Consciousness is Sublime
Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy May 27, 2025 DOI: 10.3998/ergo.7659 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that consciousness is sublime and therefore has non-instrumental aesthetic value, claiming that awe experienced through introspecting consciousness's mystery, connection to well-being, and phenomenological complexity provides prima facie justification for this view, and that objections based on common opinion and the absence of grounding physical properties fail. The author proposes this thesis explains why conscious subjects who cannot have valenced experiences deserve moral consideration. |
Abstract
Does consciousness have non-instrumental aesthetic value? This paper answers this question affirmatively by arguing that consciousness is sublime. The argument consists of three premises. (1) An awe experience of an object provides prima facie justification to believe that the object is sublime. (2) I have an awe experience about consciousness through introspecting three features of consciousness, namely the mystery of consciousness, the connection between consciousness and well-being, and the phenomenological complexity of consciousness. (3) There is no good defeater of the justificatory force of my feeling of awe for the sublimity of consciousness. To defend the third premise, I argue against two potential defeaters: The first is that most people do not regard consciousness as sublime. The second is that there does not seem to be physical properties that can ground the sublimity of consciousness. I conclude by emphasizing an important ethical implication of the thesis that consciousness is sublime, namely that it explains why even conscious subjects who cannot have valenced experiences deserve moral consideration.