Paper: 'Moral Agency Without Consciousness' by Jen Semler in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy

In this forthcoming article in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Jen Semler challenges the view that phenomenal consciousness is a necessary condition for moral agency. She argues that four core capacities —action, possession of moral concepts, responsiveness to moral reasons, and moral understanding — can all be instantiated without consciousness. Semler concludes that it is plausible to view non‑conscious entities as moral agents, with significant implications for debates around artificial moral agency and the moral status of advanced AI systems.

Read the full paper here.