The Philosophical Quarterly
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THE ANTI-ZOMBIE ARGUMENT
Abstract
The zombie argument has come to occupy a central role in the case for a non-physicalist theory of consciousness. I seek to turn the tables on ‘zombists’ by showing that a parallel argument can be run for physicalism. This argument invokes anti-zombies, purely physical creatures which are conscious. I show that using the same resources as those employed by zombists, it is possible to construct an argument from the conceivability of anti-zombies to the truth of physicalism. I go on to defend the claim that anti-zombies are conceivable, and to argue that the anti-zombie argument can be defeated only at the cost of rendering the zombie argument itself redundant. The moral is that dualists should not be zombists.