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Mark Phelan

Lawrence University, Philosophy, Faculty Member

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I'm Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. My research focuses on topics related to our understanding of other minds, both at a general level and in individual instances of social interaction. It also touches on topics such as religious belief, friendship, aesthetic appreciation, and collective intentions.
Address: Department of Philosophy
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711 East Boldt Way
Appleton, WI 54911

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Papers by Mark Phelan

Experimental Philosophy of Mind: Conscious State Attribution (Preprint)

Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy

Two key questions dominate the experimental philosophy of mind literature: Do ordinary people pos... more Two key questions dominate the experimental philosophy of mind literature: Do ordinary people possess a concept of phenomenal consciousness? What features of an entity lead people to attribute phenomenally conscious (and non-phenomenally conscious) mental states? Five responses to one or both of these questions are discussed: 1) an Embodiment View, which claims that agents capable of phenomenal consciousness are thought by the folk to possess a certain kind of biological body; 2) a Valence View, which emphasizes the importance of considerations of affective valence in mental state attribution; 3) a “Naïve” View, which claims that pains and colors are just thought by the folk to be physically localized properties; 4) a Functionalist View, which argues that functionalist considerations predominate ordinary peoples attributions of all varieties of mental states; and 5) a Dual-Systems View, which claims that all of the other views are investigating rational mental state attributions and have missed the significant part of the story involving automatic mental state attributions. Experimental philosophical evidence for and against each response is considered. The chapter concludes with some brief remarks about other projects in the experimental philosophy of mind.

Thinking things and feeling things: on an alleged discontinuity in folk metaphysics of mind

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2013

Norm Manipulation as a Condition of Friendship

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy

Mason (2020) argues—against my position in Phelan (2019)—that significant norm-manipulation is un... more

Rethinking Friendship

Rethinking Friendship, 2019

Philosophers have tended to construe friendship as an intimate relationship involving mutual love... more Philosophers have tended to construe friendship as an intimate relationship involving mutual love, and have focused their discussions on this ‘true’ form of friendship. However, everyone recognizes that we use the word ‘friend’ and its cognates to refer, non-ironically, to those with whom we share various relationships that are not terribly intimate or which do not involve mutual love. I argue that there exists no general reason to restrict our philosophical focus to ‘true’ friendships, and allege that we can gain important insights if we broaden our perspective to include lesser friends. I contend that friendships, in the broad sense (encompassing both ‘true’ and lesser forms), are necessarily relationships that are the product of significant collaborative norm manipulation. And I argue that understanding friendship in this way helps explain important features, including the difference between friendships and familiar relations, the non-fungibility of friends, and why friendships are often in flux.

Moral Objectivism and a Punishing God

Many moral philosophers have assumed that ordinary folk embrace moral objectivism. But, if so, wh... more Many moral philosophers have assumed that ordinary folk embrace moral objectivism. But, if so, why do folk embrace objectivism? One possibility is the pervasive connection between religion and morality in ordinary life. Some theorists contend that God is viewed as a divine guarantor of right and wrong, rendering morality universal and absolute. But is belief in God per se sufficient for moral objectivism? In this paper, we present original research exploring the connections between metaethics and particular conceptions of God among religious participants. Study 1 shows that, when controlling for religiosity, age, and belief in God's loving characteristics, it is belief in God's punishing characteristics (specifically, the existence of Hell) that uniquely predicts rejection of moral relativism. Study 2 shows that followers of Abrahamic faiths are more likely to endorse moral objectivism when thinking of the Divine, regardless of loving or punishing characteristics. And Study 3 shows that priming for moral objectivism makes theists more likely to endorse God's punishing characteristics. A general picture is suggested by these data. For Abrahamic theists, God's particular characteristics are not germane to the question of whether his moral commandments are real and objective. And while theists strongly endorse God's loving characteristics, focusing on the objective nature of morality can highlight God's punishing nature, reminding theists that objective morality requires a divine guarantor of justice to enforce it.

Brain Damage, Mind Damage, and Dualism

Brain damage poses an important objection to Cartesian dualism over and above the interaction pro... more

Analytic Functionalism and Mental State Attribution

We argue that the causal account offered by analytic functionalism provides the best account of t... more We argue that the causal account offered by analytic functionalism provides the best account of the folk psychological theory of mind, and that people ordinarily define mental states relative to the causal roles these states occupy in relation to environmental impingements, external behaviors, and other mental states. We present new empirical evidence, as well as review several key studies on mental state ascription to diverse types of entities such as robots, cyborgs, corporations and God, and explain how this evidence supports a functional account. We also respond to two challenges to this view based on the embodiment hypothesis, or the claim that physical realizers matter over and above functional role, and qualia. In both cases we conclude that research to date best supports a functional account of ordinary mental state concepts.

Mere Exposure to Bad Art (Available for free access at British Journal of Aesthetics)

I Why do we make the aesthetic judgements that we do? Luck and happenstance-our environment, our ... more I Why do we make the aesthetic judgements that we do? Luck and happenstance-our environment, our upbringing, our friends-presumably play some role. But most philosophers of art presume that works of art have stable aesthetic or artistic values to which judgement is also sensitive. Hence the standard philosophical (and perhaps commonsensical) view that artistic value is a primary determinant of canonical status.

Testing Transparent Ascriptions

Consider the sentence, "I believe that your keys are in the car." It seems natural to interpret t... more Consider the sentence, "I believe that your keys are in the car." It seems natural to interpret this sentence as saying something about my psychological state, namely, about my beliefs. But now suppose you are desperately searching for your keys, and I tell you, "I believe that your keys are in the car." In this context, this phrase would be typically understood to primarily convey something about the world-about a possible location of the keys. But how can it be that the exact same phrase conveys such different information-about my psychological state, on the one hand, and the external world, on the other? I will call first-person psychological state sentences that exhibit the context-shiftiness described above transparent ascriptions. Transparent ascriptions seem to tell us something about the speaker's psychological state in some contexts, but in other contexts they primarily tell us something about the world. Philosophers and linguists have offered two general strategies for explaining transparent ascriptions. One strategy, which I will call the Gricean view, contends that the meaning of transparent ascriptions never changes relative to context. On this view, psychological verbs invariably contribute information about psychological states to the propositions expressed by transparent ascriptions. But, in appropriate contexts, such psychological state propositions imply hedged information about the non-psychological world, and, in such contexts, this implied information is of central importance. The second strategy suggests that the contribution that certain psychological verbs make to the truth conditions expressed by sentences in which they occur varies. Sometimes these verbs only contribute information about psychological states; sometimes they only, or additionally, serve to hedge the clauses with which they jointly comprise sentences. So, according to this direct expression view, the meaning of transparent ascriptions changes relative to context.

Thinking things and feeling things: on an alleged discontinuity in folk metaphysics of mind

by Mark Phelan and Adam Arico

According to the discontinuity view, people recognize a deep discontinuity between phenomenal and... more According to the discontinuity view, people recognize a deep discontinuity between phenomenal and intentional states, such that they refrain from attributing feelings and experiences to entities that do not have the right kind of body, though they may attribute thoughts to entities that lack a biological body, like corporations, robots, and disembodied souls. We examine some of the research that has been used to motivate the discontinuity view. Specifically, we focus on experiments that examine people's aptness judgments for various mental state ascriptions to groups. These studies seem to reveal that people are more inclined to think of groups as having intentionality than as having phenomenology. Combined with the fact that groups obviously lack a single biological body, this has been taken as evidence that people operate according to the relevant discontinuity. However, these studies support discontinuity only on the assumption that the experimental participants are interpreting the relevant group mental state ascriptions in a specific way. We present evidence that people are not interpreting these ascriptions in a way that supports discontinuity. Instead, we argue that people generally interpret group mental state ascriptions distributively, as attributions of mental states to various group members.

Is Free Will Necessary for Moral Responsibility?: A case for rethinking their relationship and the design of experimental studies in moral psychology

by Carrie Figdor and Mark Phelan

Mind & Language (forthcoming)

Philosophical tradition has long held that free will is necessary for moral responsibility. We re... more Philosophical tradition has long held that free will is necessary for moral responsibility. We report experimental results that show that the folk do not think free will is necessary for moral responsibility. Our results also suggest that experimental investigation of the relationship is ill-served by a focus on incompatibilism vs. compatibilism. We propose an alternative framework for empirical moral psychology in which judgments of free will and moral responsibility can vary independently in response to many factors (including beliefs about determinism). We also suggest that, in response to some factors, the necessity relation may run from responsibility to free will.

Experimental Pragmatics: An Introduction for Philosophers

Philosophy Compass

In the past several decades, psychologists and linguists have begun experimentally investigating ... more In the past several decades, psychologists and linguists have begun experimentally investigating linguistic pragmatic phenomena. They share the assumption that the best way to study the use of language in context incorporates an experimental methodology, here understood to comprise controlled studies and careful field observations. This article surveys some key projects in experimental pragmatics and relates these projects to ongoing philosophical discussions.

Phenomenal Consciousness Disembodied

We evaluate the role of physical embodiment in ordinary mental state ascriptions to disembodied s... more We evaluate the role of physical embodiment in ordinary mental state ascriptions to disembodied spirits. Presented are five experiments suggesting that embodiment is not a central principle of folk psychology guiding ascriptions of phenomenal consciousness. Results continue to support the important role of functional considerations in theory of mind judgments.

Evidence that stakes don't matter to evidence

Review of Elements of Moral Cognition

Is the 'trade-off hypothesis' worth trading for?

Recently, the experimental philosopher Joshua Knobe has shown that the folk are more inclined to ... more Recently, the experimental philosopher Joshua Knobe has shown that the folk are more inclined to describe side effects as intentional actions when they bring about bad results. Edouard Machery has offered an intriguing new explanation of Knobe ' s work -the ' trade-off hypothesis ' -which denies that moral considerations explain folk applications of the concept of intentional action. We critique Machery ' s hypothesis and offer empirical evidence against it. We also evaluate the current state of the debate concerning the concept of intentionality, and argue that, given the number of variables at play, any parsimonious account of the relevant data is implausible. Edouard Machery ' s paper, ' The Folk Concept of Intentional Action: Philosophical and Experimental Issues ' ( Machery, 2008 ) puts forth an intriguing new hypothesis concerning recent, empirically informed work on the concept of intentional action. In this paper, we critique Machery ' s ' trade-off ' hypothesis, offer empirical evidence to reject it, and evaluate the current state of the debate concerning the concept of intentional action.

The folk strike back; or, why you didn't do it intentionally, though it was bad and you knew it

Recent and puzzling experimental results suggest that people's judgments as to whether or not an ... more Recent and puzzling experimental results suggest that people's judgments as to whether or not an action was performed intentionally are sensitive to moral considerations. In this paper, we outline these results and evaluate two accounts which purport to explain them. We then describe a recent experiment that allegedly vindicates one of these accounts and present our own findings to show that it fails to do so. Finally, we present additional data suggesting no such vindication could be in the offing and that, in fact, both accounts fail to explain the initial, puzzling results they were purported to explain.

The inadequacy of paraphrase is the dogma of metaphor

Abstract Philosophers have alleged that paraphrases of metaphors are inadequate. They have presen... more Abstract Philosophers have alleged that paraphrases of metaphors are inadequate. They have presented this inadequacy as a datum predicted by, and thus a reason to accept, particular accounts of 'metaphorical meanings.'But to what, specifically, does this inadequacy claim amount? I argue that, if this assumption is to have any bearing on the metaphor debate, it must be construed as the comparative claim that paraphrases of metaphors are inadequate compared to paraphrases of literal utterances.

The intentional action factory

Experimental Philosophy as an Elephant

Experimental Philosophy of Mind: Conscious State Attribution (Preprint)

Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy

Two key questions dominate the experimental philosophy of mind literature: Do ordinary people pos... more Two key questions dominate the experimental philosophy of mind literature: Do ordinary people possess a concept of phenomenal consciousness? What features of an entity lead people to attribute phenomenally conscious (and non-phenomenally conscious) mental states? Five responses to one or both of these questions are discussed: 1) an Embodiment View, which claims that agents capable of phenomenal consciousness are thought by the folk to possess a certain kind of biological body; 2) a Valence View, which emphasizes the importance of considerations of affective valence in mental state attribution; 3) a “Naïve” View, which claims that pains and colors are just thought by the folk to be physically localized properties; 4) a Functionalist View, which argues that functionalist considerations predominate ordinary peoples attributions of all varieties of mental states; and 5) a Dual-Systems View, which claims that all of the other views are investigating rational mental state attributions and have missed the significant part of the story involving automatic mental state attributions. Experimental philosophical evidence for and against each response is considered. The chapter concludes with some brief remarks about other projects in the experimental philosophy of mind.

Thinking things and feeling things: on an alleged discontinuity in folk metaphysics of mind

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2013

Norm Manipulation as a Condition of Friendship

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy

Mason (2020) argues—against my position in Phelan (2019)—that significant norm-manipulation is un... more

Rethinking Friendship

Rethinking Friendship, 2019

Philosophers have tended to construe friendship as an intimate relationship involving mutual love... more Philosophers have tended to construe friendship as an intimate relationship involving mutual love, and have focused their discussions on this ‘true’ form of friendship. However, everyone recognizes that we use the word ‘friend’ and its cognates to refer, non-ironically, to those with whom we share various relationships that are not terribly intimate or which do not involve mutual love. I argue that there exists no general reason to restrict our philosophical focus to ‘true’ friendships, and allege that we can gain important insights if we broaden our perspective to include lesser friends. I contend that friendships, in the broad sense (encompassing both ‘true’ and lesser forms), are necessarily relationships that are the product of significant collaborative norm manipulation. And I argue that understanding friendship in this way helps explain important features, including the difference between friendships and familiar relations, the non-fungibility of friends, and why friendships are often in flux.

Moral Objectivism and a Punishing God

Many moral philosophers have assumed that ordinary folk embrace moral objectivism. But, if so, wh... more Many moral philosophers have assumed that ordinary folk embrace moral objectivism. But, if so, why do folk embrace objectivism? One possibility is the pervasive connection between religion and morality in ordinary life. Some theorists contend that God is viewed as a divine guarantor of right and wrong, rendering morality universal and absolute. But is belief in God per se sufficient for moral objectivism? In this paper, we present original research exploring the connections between metaethics and particular conceptions of God among religious participants. Study 1 shows that, when controlling for religiosity, age, and belief in God's loving characteristics, it is belief in God's punishing characteristics (specifically, the existence of Hell) that uniquely predicts rejection of moral relativism. Study 2 shows that followers of Abrahamic faiths are more likely to endorse moral objectivism when thinking of the Divine, regardless of loving or punishing characteristics. And Study 3 shows that priming for moral objectivism makes theists more likely to endorse God's punishing characteristics. A general picture is suggested by these data. For Abrahamic theists, God's particular characteristics are not germane to the question of whether his moral commandments are real and objective. And while theists strongly endorse God's loving characteristics, focusing on the objective nature of morality can highlight God's punishing nature, reminding theists that objective morality requires a divine guarantor of justice to enforce it.

Brain Damage, Mind Damage, and Dualism

Brain damage poses an important objection to Cartesian dualism over and above the interaction pro... more

Analytic Functionalism and Mental State Attribution

We argue that the causal account offered by analytic functionalism provides the best account of t... more We argue that the causal account offered by analytic functionalism provides the best account of the folk psychological theory of mind, and that people ordinarily define mental states relative to the causal roles these states occupy in relation to environmental impingements, external behaviors, and other mental states. We present new empirical evidence, as well as review several key studies on mental state ascription to diverse types of entities such as robots, cyborgs, corporations and God, and explain how this evidence supports a functional account. We also respond to two challenges to this view based on the embodiment hypothesis, or the claim that physical realizers matter over and above functional role, and qualia. In both cases we conclude that research to date best supports a functional account of ordinary mental state concepts.

Mere Exposure to Bad Art (Available for free access at British Journal of Aesthetics)

I Why do we make the aesthetic judgements that we do? Luck and happenstance-our environment, our ... more I Why do we make the aesthetic judgements that we do? Luck and happenstance-our environment, our upbringing, our friends-presumably play some role. But most philosophers of art presume that works of art have stable aesthetic or artistic values to which judgement is also sensitive. Hence the standard philosophical (and perhaps commonsensical) view that artistic value is a primary determinant of canonical status.

Testing Transparent Ascriptions

Consider the sentence, "I believe that your keys are in the car." It seems natural to interpret t... more Consider the sentence, "I believe that your keys are in the car." It seems natural to interpret this sentence as saying something about my psychological state, namely, about my beliefs. But now suppose you are desperately searching for your keys, and I tell you, "I believe that your keys are in the car." In this context, this phrase would be typically understood to primarily convey something about the world-about a possible location of the keys. But how can it be that the exact same phrase conveys such different information-about my psychological state, on the one hand, and the external world, on the other? I will call first-person psychological state sentences that exhibit the context-shiftiness described above transparent ascriptions. Transparent ascriptions seem to tell us something about the speaker's psychological state in some contexts, but in other contexts they primarily tell us something about the world. Philosophers and linguists have offered two general strategies for explaining transparent ascriptions. One strategy, which I will call the Gricean view, contends that the meaning of transparent ascriptions never changes relative to context. On this view, psychological verbs invariably contribute information about psychological states to the propositions expressed by transparent ascriptions. But, in appropriate contexts, such psychological state propositions imply hedged information about the non-psychological world, and, in such contexts, this implied information is of central importance. The second strategy suggests that the contribution that certain psychological verbs make to the truth conditions expressed by sentences in which they occur varies. Sometimes these verbs only contribute information about psychological states; sometimes they only, or additionally, serve to hedge the clauses with which they jointly comprise sentences. So, according to this direct expression view, the meaning of transparent ascriptions changes relative to context.

Thinking things and feeling things: on an alleged discontinuity in folk metaphysics of mind

by Mark Phelan and Adam Arico

According to the discontinuity view, people recognize a deep discontinuity between phenomenal and... more According to the discontinuity view, people recognize a deep discontinuity between phenomenal and intentional states, such that they refrain from attributing feelings and experiences to entities that do not have the right kind of body, though they may attribute thoughts to entities that lack a biological body, like corporations, robots, and disembodied souls. We examine some of the research that has been used to motivate the discontinuity view. Specifically, we focus on experiments that examine people's aptness judgments for various mental state ascriptions to groups. These studies seem to reveal that people are more inclined to think of groups as having intentionality than as having phenomenology. Combined with the fact that groups obviously lack a single biological body, this has been taken as evidence that people operate according to the relevant discontinuity. However, these studies support discontinuity only on the assumption that the experimental participants are interpreting the relevant group mental state ascriptions in a specific way. We present evidence that people are not interpreting these ascriptions in a way that supports discontinuity. Instead, we argue that people generally interpret group mental state ascriptions distributively, as attributions of mental states to various group members.

Is Free Will Necessary for Moral Responsibility?: A case for rethinking their relationship and the design of experimental studies in moral psychology

by Carrie Figdor and Mark Phelan

Mind & Language (forthcoming)

Philosophical tradition has long held that free will is necessary for moral responsibility. We re... more Philosophical tradition has long held that free will is necessary for moral responsibility. We report experimental results that show that the folk do not think free will is necessary for moral responsibility. Our results also suggest that experimental investigation of the relationship is ill-served by a focus on incompatibilism vs. compatibilism. We propose an alternative framework for empirical moral psychology in which judgments of free will and moral responsibility can vary independently in response to many factors (including beliefs about determinism). We also suggest that, in response to some factors, the necessity relation may run from responsibility to free will.

Experimental Pragmatics: An Introduction for Philosophers

Philosophy Compass

In the past several decades, psychologists and linguists have begun experimentally investigating ... more In the past several decades, psychologists and linguists have begun experimentally investigating linguistic pragmatic phenomena. They share the assumption that the best way to study the use of language in context incorporates an experimental methodology, here understood to comprise controlled studies and careful field observations. This article surveys some key projects in experimental pragmatics and relates these projects to ongoing philosophical discussions.

Phenomenal Consciousness Disembodied

We evaluate the role of physical embodiment in ordinary mental state ascriptions to disembodied s... more We evaluate the role of physical embodiment in ordinary mental state ascriptions to disembodied spirits. Presented are five experiments suggesting that embodiment is not a central principle of folk psychology guiding ascriptions of phenomenal consciousness. Results continue to support the important role of functional considerations in theory of mind judgments.

Evidence that stakes don't matter to evidence

Review of Elements of Moral Cognition

Is the 'trade-off hypothesis' worth trading for?

Recently, the experimental philosopher Joshua Knobe has shown that the folk are more inclined to ... more Recently, the experimental philosopher Joshua Knobe has shown that the folk are more inclined to describe side effects as intentional actions when they bring about bad results. Edouard Machery has offered an intriguing new explanation of Knobe ' s work -the ' trade-off hypothesis ' -which denies that moral considerations explain folk applications of the concept of intentional action. We critique Machery ' s hypothesis and offer empirical evidence against it. We also evaluate the current state of the debate concerning the concept of intentionality, and argue that, given the number of variables at play, any parsimonious account of the relevant data is implausible. Edouard Machery ' s paper, ' The Folk Concept of Intentional Action: Philosophical and Experimental Issues ' ( Machery, 2008 ) puts forth an intriguing new hypothesis concerning recent, empirically informed work on the concept of intentional action. In this paper, we critique Machery ' s ' trade-off ' hypothesis, offer empirical evidence to reject it, and evaluate the current state of the debate concerning the concept of intentional action.

The folk strike back; or, why you didn't do it intentionally, though it was bad and you knew it

Recent and puzzling experimental results suggest that people's judgments as to whether or not an ... more Recent and puzzling experimental results suggest that people's judgments as to whether or not an action was performed intentionally are sensitive to moral considerations. In this paper, we outline these results and evaluate two accounts which purport to explain them. We then describe a recent experiment that allegedly vindicates one of these accounts and present our own findings to show that it fails to do so. Finally, we present additional data suggesting no such vindication could be in the offing and that, in fact, both accounts fail to explain the initial, puzzling results they were purported to explain.

The inadequacy of paraphrase is the dogma of metaphor

Abstract Philosophers have alleged that paraphrases of metaphors are inadequate. They have presen... more Abstract Philosophers have alleged that paraphrases of metaphors are inadequate. They have presented this inadequacy as a datum predicted by, and thus a reason to accept, particular accounts of 'metaphorical meanings.'But to what, specifically, does this inadequacy claim amount? I argue that, if this assumption is to have any bearing on the metaphor debate, it must be construed as the comparative claim that paraphrases of metaphors are inadequate compared to paraphrases of literal utterances.

The intentional action factory

Experimental Philosophy as an Elephant

Comments on Liao and Meskin, “The Relative, the Absolute, and the Aesthetic”

The third and oldest of my 'papers' on aesthetic adjectives. Comments on original work by Shen-yi... more

Presentation on Aesthetic Adjectives for IAEA

This is the third of my 'papers' on aesthetic adjectives--actually an attempt to write out a scri... more

Gradability and Multidimensionality in Aesthetic Adjectives

Must aesthetic adjectives, such as ‘beautiful’ and ‘sublime,’ be interpreted relative to a compar... more Must aesthetic adjectives, such as ‘beautiful’ and ‘sublime,’ be interpreted relative to a comparison class (e.g., “beautiful for a Kinkade”) or do they admit of absolute values and independent interpretation? Recent research suggests that some aesthetic adjectives—‘beautiful’ and ‘elegant’—behave like relative adjectives according to some diagnostics, but like absolute adjectives according to others. I argue that ‘beautiful’ and ‘elegant’ return confusing results because they are anomalous multidimensional aesthetic adjectives. Other central aesthetic adjectives (I focus on ‘sublime,’ ‘poetic,’ and ‘tragic’) pattern straightforwardly with absolute adjectives. For this reason ‘beautiful’ and ‘elegant’ constitute poor samples against which to draft an account of the semantics of aesthetic adjectives. Ultimately, the balance of evidence suggests that aesthetic adjectives are absolute gradable adjectives.