Re: 2, I don’t see how we should expect functionalism to resolve disputes over which agents are conscious. Panpsychism does not such thing, nor does physicalism or dualism or any other theory of mind. Any of these theories can inform inquiry about which agents are conscious, in tandem with empirical work, but the connection is tenuous and it seems to me that at least 70% of the work is empirical. Theory of mind mostly gives a theoretical basis for empirical work.
The problem lies more with the specific anti-realist account of sentience that some people at FRI have, which basically boils down to “it’s morally relevant suffering if I think it’s morally relevant suffering.” I suspect that a good functionalist framework need not involve this.
“But it seems a stretch to say that the alleged tension is problematic when talking about tables. So why would it be problematic when talking about suffering?”
Actually I think the tension would be problematic if we had philosophical debates about tables and edge cases which may or may not be tables.
Re: 2, I don’t see how we should expect functionalism to resolve disputes over which agents are conscious.
I think analytic functionalism is internally consistent on whether agents are conscious, as is the realist panpsychism approach, and so on. The problem comes in, as you note, when we want to be anti-realist about consciousness yet also care about suffering.
it seems to me that at least 70% of the work is empirical. Theory of mind mostly gives a theoretical basis for empirical work.
In practice, it may be difficult to cleanly distinguish between theoretical work on consciousness, and empirical work on consciousness. At least, we may need to be very careful in how we’re defining “consciousness”, “empirical”, etc.
The problem lies more with the specific anti-realist account of sentience that some people at FRI have, which basically boils down to “it’s morally relevant suffering if I think it’s morally relevant suffering.” I suspect that a good functionalist framework need not involve this.
It’s an open question whether this is possible under functionalism—my argument is that it’s not possible to find a functionalist framework which has a clear or privileged definition of what morally relevant suffering is.
Re: 2, I don’t see how we should expect functionalism to resolve disputes over which agents are conscious. Panpsychism does not such thing, nor does physicalism or dualism or any other theory of mind. Any of these theories can inform inquiry about which agents are conscious, in tandem with empirical work, but the connection is tenuous and it seems to me that at least 70% of the work is empirical. Theory of mind mostly gives a theoretical basis for empirical work.
The problem lies more with the specific anti-realist account of sentience that some people at FRI have, which basically boils down to “it’s morally relevant suffering if I think it’s morally relevant suffering.” I suspect that a good functionalist framework need not involve this.
Actually I think the tension would be problematic if we had philosophical debates about tables and edge cases which may or may not be tables.
I think analytic functionalism is internally consistent on whether agents are conscious, as is the realist panpsychism approach, and so on. The problem comes in, as you note, when we want to be anti-realist about consciousness yet also care about suffering.
In practice, it may be difficult to cleanly distinguish between theoretical work on consciousness, and empirical work on consciousness. At least, we may need to be very careful in how we’re defining “consciousness”, “empirical”, etc.
It’s an open question whether this is possible under functionalism—my argument is that it’s not possible to find a functionalist framework which has a clear or privileged definition of what morally relevant suffering is.