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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Animal Personality And Sentience As Distinct Concepts, Mark Briffa
Animal Personality And Sentience As Distinct Concepts, Mark Briffa
Animal Sentience
Owens et al (2024) discuss how knowledge of both animal personality and sentience in target populations can be leveraged to enhance wildlife conservation programmes. In this commentary I expand on the distinction between these two concepts. Behavioural differences should be considered broadly across conservation programmes, not just those involving species deemed sentient.
Mobilizing Heads And Hearts For Wildlife Conservation, Valérie A. M. Schoof, Simon L'Allier
Mobilizing Heads And Hearts For Wildlife Conservation, Valérie A. M. Schoof, Simon L'Allier
Animal Sentience
Highlighting the shared evolutionary relationships between humans and animals — and recognizing that all species, including humans, are unique in their own way — may facilitate caring for and conserving animals by tapping into a human emotion: empathy.
Why Do We Want To Think Humans Are Different?, Colin A. Chapman, Michael A. Huffman
Why Do We Want To Think Humans Are Different?, Colin A. Chapman, Michael A. Huffman
Animal Sentience
One harmful consequence of creating categories where one group is unique and superior to others is that it justifies committing negative, often atrocious, acts on the members of the inferior group. Correcting divisive human categorizations (racial superiority, gender superiority) has bettered society. Scholars have often claimed that humans are unique and superior to nonhuman animals. These claims need to be reevaluated. Many have already been refuted. Animals have been shown to outperform humans in many tasks, including cognitive ones. Here we raise the question: Has the false sense of superiority been used to justify human cruelty to animals?