Moral significance of phenomenal consciousness.
Progress in brain research January 1, 2009 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1016/s0079-6123(09)17725-7 via PubMed
Summary
Recent neuroimaging suggests some patients diagnosed as in a persistent vegetative state may be conscious, but this evidence is open to alternative interpretations. The ethical significance of this consciousness is less than often assumed because different kinds of consciousness confer different moral values. Phenomenal consciousness (qualitative feel) makes someone a moral patient whose welfare matters, but only access consciousness (global information availability) grants personhood and full moral status. Further research is needed to determine if these patients have the sophisticated access consciousness required for personhood.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Phenomenal consciousness in vegetative state patients makes them moral patients, but only access consciousness would grant them personhood and full moral status. |
Abstract
Recent work in neuroimaging suggests that some patients diagnosed as being in the persistent vegetative state are actually conscious. In this paper, we critically examine this new evidence. We argue that though it remains open to alternative interpretations, it strongly suggests the presence of consciousness in some patients. However, we argue that its ethical significance is less than many people seem to think. There are several different kinds of consciousness, and though all kinds of consciousness have some ethical significance, different kinds underwrite different kinds of moral value. Demonstrating that patients have phenomenal consciousness--conscious states with some kind of qualitative feel to them--shows that they are moral patients, whose welfare must be taken into consideration. But only if they are subjects of a sophisticated kind of access consciousness--where access consciousness entails global availability of information to cognitive systems--are they persons, in the technical sense of the word employed by philosophers. In this sense, being a person is having the full moral status of ordinary human beings. We call for further research which might settle whether patients who manifest signs of consciousness possess the sophisticated kind of access consciousness required for personhood.