Abstract

Two key questions dominate the experimental philosophy of mind literature: Do ordinary people possess a concept of phenomenal consciousness? What features of an entity lead people to attribute phenomenally conscious (and non-phenomenally conscious) mental states? Five responses to one or both of these questions are discussed: (1) an Embodiment View, which claims that agents capable of phenomenal consciousness are thought by the folk to possess a certain kind of biological body; (2) a Valence View, which emphasizes the importance of considerations of affective valence in mental state attribution; (3) a “Naïve” View, which claims that pains and colors are just thought by the folk to be physically localized properties; (4) a Functionalist View, which argues that functionalist considerations predominate ordinary peoples attributions of all varieties of mental states; and (5) a Dual-Systems View, which claims that all of the other views are investigating rational mental state attributions and have missed the significant part of the story involving automatic mental state attributions. Experimental philosophical evidence for and against each response is considered. The chapter concludes with some brief remarks about other projects in the experimental philosophy of mind.