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Articles 1 - 30 of 32
Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Intensive Animal Farming Conditions Are A Major Threat To Global Health, Cynthia Schuck-Paim
Intensive Animal Farming Conditions Are A Major Threat To Global Health, Cynthia Schuck-Paim
Animal Sentience
Wiebers & Feigin accurately propose that reducing the risks posed by infectious disease outbreaks and other global health challenges will depend critically on transitioning away from intensive animal farming practices. Creating the right incentive structure for this transition to happen is one of the great challenges in the years to come, but a much-needed step to ensure the health and well-being of current and future generations.
Consider The Agent In The Arthropod, Nicolas Delon, Peter Cook, Gordon Bauer, Heidi Harley
Consider The Agent In The Arthropod, Nicolas Delon, Peter Cook, Gordon Bauer, Heidi Harley
Animal Sentience
Whether or not arthropods are sentient, they can have moral standing. Appeals to sentience are not necessary and retard progress in human treatment of other species, including invertebrates. Other increasingly well-documented aspects of invertebrate minds are pertinent to their welfare. Even if arthropods are not sentient, they can be agents whose goals—and therefore interests—can be frustrated. This kind of agency is sufficient for moral status and requires that we consider their welfare.
Brain Complexity, Sentience And Welfare, Donald M. Broom
Brain Complexity, Sentience And Welfare, Donald M. Broom
Animal Sentience
Neither sentience nor moral standing is confined to animals with large or human-like brains. Invertebrates deserve moral consideration. Definition of terms clarifies the relationship between sentience and welfare. All animals have welfare but humans give more protection to sentient animals. Humans should be less human-centred.
Invertebrate Cognition, Sentience And Biology, Georges Chapouthier
Invertebrate Cognition, Sentience And Biology, Georges Chapouthier
Animal Sentience
All animal species have adapted for survival and no species is superior overall. For cognitive capacities and sentience, invertebrates such as the octopus, although quite unlike vertebrates, can achieve similar performance levels. So can other invertebrates with small brains; hence they too, as sentient beings, deserve moral consideration from humans. How are we to identify these species? Only though a detailed analysis of their behavior. The decision, which is a moral judgment, depends on biological knowledge that still needs to be acquired.
Convergent Evolution Of Sentience?, Culum Brown Prof.
Convergent Evolution Of Sentience?, Culum Brown Prof.
Animal Sentience
Mikhalevich & Powell make a compelling case that some invertebrates may be sentient and that our moral obligations in the context of welfare should hence extend to them. Although the case is similar to that made for fishes, there is one obvious difference in that examples of invertebrate sentience probably arose independently from vertebrate sentience. We have unequivocal proof that complex cognition arose multiple times over evolutionary history. Given that cognition is our best tool for indirectly quantifying sentience, it seems highly likely that this multiple polygenesis may also have occurred for sentience. In acknowledging this, we must accept that …
Minds, Morality And Midgies, Brian Key, Deborah Brown
Minds, Morality And Midgies, Brian Key, Deborah Brown
Animal Sentience
Mikhalevich & Powell argue that the exclusion of the vast majority of arthropods from moral standing is unwarranted, particularly given the purported evidence for cognition and sentience in these organisms. The implied association between consciousness and moral standing is questionable and their assumption that rich forms of cognition and flexible behavior are dependent on phenomenal consciousness needs to be reconsidered in light of current neuroscientific evidence. We conclude by proposing a neural algorithmic approach for deciphering whether organisms are capable of subjective experience.
Sea Wrack Delivery And Accumulation On Islands: Factors That Mediate Marine Nutrient Permeability, Sara B. Wickham, Nancy Shackelford, Chris T. Darimont, Wiebe Nijland, Luba Y. Reshitnyk, John D. Reynolds, Brian M. Starzomski
Sea Wrack Delivery And Accumulation On Islands: Factors That Mediate Marine Nutrient Permeability, Sara B. Wickham, Nancy Shackelford, Chris T. Darimont, Wiebe Nijland, Luba Y. Reshitnyk, John D. Reynolds, Brian M. Starzomski
Biogeography and Ecological Opportunity Collection
Sea wrack provides an important vector of marine-derived nutrients to many terrestrial environments. However, little is known about the processes that facilitate wrack transport, deposition, and accumulation on islands. Three broad factors can affect the stock of wrack along shorelines: the amount of potential donor habitat nearby, climatic events that dislodge seaweeds and transfer them ashore, and physical characteristics of shorelines that retain wrack at a site. To determine when, where, and how wrack accumulates on island shorelines, we surveyed 455 sites across 101 islands in coastal British Columbia, Canada. At each site, we recorded wrack biomass, species composition, and …
Elephants And Pandemics, Adrian Treves
Elephants And Pandemics, Adrian Treves
Animal Sentience
Baker & Winkler’s critique of Asian elephant tourism and conservation in Thailand has convinced me that this was “an industry with too many victims.” Yet I fear that B&W’s proposed remedy of returning to past elephant husbandry by Karen hill-peoples has little likelihood of improving the lives of the elephants for long. Who can predict whether the Karen will live up to this hope? B&W advocate for the Karen, but not for “an abolitionist stance on elephant-human relationships.” In my view, whether we discuss elephants or the wild mammals that carry SARS-CoV-2, abolition of many human uses of animals is …
Bridging The Empathy Gap For Invertebrates, John M. Marzluff
Bridging The Empathy Gap For Invertebrates, John M. Marzluff
Animal Sentience
The actions of sentient vertebrates command our attention and inform our morality. Mikhalevich & Powell (2020) (M&P) argue that similar activities in a wide range of invertebrates with central nervous systems should do likewise. However, humans most readily empathize with creatures we recognize as similar in behavior, physiology, or appearance to ourselves. Helping humanity overcome this bias is a significant challenge for those who study invertebrates. Until this empathy gap is bridged, I believe few people and the policies they craft will afford invertebrates the moral standing that M&P argue they deserve. Therefore, I suggest those interested in raising appreciation …
Re-Engage With The World For Global Health And Animal Welfare, Bradley J. Bergstrom
Re-Engage With The World For Global Health And Animal Welfare, Bradley J. Bergstrom
Animal Sentience
Wiebers & Feigin (2020) make a strong argument for measures that would limit future zoonoses, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, by closing live-animal markets, changing our habits of food consumption and production, and reducing habitat destruction. These would help human health, animal welfare, and conservation of at-risk wildlife all at the same time. China’s command-and-control government can accomplish some of these things by edict, but slower-to-act western democracies play a surprisingly large role in these global problems by the power of their consumerism, including the illicit wildlife trade. We citizens need to insist that our government use all of its …
Impact Of Uk Sport Fishing On Fish Welfare And Conservation, Tim Q. Holmes
Impact Of Uk Sport Fishing On Fish Welfare And Conservation, Tim Q. Holmes
Animal Sentience
Sport fishing or angling is the capture of fish for recreation or competition, i.e., for entertainment. Contrary to the claims of Key (2016), there is good evidence that fish feel pain and have the capacity for self-awareness (Sneddon et al., 2018; Woodruff, 2017). Wild fish experience a variety of adverse conditions in nature that can harm their welfare, but this does not justify humans intentionally inflicting such conditions on fish solely for our pleasure. This commentary summarises the many ways fish suffer harm to their welfare as a result of sport fishing. There are also discussions on associated activities that …
A “Halfway House” For Improving Captive Welfare, Phyllis C. Lee, W. Keith Lindsay
A “Halfway House” For Improving Captive Welfare, Phyllis C. Lee, W. Keith Lindsay
Animal Sentience
It is certainly time to aim for higher quality management strategies for Thailand’s captive elephants, and to engage with sustainable livelihoods for traditional mahouts. Baker & Winkler’s proposal to rewild Thai elephants by placing them under the guardianship of Karen mahouts is recognized as not “wild” since it remains a form of management requiring elephants to live under the control of human caregivers. We applaud the positive welfare aims of this proposal; however, we caution that few of the long-term consequences for elephants or habitats can be known, and further considerations of elephant population dynamics and forest ecosystems are required …
The Wholeness Of Nature, Marthe Kiley-Worthington
The Wholeness Of Nature, Marthe Kiley-Worthington
Animal Sentience
The target article outlines various positions on conservation and preservation but ignores practical considerations of management since there is no wild habitat left. Population controls, either human or nonhuman mammals, are not discussed. The suggestions for legal changes are vague and will require much more thinking about how to integrate animal welfare with wildlife conservation concerns. “Freedoms” as outlined in the human bill of rights might help with decision making for improving animal welfare. Other commentators have made anthropocentric judgements concerning animal welfare, ignoring the importance of developing other ways of seeing and understanding the “multiplicity within unity,” combining empirical …
Conventional Science Will Not Do Justice To Nonhuman Interests: A Fresh Approach Is Required, Becca Franks, Christine Webb, Monica Gagliano, Barbara Smuts
Conventional Science Will Not Do Justice To Nonhuman Interests: A Fresh Approach Is Required, Becca Franks, Christine Webb, Monica Gagliano, Barbara Smuts
Animal Sentience
Treves et al. (2019) make a convincing case that conservation efforts need to go beyond an anthropocentric worldview. Implementing that vision, however, will require human advocates to represent nonhuman interests. Where will the knowledge of those interests come from? How can humans know what is in the best interest of another animal, a plant, or an ecosystem? We discuss how the values embedded in current scientific practices may be ill-suited to representing nonhuman interests and we offer some ideas for correcting these shortcomings.
Comparative Cognition And Nonhuman Individuality, Catia Correia Caeiro
Comparative Cognition And Nonhuman Individuality, Catia Correia Caeiro
Animal Sentience
Commentators Washington (2019) and Tiffin (2019) point out that the individual vs. collective dichotomy is much more complex than what is considered in the target article. This commentary will focus on why individuals are more important than collectives. Species differences in cognition and emotional processes and individuals’ feelings and experiences need to be taken into account.
Conflicts And Triage, Kate E. Lynch, Daniel T. Blumstein
Conflicts And Triage, Kate E. Lynch, Daniel T. Blumstein
Animal Sentience
To represent diverse interests successfully, a strategy for dealing with conflicts is needed. We discuss an approach to maximizing the interests of the greatest number of individuals, present and future.
Of Elephants And Men, Helen Kopnina
Of Elephants And Men, Helen Kopnina
Animal Sentience
Baker & Winkler’s target article is well-researched and thought-provoking, but I do have four points of contention: (1) The proposal to entrust elephants to traditional mahout culture has restricted elephants’ freedom of movement and reproduction and (ab)used them. (2) The concept of “indigenous” simultaneously reifies and denigrates the “noble savages”, privileging only human indigenous groups, ignoring nonhuman indigenes. (3) Most lifestyles have been globalized under consumer-economic and anthropocentric worldviews. (4) The fact that people (including mahouts) are part of nature does not mean they are benevolent, any more than cities, monocultures, or roads are.
Ecological And Evolutionary Dynamics Of Elephant Rewilding, Lysanne Snijders
Ecological And Evolutionary Dynamics Of Elephant Rewilding, Lysanne Snijders
Animal Sentience
Baker & Winkler make a thought-provoking contribution to the discussion of what role captive animals could play in nature conservation and how we could get there through rewilding. There certainly is potential for captive Asian elephants, Elephas maximus, to become targets of conservation efforts, but there are also many questions: (1) How much do (behavioral) traits of captive-origin animals differ from their free conspecifics? (2) What predicts the likelihood and strength of social reintegration of captive animals into free populations? (3) How much of an Asian elephant’s functional role in the environment can captive animals still fulfill and how …
Innovative, Yes: But Is It Rewilding?, Daniel T. Blumstein, Kate E. Lynch
Innovative, Yes: But Is It Rewilding?, Daniel T. Blumstein, Kate E. Lynch
Animal Sentience
Baker & Winkler’s extremely stimulating proposal clearly illustrates conflicting priorities in biodiversity conservation and management that are exacerbated when human cultural resources and animal welfare are a part of the solution. We suggest that the discussion can benefit from an even more explicit unpacking of the conflicting values associated with the proposal.
Practicalities Of Re-Wilding, William C. Mcgrew
Practicalities Of Re-Wilding, William C. Mcgrew
Animal Sentience
Re-wilding large-brained, intelligent mammals dependent on social learning to acquire survival skills is challenging. Each reintroduced species has different needs, but basic questions relating to essential aspects of successful release such as subsistence remain the same. Here I pose 12 ecologically and ethologically based questions that should be addressed (if not already done).
Invertebrates Should Be Given Ethical Consideration, Marie-Claire Cammaerts
Invertebrates Should Be Given Ethical Consideration, Marie-Claire Cammaerts
Animal Sentience
Invertebrates are far more numerous than vertebrates. Most of them are essential to the survival of humanity. Their physiology, behavior, know-how, and cognitive abilities are often as complex as those of vertebrates. Invertebrates should be considered and studied as are vertebrates, i.e., ethically, and cautiously.
Do Arthropods Respond To Noxious Stimuli Purely By Reflex?, Robert W. Elwood
Do Arthropods Respond To Noxious Stimuli Purely By Reflex?, Robert W. Elwood
Animal Sentience
Mikhalevich & Powell (2020) argue that it is wrong to dismiss the idea of sentience in invertebrates. Here, I expand on the evidence for crustaceans responding to noxious stimuli in ways that are not explained by mere reflexes, and that are consistent with pain. I consider the idea that male praying mantids must not feel pain because they may continue to mate whilst being consumed by the female. I finish with thoughts about the idea that because robots may be constructed to act as if they experience pain, the argument that animals might experience pain is diminished.
Ethical Considerations For Invertebrates, Scarlett R. Howard, Matthew R.E. Symonds
Ethical Considerations For Invertebrates, Scarlett R. Howard, Matthew R.E. Symonds
Animal Sentience
Mikhalevich & Powell (2020) have built on the discussion about which species deserve inclusion in animal ethics and welfare considerations. Here, we raise questions concerning the assessment criteria. We ask how to assess different species for their ability to fulfill the criteria, which criteria are most important, how we quantify them (absolute or on a continuum), and how non-animals such as fungi and plants fit into this paradigm.
Global Risks Of Intensive Animal Farming And The Wildlife Trade, Deborah Cao
Global Risks Of Intensive Animal Farming And The Wildlife Trade, Deborah Cao
Animal Sentience
This commentary discusses two issues highlighted by Wiebers & Feigin in the context of the current and future global health crisis: the wildlife trade and factory farming. Both are instances of globalized animal cruelty – in China as well as worldwide -- that require global solutions for the well-being of both humans and nonhumans.
Tribal Brains In The Global Village: Deeper Roots Of The Pandemic, Robert Gerlai
Tribal Brains In The Global Village: Deeper Roots Of The Pandemic, Robert Gerlai
Animal Sentience
I briefly recap the messages of the target article by Wiebers & Feigin (2020) and the accompanying peer commentaries about what we learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the rapid evolution of viruses as an example of the importance of prevention, I explore why it is difficult for our species to foresee and prevent unintended global changes resulting from human activity. I end with a discussion about the long-term future, the ultimate problem inherent in our current mindset and the structure of our economy: growth.
Asian Elephant Rescue, Rehabilitation And Rewilding, Liv Baker, Rebecca Winkler
Asian Elephant Rescue, Rehabilitation And Rewilding, Liv Baker, Rebecca Winkler
Animal Sentience
Thailand has fewer than 10,000 elephants left. More of them are living in captivity to serve the tourist industry under grim conditions than are living free in what is left of their wild habitat. Conservation efforts need to be focused on all surviving members of the species, captive and free, but they need to take into account the inextricable entanglement of human and nonhuman animal lives in Thailand today. There is an opportunity for rescuing, rehabilitating and reintroducing captive elephants to the wild with the help of the traditional expertise of a mahout culture that has been elephant-keeping for centuries. …
Preserving Nature For The Benefit Of All Sentient Individuals, Eze Paez
Preserving Nature For The Benefit Of All Sentient Individuals, Eze Paez
Animal Sentience
I agree with Treves et al.’s proposal for a preservation ethics based on the principle that nonhuman well-being is a matter of justice and compassion. In this commentary, I advance two objections. First, only sentient beings, rather than all life, belong in the moral community. Second, given that nature is probably harmful overall for sentient individuals, preserving it for the benefit of future human and nonhuman generations requires us to modify it as far as practicable.
Just Preservation, Trusteeship And Multispecies Justice, Francisco J. Santiago-Ávila, Adrian Treves, William Lynn
Just Preservation, Trusteeship And Multispecies Justice, Francisco J. Santiago-Ávila, Adrian Treves, William Lynn
Animal Sentience
We are grateful to all the commentators who engaged with our target article. Some commentators have offered important insights into our proposed design and methods for legally intervening on behalf of futurity. Others have focused on theoretical considerations central to our proposal for multispecies justice and trusteeship. All have inspired modifications and further elaboration of our initial proposal. In this Response, we engage with the commentaries, integrating their suggestions, striving for convergence and complementarity, but also discussing points of divergence with our proposed framework where necessary. There is substantial overlap in the points of view of the three co-authors, but …
Problems With Basing Insect Ethics On Individuals’ Welfare, Susana Monsó, Antonio J. Osuna-Mascaró
Problems With Basing Insect Ethics On Individuals’ Welfare, Susana Monsó, Antonio J. Osuna-Mascaró
Animal Sentience
In their target article, Mikhalevich & Powell (M&P) argue that we should extend moral protection to arthropods. In this commentary, we show that there are some unforeseen obstacles to applying the sort of individualistic welfare-based ethics that M&P have in mind to certain arthropods, namely, insects. These obstacles have to do with the fact that there are often many more individuals involved in our dealings with insects than our ethical theories anticipate, and also with the fact that, in some sense, some insects count as more than an individual and, in another sense, they sometimes count as less than an …
Sentience In Evolutionary Context, Jon Mallatt, Todd E. Feinberg
Sentience In Evolutionary Context, Jon Mallatt, Todd E. Feinberg
Animal Sentience
We appreciate the goals of Mikhalevich & Powell (M&P) and largely agree with their conclusions but we differ on some of their definitions and terms. Affects (emotional feelings) should be part of sentience. Although the evidence presented for insect sentience is strong, we list some of the counterevidence that should be considered. Our own research supports M&P’s choice of arthropods, cephalopods, and vertebrates as the only sentient organisms with moral status.