The Normative Problem for Panpsychism
Epistemology & Philosophy of Science January 1, 2025 K. Morozov
Combining panpsychism—the view that all entities have some form of phenomenal consciousness—with sentientism, which grants special moral status to conscious beings, creates a normative problem: it erases the moral asymmetry between living and nonliving things and could overturn established ethical beliefs. The article argues that both positions have strong support, so rejecting one is not a viable escape. Four potential strategies are examined: limiting morally relevant consciousness to valence (pleasant or unpleasant experiences), replacing panpsychism with panprotopsychism, separating phenomenal from normative aspects, or expanding ethics to include all entities. None fully resolves the problem, as each either leads to counterintuitive consequences or weakens the motivation for panpsychism. The normative challenge thus seriously undermines panpsychism's ability to achieve reflective equilibrium.