Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

Now that we understand qualia we can move onto what Dennett and Eliminative Materialism have
to say about them. He takes an Eliminative Materialist stance by claiming that these qualia do not exist.
Eliminative Materialists, such as Dennett, argue that since qualia have no causal efficacy in the physical
world, it makes no difference whether they exist or not. Thus we have two types of theories: those that
have existing qualia and those that do not, and according to the Eliminative Materialists both have equal
explanatory power. Occam’s Razor states that in this type of situation we are to take the theory with fewer
assumption. Since qualia are an unnecessary and additional assumption, we are to assume qualia do not
exist.
While this runs very counter to our intuitive understanding of our mind and how it operates,
Eliminative Materialism does not see this as a valid objection for the reason that something not feeling or
seeming correct is not grounds to claim that it is incorrect—to guide a theory by what we want to be
correct is in direct contrast to the spirit of philosophy and scientific inquiry.
Dennett exemplifies his view of Eliminative materialism in what he calls an intuition pump
concerning Mr. Chase and Mr. Sanborn. Both Chase and Sanborn work for Maxwell House as coffee
tasters, and have done so for some time. One day Chase remarks he no longer likes the taste of coffee. The
taste of the coffee has not changed, but he no longer likes that taste. Sanborn replies that he too has
experienced something similar, but unlike Chase the coffee does not taste the same as it used to, and he
does not like this new taste. The coffee recipe has not changed in the slightest, and the old and new coffee
can even be thought of as molecule-for-molecule identical. However, even though the coffee is the exact
same it tastes different to Sanborn. Both men exemplify the same point and are used by Dennett in the same
way, so it is unimportant to distinguish between them because they are merely examples of the theory
Dennett is discussing. What is important is that something has changed in each of them. Thus we arrive at
Dennett’s argument. Three events could have happened to each man: 1) their qualia may have changed or
2) their standards of judging their qualia may have changed, or 3) some combination of the two. Stated
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