In Defense of Impenetrable Zombies

Moody is right that the doctrine of conscious inessentialism (CI) is false. Unfortunately, his zombie-based argument against (CI), once made suf-ciently clear to evaluate, is revealed as nothing but legerdemain. The fact is, though Moody has|for reasons I explain|convinced himself otherwise , certain zombies are impenetrable: that they are zombies, and not conscious beings like us, is something beyond the capacity of humans to divine. Moody's argument is imaginative, but not exactly rigorous: it's painfully dii-cult to identify his premises, and his inferences therefrom to the conclusion that conscious inessentialism (CI) is false. Charitable exegesis yields the following overarching reasoning: (1) If (CI) is true, then a group of zombies visiting us from a zombie-world would not bear a mark of zombiehood. (2) A group of zombies visiting us from a zombie-world would bear a mark of zombiehood. Therefore: (3) :(CI) I'm indebted to Larry Hauser for many stimulating electroconversations about zombies.