Work

Consciousness is Sublime

Year: 2025

Type: article

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.

Source: Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

DOI: 10.3998/ergo.7659

Author: Takuya Niikawa

Institution: Kobe University

Language: English

Topic: Philosophy and Theoretical Science

Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

Funders: Rice University, Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

Awards: G430902029, Interdisciplinary Study to Elucidate Cognitive Effects Induced by the Absence of Reality in Cyber Information, Developing an enactive epistemology and ontology: Affectivity, autonomy, and consciousness, Interdisciplinary research on the epistemic status of introspection