On the Matter of Robot Minds

Abstract

Abstract One reason it matters whether phenomenally conscious robots will soon be forthcoming is that such robots would have moral rights. The view that they are on the horizon often rests on a certain philosophical view about consciousness, one called “nomological behaviorism” in this chapter. The view entails that, as a matter of nomological necessity, if a robot had exactly the same patterns of dispositions to peripheral behavior as a phenomenally conscious being, then the robot would be phenomenally conscious. The chapter experimentally investigates whether the folk think that certain (hypothetical) robots made of silicon and steel would have the same conscious states as certain familiar biological beings with the same patterns of dispositions to peripheral behavior as the robots. The findings provide evidence that the folk largely reject the view that silicon-based robots would have the sensations that they, the folk, attribute to the biological beings in question.