 The first premise of this argument is a widely held dogma, but it can be denied without absurdity. (See Robinson, 1997.) It is perfectly obvious to everyone that the bodies of human beings are very much alike in their construction, and it requires no sophisticated reasoning to infer that if others are made like me, they probably hurt when affected like me, e.g., when their bodies are stuck with pins, beaten, cut and so on. There is no principle that makes an inference from similar effects to similar causes more secure than an inference from similar causes to similar effects; on the contrary, the latter inference is more secure, because there can sometimes be quite different causes of extremely similar effects. Thus, an inference to other minds that is allowed by epiphenomenalism must be at least as strong as the inferential route to other minds with which it is incompatible.