Human and Animal Minds. Research Seminar of the Center for Consciousness Studies

On April 2, 2025, the Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies and the Department of the History of Foreign Philosophy held a session of the research seminar “New Ideas in Philosophy,” devoted to Peter Carruthers’s Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Questions Laid to Rest (2019).

Peter Carruthers criticizes the claim that phenomenal consciousness is a necessary condition for moral status. He argues that even if animals have phenomenal consciousness, we cannot reliably identify it or use it as a basis for ethical conclusions. Instead, he argues that moral status can and should be determined without appealing to phenomenal consciousness.

At the seminar, the participants discussed how convincing Carruthers’s arguments are. The central ideas of the book were presented by Vadim Vasiliev, and Taras Tarasenko offered a critical response. The subsequent discussion featured Artem Besedin, Ivan Devyatko, Evgeny Loginov, Artem Yashin, Anton Kuznetsov, and Andrey Mertsalov.

https://youtu.be/f3m_QIH96D4?si=5-IqiiqlVM6KypmM