Ewidence against epiphenomenaSism

The resistance against a natural-science approach to conscious experience reminds one also of the great debate a century ago between Darwinians and creationists. Darwin's opponents clearly believed they were attacking not a mere scientific hypothesis, but a conception of human nature that would tear away the last remaining shreds of human dignity. The contemporary resistance by Velmans and others to a straightforward naturalscience approach to conscious experience may be driven by a similar anxiety. But Darwin did not deprive us of human dignity; treating conscious experience as a normal topic of psychology and neuroscience will not do so either. Indeed, one can make the opposite argument: that denial of first-person conscious experience in other people may lead to a profound kind of dehumanization. It comes down to saying that other people are not capable of joy or suffering, that as far as the outside observer is concerned, we are not to see others as they see themselves. The consequence of this prohibition against the first-person perspective is a kind of mechanization of other people. Psychology under the thumb of behaviorism did indeed display this kind of dehumanizing, mechanistic thinking. It is only when we acknowledge the reality of conscious experience in the minds of others that we can recognize their full humanity.