain activity occurs.

What is being argued:

Ba then C

What Searle is actually saying:

Ba and C

Searle also attempts to make a distinction between himself and property dualists.

1. Searle arguest that consciousness is causally reducible to brain processes, not ontologically. A property dualist would argue that the two are ontologically reducible, therefore implying that consciousness is over and above that neurobiological base.

2. Consciousness is not a distinct seperate phenomenon above the neurobiogical base, rather a state that the neurobiological system can be in.

3. The property dualists believe that in addition to the features of the brain, consciousness is an extra nonphysical feature of the brain, whereas Searle believes it is just a state that the brain can be in.

Biological Naturalism

A theory by John Searle

Searle believes that mental states are all part of our biological life history, just as other things like digestion, growth and reproduction are, and are natural and physical. However, he does not believe that mental states can be reduced ontologically down to just brain processes.

Searle says four things about consciousness, that we know:

1. Conscious states are qualitative and subjective - things feel differently to everybody

2. Such states are ontologically subjective (they exist as subjective things) in that they only exist as they are being experience by a human or animal subject. For example, wind exists objectively, but there is also a separate ontological aspect that is subjective to my own experience of the wind.

3. Single conscious states are all part of a bigger unified conscious field

4. Most, but not all conscious states are intentional in the sense that they are about of refer to objects or states or affairs. For example, hunger is intentional because it is directed for me to get some food.

Consciousness, intentionality and mental states are emergent from our brain. Many non-reductive physicalists argue that mental properties supervene from physical things. Searle argues that mentality is a higher level, supervenient property of some biological organisms.

Searle says that mental states are causally efficacious. For example, when I chose to throw a pen at someone, my decision causes me to pick up the pen and throw it. It is also possible for there to be top down mental-physical causation, as well as physical things causing mental states. An example of top down causation would be me baking some cookies after having the desire to bake.

In summary:

Lower level states cause higher level mental states

Mental states are ‘realised’ in the brain

Higher level mental states function causally

Higher level mental states are  ontologically reducible to lower level neurological processes.

Property Dualism

Property dualism attempts to place its self in between substance dualism and materialism. Whilst it considers itself to be a dualist theory it maintains the idea that everything is physical. The way it differs from materialism is that it does not attempt to reduce mental states to physical states alone. Instead states that our internal processes have both physical and mental properties. According to the property dualist mental states are irreducible and cannot be analysed in any purelly physical terms. For example, a wine bottle has many different properties, it is made of glass, it is green (depending on the make) and it is bottle shaped. We are used to the idea of things having multiple properties, and the property dualist would agree that from this it is reasonable to say that mental states have both mental and physical properties. It is like having two sides to a coin, one is mental, one is physical, but they are both part of the same physical structure (us).