Toward Criteria for Artificial Self-Consciousness: Unity, Normativity, and Agency

Abstract

This paper distinguishes two forms of consciousness that are often conflated in debates about artificial intelligence: pre-reflective experiential awareness and reflective self-consciousness. Drawing on phenomenology, Kant, and con-temporary philosophy of mind, it argues that pre-reflective awareness involves the minimal self-involvement characteristic of phenomenal experience, while reflective self-consciousness involves a unified standpoint from which a subject can form commitments about how things are, evaluate them under norms of truth and value, and revise them in light of reasons. The paper analyzes reflective self-consciousness in terms of agency, normativity, and unity, articulating a structure of epistemic answerability that includes commitment formation, persistence across time, conflict detection, and re-vision in response to error. Distinguishing these two forms of self-involvement clarifies the ethical landscape of artificial consciousness and suggests that emerging artificial systems may pressure the inherited moral categories through which moral standing has traditionally been understood.