This paper examines the philosophical zombie argument and the challenge it poses to physicalism. Beginning with Descartes' early reflections on automata and human behavior, it traces the zombie concept through the 19th century and into David Chalmers' influential 1996 formulation. The paper explains how the zombie argument—grounded in the conceivability and logical possibility of beings physically identical to humans yet lacking conscious experience—attempts to demonstrate that physicalism is false. It then evaluates physicalist responses, with particular attention to the anti-zombie argument developed by Frankish, ultimately concluding that both the zombie and anti-zombie arguments are mutually undermining and that the debate contributes more to dualism than it resolves.
In the field of philosophy, philosophical zombies are imaginary creatures used to illuminate problems regarding consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike the zombies of folklore or film, philosophical zombies are exactly like human beings in every physical respect but entirely lack conscious experience. They behave like humans, and some of them even spend considerable time discussing consciousness. While few philosophers believe zombies actually exist, many argue that they are at least conceivable, and some go further to claim they are genuinely possible.
Consequently, there are arguments that if zombies are even a bare possibility, then some form of dualism is true and physicalism is false. This argument is the chief significance of the zombie idea for many philosophers, though it also generates interest regarding presuppositions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between the physical and the phenomenal. In addition, the use of the zombie idea against physicalism raises broader questions about the link between conceivability, imaginability, and possibility. Generally, the zombie argument poses a serious problem for physicalism and has attracted responses from physicalists who attempt to defuse it.
According to Descartes, non-human animals are automata, which implies that their behavior is completely explicable in terms of physical mechanisms (Kirk, 2011). The philosopher explored the concept of a machine that looked and behaved like a human being. Having attempted to unmask such a machine, Descartes concluded that no machine could behave exactly like a human being, and that explaining characteristically human behavior required something beyond the physical. This would require an immaterial mind, interaction with the processes in the brain, and the rest of the body.
In the 19th century, scientists began to think that physics was capable of explaining every physical event that was explicable at all. These thoughts were fueled by the observation that nearly every physical effect has a physical cause. This contributed to the emergence of the zombie idea as a counter-example to physicalism. However, for zombies to function as counter-examples to physicalism, it is not enough for them merely to behave and function like normal human beings in all physical respects. This requires zombies to be subject to the fundamental causal closure of the physical, which means that their supposed lack of consciousness poses a genuine challenge to physicalism (Kirk, 2011). If the behavior of zombies could not be explained physically, physicalists would simply argue that there is no reason to be concerned about them.
The origin of the zombie argument can be attributed to the overwhelming intuitive appeal of the zombie idea in the early 1970s. Philosophers who exploited this idea during this period assumed without argument that zombies are not only conceivable but also possible. The conceivability of zombies was treated as obvious because of the seemingly clear description of a coherent situation. However, since intuition cannot always be relied upon, and since there are significant difficulties in understanding the nature of consciousness, those who claim that zombies are conceivable must support their claims.
Notably, the zombie argument against physicalism was significantly expanded by David Chalmers in 1996 in order to demonstrate the conceivability of zombies and to argue that physicalism is false. The argument is grounded in two major premises and is typically developed through a framework of two-dimensional semantics. First, it holds that if physicalism is true, then it is conceivably impossible for zombies to exist. Second, it holds that it is logically possible for zombies to exist. Based on these premises, Chalmers concludes that physicalism is therefore false, and that if the existence of zombies is logically possible, then consciousness cannot be described or explained reductively.
"Explains how zombies challenge physicalist accounts of consciousness"
"Surveys physicalist counterarguments including the anti-zombie argument"
Frankish, K. (2007). The anti-zombie argument. Philosophical Quarterly, 57(229), 650–666. Retrieved from
Kirk, R. (2011, March 17). Zombies. Retrieved from Stanford University website: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/
Montero, B. (1999, June). The body problem. Noûs, 33(2), 183–200.
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