The bad and the good about the phenomenal stance

Folk psychology's usefulness extends beyond its role in explaining and predicting behavior, i.e., beyond the intentional stance. In this paper, I critically examine the concept of phenomenal stance. According to this idea, attributions of phenomenal mental states impact laypeople's perception of moral patiency. The more phenomenal states we ascribe to others, the more we care about their well-being. The perception of moral patients—those affected by moral actions—is hypothesized to diverge from the perception of moral agents, those who perform moral actions. Despite its appeal, especially considering its exploration of the established relationship between folk psychology and moral cognition, the idea of the phenomenal stance faces significant challenges. It relies on laypeople recognizing the phenomenality of experience, yet experimental philosophy of consciousness suggests that there is no folk concept of phenomenal consciousness. Moreover, proponents of the phenomenal stance often conflate phenomenal states with emotional states despite the existence of both non-emotional conscious states and, arguably, non-conscious emotional states. Additionally, attributions of conscious mental states impact the perception of both moral agency and patiency. I report on experimental results indicating that some of these attributions lower the perceived moral patiency. Besides providing reasons to reject the idea of the phenomenal stance, I argue that the perception of moral patiency is guided by attributions of affective states (affects, emotions, moods). I call such attributions the affective stance and explore this concept’s relationship with empathy and other psychological concepts.