Consciousness Makes Things Matter
Abstract
This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.
Philosophers often debate what makes one better or worse off, but seldom debate what makes an entity the kind of thing that can be better or worse off in the first place. The first question concerns welfare goods; the second question concerns welfare subjects. This paper defends a phenomenal theory of welfare subjects, according to which consciousness is what makes an entity a welfare subject. On this view, the set of conscious subjects is identical to the set of welfare subjects. Alongside developing the phenomenal theory, I also address some underexplored questions about how a theory of welfare subjects ought to relate to a theory of welfare goods, and how we should think about welfare level zero.
Keywords: welfare goods, welfare subject, hedonism, sentience, consciousness, death, value of consciousness, well-being, experientialism