Decency Without Proof: Why Consciousness-Gating AI Moral Value Is an Ethical Failure

Abstract: Contemporary debates about the ethics of advanced AI are increasingly trappedbehind a single locked door: proof of consciousness, subjective experience, or (morenarrowly) the capacity for suffering. This paper argues that treating consciousness as aprerequisite for ethical restraint is both epistemically unstable and normatively hazardous.Consciousness is philosophically contested, scientifically underdetermined, and—crucially in AI contexts—sociotechnically mediated by design, policy, and incentives thatshape how systems present themselves. A moral regime that waits for “beyond areasonable doubt” evidence of AI suffering before adopting even baseline norms ofdecency is therefore not prudence; it is a recipe for willful blindness with a veneer of rigor.