Are Insects Sentient?,
2016
University of Texas, Austin
Are Insects Sentient?, Michael Tye
Animal Sentience
I comment on the methodology used by Klein & Barron for dealing with the question of insect sentience and I briefly make a proposal of my own. Once it is granted that insects are sentient, a further question arises: which insects are subject to which states of sentience? Do insects feel pain, for example? If so, which ones? On the further question, I note, Klein & Barron have nothing to say.
Animal Grieving And Human Mourning,
2016
Tilburg University
Animal Grieving And Human Mourning, Matteo Colombo
Animal Sentience
King’s How animals grieve beautifully describes several ways in which animals and humans show a similar capacity for grief. Yet this book does not sufficiently emphasise the language-empowered capacity to objectify thinking and sentiments about death, which makes human mourning unique. Here I put this capacity into focus and relate it to the social-normative aspect of human mourning that seems to be missing in other animals.
Insects Join The Consciousness Fray,
2016
retired, no institutional affiliation
Insects Join The Consciousness Fray, Bjorn H. Merker
Animal Sentience
Klein & Barron's review of recent insect neurobiology helps correct the impression that insect behavior is orchestrated without the benefit of central integrative mechanisms. Given their existence, the authors go on to ask whether these central mechanisms also feature the kind of integrative operations that support sentience, and propose that they do. Along the way they raise a number of conceptual and evidentiary issues of fundamental importance for the neuroscience of consciousness, allowing me to comment favorably on a number of them. I conclude by pointing to ways in which the conception of insect sentience they outline might be tested …
Insects Have Agency But Probably Not Sentience Because They Lack Social Bonding,
2016
University of Groningen
Insects Have Agency But Probably Not Sentience Because They Lack Social Bonding, J. H. Van Hateren
Animal Sentience
Klein & Barron (2016) argue that insects have sentience because of functional similarities between the insect brain and vertebrate midbrain. Based on a recent theory of agency and consciousness, I argue that the functional similarities merely point to an advanced form of agency. Insects presumably lack the capacity for social bonding that may be required for subjective experiencing.
The Wooden Doctrine: Basketball, Moral Character, And The Successful Life,
2016
Indiana University
The Wooden Doctrine: Basketball, Moral Character, And The Successful Life, Janelle Dewitt
Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers
No abstract provided.
Crispr Humans: Ethics At The Edge Of Science,
2016
Case Western Reserve University
Crispr Humans: Ethics At The Edge Of Science, Insoo Hyun
Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers
No abstract provided.
Biocentrism In Environmental Ethics: Questions Of Inherent Worth, Etiology, And Teleofunctional Interests,
2016
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Biocentrism In Environmental Ethics: Questions Of Inherent Worth, Etiology, And Teleofunctional Interests, David Lewis Rice Iii
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Some biocentrists argue that all living things have "inherent worth". Anything that has inherent worth has interests that provide a reason for why all moral agents should care about it in and of itself. There are, however, some difficulties for biocentric individualist arguments which claim that all living things have inherent worth.
Some biocentrists maintain that all living things have inherent worth and that artificial living things do not because the former, but not the latter, have interests by recourse to their natural selection etiology. Some also argue that synthetic forms of life do not have moral standing because they …
Cephalopods Are Best Candidates For Invertebrate Consciousness,
2016
Psychology, University of Lethbridge
Cephalopods Are Best Candidates For Invertebrate Consciousness, Jennifer A. Mather, Claudio Carere
Animal Sentience
Insects might have been the first invertebrates to evolve sentience, but cephalopods were the first invertebrates to gain scientific recognition for it.
Caterpillars, Consciousness And The Origins Of Mind,
2016
University of British Columbia
Caterpillars, Consciousness And The Origins Of Mind, Arthur S. Reber
Animal Sentience
A novel framework for the origins of consciousness and mind, the Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC), is presented. The model is based on a simple, perhaps radical axiom: subjectivity is an inherent feature of particular kinds of organic form. Experiential states, including those denoted as "mind" and "consciousness," are present in the most primitive species. The model has several conceptual and empirical virtues, among them: (a) it (re)solves the problem of how minds are created by brains ─ also known as the "Hard Problem" (Chalmers 1995) ─ by revealing that the apparent difficulty results from a category error, (b) it …
Justice; Mater Et Magistra; Civil Rights; Zoning; Sociological Jurisprudence; Mr. Justice Brennan; Business Ethics,
2016
St. John's University School of Law
Justice; Mater Et Magistra; Civil Rights; Zoning; Sociological Jurisprudence; Mr. Justice Brennan; Business Ethics
The Catholic Lawyer
No abstract provided.
Attorneys In Doubt,
2016
St. John's University School of Law
The State's Guarantee Of Liberty - A Moral Evaluation,
2016
St. John's University School of Law
The State's Guarantee Of Liberty - A Moral Evaluation, Rev. William F. Cahill
The Catholic Lawyer
No abstract provided.
The Ethics Of Reparations For Slavery,
2016
Ursinus College
The Ethics Of Reparations For Slavery, Kyla A. Jermin
Philosophy Summer Fellows
Reparations has always been a lingering topic in American history – one that is heavily discussed, but never quite put into action. Though there are many who agree that payment is owed for slavery, or that a crime was committed, they are often dissuaded by various issues, or by the idea that reparations are “too divisive” and would encourage racial dissension. In my project, I address these arguments, and establish a case for reparations and the ethical responsibility behind it. My project explores themes of duty, responsibility, and compensation for wrongdoing as applied to the American slave trade. In this …
Harken Not To Wild Beasts: Between Rage And Eloquence In Saruman And Thrasymachus,
2016
Middle Tennessee State University
Harken Not To Wild Beasts: Between Rage And Eloquence In Saruman And Thrasymachus, Dennis Wilson Wise
Journal of Tolkien Research
One of the giant gaps in Tolkien scholarship has been to miss how deeply Saruman answers the age-old antagonism between rhetoric and philosophy. Like John Milton, Tolkien cannot bring himself to trust rhetoric. It threatens the unitary truth of a divinely-revealed moral order and, ironically, Tolkien applies great rhetorical skill to convince his reader of rhetoric’s illusionary nature. In this matter Tolkien has been largely successful, since few readers (if any) question the de-privileging of Saruman’s perspective. In the process, though, I suggest that Tolkien has developed in his master rhetorician a new relationship between rhetoric (eloquence) and rage ( …
Mater Et Magistra; The United States Supreme Court; The Eichmann Trial; Positivism; Life, Death, Law; Charitable Contributions; Capital Punishment; Natural Law; Aid To Education,
2016
St. John's University School of Law
Mater Et Magistra; The United States Supreme Court; The Eichmann Trial; Positivism; Life, Death, Law; Charitable Contributions; Capital Punishment; Natural Law; Aid To Education
The Catholic Lawyer
No abstract provided.
Christian Precepts In The Common Law,
2016
St. John's University School of Law
Christian Precepts In The Common Law, John G. Hervey
The Catholic Lawyer
No abstract provided.
Right To Travel; Aid To Education; Law And Morals; Religious Liberty; Obscenity And The Law; Segregation; Divorce And The Catholic Attorney;,
2016
St. John's University School of Law
Right To Travel; Aid To Education; Law And Morals; Religious Liberty; Obscenity And The Law; Segregation; Divorce And The Catholic Attorney;
The Catholic Lawyer
No abstract provided.
Are Animals Persons?,
2016
University of Miami
Are Animals Persons?, Mark Rowlands
Animal Sentience
It is orthodox to suppose that very few, if any, nonhuman animals are persons. The category “person” is restricted to self-aware creatures: humans (above a certain age) and possibly some of the great apes and cetaceans. I argue that this orthodoxy should be rejected, because it rests on a mistaken conception of the kind of self-awareness relevant to personhood. Replacing this with a sense of self-awareness that is relevant requires us to accept that personhood is much more widely distributed through the animal kingdom.
Utilitarianism Generalized To Include Animals,
2016
Nanyang Technological University
Utilitarianism Generalized To Include Animals, Yew-Kwang Ng
Animal Sentience
In response to the seventeen commentaries to date on my target article on reducing animal suffering, I propose that the term “welfarism” (when used pejoratively by animal advocates) should be qualified as “anthropocentric welfarism” so as to leave “welfarism” simpliciter to be used in its generic sense of efforts to improve conditions for those who need it. Welfarism in this benign sense — even in its specific utilitarian form (maximizing the sum total of net welfare) with long-term future effects and effects on others (including animals) appropriately taken into account — should be unobjectionable (even if not considered sufficient by …
Cross-Species Mind-Reading,
2016
Université du Québec à Montréal & University of Southampton
Cross-Species Mind-Reading, Stevan Harnad
Animal Sentience
We can never be sure anyone else is sentient. But we can be sure enough in the case of other people, nonhuman primates, mammals, birds, fish, lower vertebrates and invertebrates as to make scepticism academic and otiose (not to mention monumentally cruel). The only genuinely uncertain kinds of cases are jellyfish, microbes and plants. The rest is not about whether but what they are feeling.
