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Value in a limitless world.

We argue that three theses involving three separate areas of philosophy jointly yield an interesting but overlooked result. The first is from the metaphysics of mind, and says that everything is conscious (Panpsychism). The second is axiological, and says that, necessarily, every instance of conscio...

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Published in:Synthese Vol. 205; no. 6; pp. 1 - 23
Main Authors: Giberman, Daniel, Shupe, Eli
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature Jun2025
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        atl: Value in a limitless world.
      aug:
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          Giberman, Daniel
          Shupe, Eli
        affil:
          https://ror.org/01tm6cn81 Department of Philosophy, Linguistics, and Theory of Science (FLoV), University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
          https://ror.org/019kgqr73 Department of Philosophy and Humanities, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, USA
      sug:
      keyword:
        Consciousness
        Gunk
        Mereology
        Panpsychism
        Philosophy and Religious Studies Philosophy
        Value of consciousness
      ab: We argue that three theses involving three separate areas of philosophy jointly yield an interesting but overlooked result. The first is from the metaphysics of mind, and says that everything is conscious (Panpsychism). The second is axiological, and says that, necessarily, every instance of consciousness is intrinsically valuable (Value). The third is from mereology, and says that everything has proper parts (Gunk). The result is that every non-panpsychist or non-gunk world of finite value is infinitely less valuable than the closest panpsychist gunk world. In short, if consciousness is intrinsically valuable then the joint obtaining of panpsychism and gunk would make a great many things—perhaps everything—better. In addition to its independent interest, this result shows that if consciousness is intrinsically valuable then the best of all possible appropriately finite worlds (and perhaps the best of all possible worlds, full stop) are panpsychist and gunky.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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