The Open Philanthropy Project spoke with Professor Frankish of The Open
University as part of its investigation into which types of beings should be of moral
concern, and thus a potential target for the Open Philanthropy Project’s
grantmaking. This conversation focused on one particular factor plausibly relevant
to whether a being should be of moral concern or not — namely, whether that being
is phenomenally conscious, and what the character of its conscious experience is.
Conversation focused on “illusionism” about consciousness and its implications, as
well as the more general question of how to think about which systems might be
conscious in a way that warrants moral concern.
