A new method for determining whether nonverbal organisms such as human infants have consciousness has recently emerged. According to this so-called marker methodology, we do not use theories of consciousness to assess whether creatures are conscious by meeting the conditions set out by those theories. Rather, we identify a range of markers that putatively correlate with consciousness to make...
Abstract Many claim that there is an important relationship between consciousness and welfare. Call this general view phenomenalism . One way of fleshing out phenomenalism is to hold that consciousness is what makes one the type of entity that can be noninstrumentally better or worse off in the first place. Consciousness is at least a necessary condition on welfare subjecthood . A different...
According to David Rosenthal’s higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness, a mental state is conscious just in case one is aware of being in that state via a suitable HOT. Jesse Mulder (2016) recently objects: though HOT theory holds that conscious states are states that it seems to one that one is in, the view seems unable to explain how HOTs engender such seemings. I clarify here how...