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Articles 1 - 30 of 595
Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
Navigating The Edge Of Sentience Without A Scientific Meta-Consensus, Daniel West
Navigating The Edge Of Sentience Without A Scientific Meta-Consensus, Daniel West
Animal Sentience
In The Edge of Sentience (2024, 2025), Birch develops a precautionary framework for crafting public policies about potentially sentient systems. Underlying this framework is a commitment to the democratic principle that the public should authorize all significant moral judgments that arise during the policymaking process. In this commentary, I suggest that Birch’s framework fails to live up to this commitment by requiring scientists without public accountability to make consequential moral judgments. I suggest a friendly amendment to Birch’s framework by replacing the idea of a scientific meta-consensus with the method of formal expert elicitation, a well-tested method of gathering expert …
From Insect Cognition To Sentience: Exploring The Edge, Catherine Macri, Martin Giurfa
From Insect Cognition To Sentience: Exploring The Edge, Catherine Macri, Martin Giurfa
Animal Sentience
What does The Edge of Sentience tell us about insect sentience and consciousness? In this commentary, we reflect on Jonathan Birch’s framework for defining and scientifically investigating sentience in animals. We discuss the methodological challenges of studying subjective experience in evolutionary distant species, and consider trace conditioning, affective states, and neural architectures as potential windows into consciousness in insects. We argue that uncertainty, whether concerning definitions or methodology, should not prevent experimental investigation; rather it should motivate new approaches and experimental designs for exploring the diversity of conscious experience.
The Varieties Of Precaution: Which Risks, Whose Attitudes?, Tomasz Żuradzki
The Varieties Of Precaution: Which Risks, Whose Attitudes?, Tomasz Żuradzki
Animal Sentience
The Edge of Sentience offers an ambitious and timely institutional framework for proportionate precaution under uncertainty about sentience. Its systematic treatment of empirical and theoretical uncertainty across diverse cases is a major contribution. Focusing on the problem of identifying and weighing different risks when designing proportionate precautions, this commentary suggests three areas in which Birch’s framework could be developed further: a more domain-sensitive justification of the priority given to avoiding under-attribution; a clearer distinction among competing forms of risk aversion and their divergent policy implications; and a fuller explanation of how the framework generates different recommendations across cases.
Beyond Better Conditions: Seaweed Farming And The Number Of Sentient Animals In Aquaculture, Shrilaxmi Patil, Matthew Unerman, Wasseem Emam
Beyond Better Conditions: Seaweed Farming And The Number Of Sentient Animals In Aquaculture, Shrilaxmi Patil, Matthew Unerman, Wasseem Emam
Animal Sentience
Oldfield & Bonano (2024) (O&B) document how far fish welfare research lags behind welfare research in other animals. We share O&B’s feelings-based concept of welfare and agree that aquaculture seeded this field; but research volume has not scaled with animal numbers: Welfare attention per farmed fish or decapod remains negligible. Along the lines of preceding commentaries (Maia 2024, Mather 2024), we treat farmed aquatic animals as individuals rather than tonnage. We then raise a point so far absent from the commentary on O&B so far: reducing the number of sentient animals entering intensive systems. Coastal seaweed farming, which cultivates non-sentient …
Why Do We Need To Prove That Pigs Feel?, Aranza Vera-Espinoza, Nancy Harlet Esquivel-Marín
Why Do We Need To Prove That Pigs Feel?, Aranza Vera-Espinoza, Nancy Harlet Esquivel-Marín
Animal Sentience
Birch's framework manages uncertainty but overlooks the likelihood that citizen panels have speciesist biases that reduce precaution to mere harm-management even in species that undoubtedly feel.
Self-Maintenance And The Evidence For Artificial Sentience, Mads J. Hansen, Christoffer Lundbak Olesen
Self-Maintenance And The Evidence For Artificial Sentience, Mads J. Hansen, Christoffer Lundbak Olesen
Animal Sentience
Birch aims to remain neutral about whether life is necessary for sentience. We argue that life can be given a role while maintaining neutrality. Markers of sentience have been identified in living systems, where some contribute to the system's self-maintenance. When such a marker is reproduced in an artificial system that is not self-maintaining it is not clear that it is as reliable as in living systems.
Look Out For Our Kind, Christof Koch
Look Out For Our Kind, Christof Koch
Animal Sentience
Strongly supportive overall of Birch’s broad tent Sentience Project, I offer an alternative dyadic, single-class, two-stage process based on estimating the probability for sentience, and the associated confidence, for any individual or taxonomic group. I criticize Birch’s narrow computational framework when addressing the question of algorithmic sentience; there are alternative approaches.
Ai Is Not The Kind Of Thing That Can Ever Be Sentient, Lori Marino
Ai Is Not The Kind Of Thing That Can Ever Be Sentient, Lori Marino
Animal Sentience
Sentience evolved to allow organisms to move through their environment avoiding harms and achieving benefits. Sentience did not evolve from computation. It evolved from valenced feelings. AI (even robots) are not embodied and are not the kind of thing that needs to be sentient. There is no way to get from computations to feelings. They are qualitatively different things. We should avoid being lulled into thinking that an inanimate object designed to engage our propensity for anthropomorphism, like AI, is actually a mind.
Walking The Tightrope: The Precautionary Dilemma Of Neutrality And Guidance, Farhan Lakhany
Walking The Tightrope: The Precautionary Dilemma Of Neutrality And Guidance, Farhan Lakhany
Animal Sentience
Jonathan Birch’s The Edge of Sentience promises a precautionary framework that guides ethical action without taking sides in the disputed metaphysics of consciousness. I argue that it cannot do both. Birch admits “biopsychism” (that all living organisms are conscious) into his "zone of reasonable disagreement," yet his operational criteria exclude plants and unicellular organisms by requiring evidence that biopsychism holds to be irrelevant. This leaves a dilemma. Keeping the “broad” standard preserves neutrality but extends candidacy to all life, guiding nothing; restricting to scientific evidence guides action but is itself the theoretical commitment the framework was meant to avoid.
Dimensional Welfare Beyond Pain: Extending The Precautionary Principle In Birch’S “The Edge Of Sentience”, Willa M. Lane, Nicola S. Clayton
Dimensional Welfare Beyond Pain: Extending The Precautionary Principle In Birch’S “The Edge Of Sentience”, Willa M. Lane, Nicola S. Clayton
Animal Sentience
Birch's (2024) The Edge of Sentience identifies sentience candidates primarily through the pain-focused LSE Criteria. Yet, as Birch himself notes in Proposal 17, sentience is not pain. We argue that statutory welfare protections must therefore reach beyond pain, and that the right tool for doing so is Birch et al.’s (2020) dimensionality framework, which characterises conscious experience across five domains. Used together, the LSE Criteria establish that welfare is at stake, while the dimensionality framework maps what is at stake beyond pain to provide a taxon-specific profile of where captivity impoverishes experience. We apply this approach to invertebrate welfare and …
Animal Ethics And The Lowest Common Denominator, John O. Adenitire
Animal Ethics And The Lowest Common Denominator, John O. Adenitire
Animal Sentience
This commentary assesses the pragmatic framework proposed in Jonathan Birch’s The Edge of Sentience (2024). Celebrating the book's exceptional clarity, scientific rigor, and profound real-world impact on UK legislation, I nevertheless have some questions about the method by which Birch arrives at his policy recommendations for animal protection. In seeking an overlapping consensus between deeply divergent ethical and credal viewpoints, the framework risks defaulting to a minimalist, lowest-common-denominator standard of protection for animals. Birch also risks drawing the standard even lower by including serious academic positions in animal ethics that deny moral status for animals altogether. A rights-based approach offers …
On The Edge Of Science?, Mark Briffa, Lynne U. Sneddon
On The Edge Of Science?, Mark Briffa, Lynne U. Sneddon
Animal Sentience
In The Edge of Sentience, Jonathan Birch (2024) provides a thought-provoking synthesis of current perspectives on animal (and artificial) sentience. He addresses the question from conceptual, ethical, regulatory and empirical viewpoints. Here we focus on some of the scientific issues raised, including defining and operationalising the concept of sentience and the implications for policy and regulation. Despite unresolved conceptual challenges, the book makes a compelling case for the continued scientific investigation of animal sentience.
From The Edge To The Grounds Of “Sentientism”, David Degrazia
From The Edge To The Grounds Of “Sentientism”, David Degrazia
Animal Sentience
Birch’s book is a remarkable exploration of the nature of sentience, its moral salience, evidence for its presence, and how to arrive at humane policies regarding our treatment of human beings, animals, brain organoids, and AI systems of uncertain sentience. Although Birch endorses the view that sentience is of fundamental moral importance, he endeavors to remain neutral among reasonable moral views and work out how to navigate through uncertainty—both ethical and epistemological—to arrive at defensible policies. While making common cause with Birch’s project, my own recent book advances a developed case in favor of the “sentientism” Birch endorses.
Natural Behavior Vs. Subjective Experience In Fish Welfare Assessments, Ronald G. Oldfield
Natural Behavior Vs. Subjective Experience In Fish Welfare Assessments, Ronald G. Oldfield
Animal Sentience
Several commentaries on the Oldfield & Bonano (2024) target article proposed that natural behavior should play a larger role in assessing the welfare of fishes in zoos and aquariums. However, the natural-behavior concept of animal welfare has been widely criticized because natural behaviors do not necessarily improve welfare, and unnatural behaviors do not necessarily reduce it. I review the three major concepts of animal welfare — physical health, natural behavior, and affect/feelings — and argue that behavior patterns, whether natural or otherwise, should be evaluated according to their effects on health and subjective experience. Using the affect/feelings concept and the …
Aggression And Fish Welfare: Challenges And Opportunities, Christine M. Soper, Peter D. Dijkstra
Aggression And Fish Welfare: Challenges And Opportunities, Christine M. Soper, Peter D. Dijkstra
Animal Sentience
Oldfield & Bonano’s (2024) [O&B] target article discusses the wellbeing and sociality of bony fishes. Many fish species, such as cichlids, are not only social but territorial. Aggression is normal, but territorial aggression in a captive environment can have a negative impact on welfare. Aggression-related injuries and deaths are prevalent in pet stores as well as research settings. We discuss the need to develop effective methods to minimize the negative consequences of aggression.
Artificial Sentience: The Other Side Of The Story, Amanda Sharkey
Artificial Sentience: The Other Side Of The Story, Amanda Sharkey
Animal Sentience
There is another side to the story of the account of artificial sentience — one that makes the possibility of artificial sentience unlikely: the fundamental difference between living bodies and artificial systems. Sentience occurs in strongly embodied, living entities, and not in disembodied artificial systems, nor in robots. The appearance of sentience is exacerbated by deceptive behaviour and anthropomorphism. The risks of keeping an open mind about the required underlying substrate are in wasted efforts to protect systems that cannot suffer, and in placing inappropriate trust in their abilities.
Both Studying And Protecting Octopuses “On Their Own Terms”, Jennifer Jacquet, Janelle Kaz, Becca Franks, Christine Webb
Both Studying And Protecting Octopuses “On Their Own Terms”, Jennifer Jacquet, Janelle Kaz, Becca Franks, Christine Webb
Animal Sentience
Cephalopods – indeed, all animals – “must be seen on their own terms,” with respect for their autonomy and their ecological imperatives. This will provide greater scientific insight along with a more ethical and accurate understanding of minds beyond our own.
Cephalopod Consciousness On “Their Own Terms”: Who Are “They”?, Willa M. Lane, Victor Ajuwon, Nicola S. Clayton
Cephalopod Consciousness On “Their Own Terms”: Who Are “They”?, Willa M. Lane, Victor Ajuwon, Nicola S. Clayton
Animal Sentience
Mather’s call to consider cephalopods’ consciousness “on their own terms” raises the question of the extent to which cephalopods can be considered a homogenous group. While coloeoid cephalopods share traits that strongly distinguish them from other molluscs and invertebrates, they show vast ecological and morphological diversity, with implications for the design of empirical investigations of consciousness. Extending Mather’s argument, we apply Birch et al.’s (2020) five-dimensional model to compare octopus, cuttlefish, squid, and nautilus. This comparison shows that even within a graded rather than categorical framework, putative consciousness profiles depend on which taxa are included in discussions of “cephalopod consciousness.” …
The Consciousness Inherent In Chasing Your Tail, Sergio M. Pellis Dr.
The Consciousness Inherent In Chasing Your Tail, Sergio M. Pellis Dr.
Animal Sentience
Who is conscious and how do we know? Complexity in behavior and cognition is certainly a clue that cannot be ignored in identifying this trait, and as Mather’s target article shows, it is hard not to imagine consciousness arising in cephalopods. But how complex is complex? An alternative may be gleaned from the fact that all living things rely on negative feedback to navigate their worlds, and this requires all sentient beings knowing what is to be stabilized in reflection to themselves. If so, consciousness is a universal trait.
Cephalopod Consciousness: Asking The Right Questions, Gordon Burghardt
Cephalopod Consciousness: Asking The Right Questions, Gordon Burghardt
Animal Sentience
Jennifer Mather has provided a comprehensive and fascinating overview of the various cognitive accomplishments of cephalopods and their sensory, behavioral, and neurophysiological attributes. The advances in our understanding of a clade that has been separated from vertebrate evolution by well over half a billion years is a testament to advances in both methodology and the questions we now feel free to address. Mather embeds her review in the issue of consciousness, which is certainly a perennial issue in mental evolution, going back to Romanes and earlier. I argue that the term “consciousness” has such a checkered history and is used …
Donald Griffin, Scientific Revolutions, And Reclaiming Humanity’S Place In The Living World, Paul Waldau
Donald Griffin, Scientific Revolutions, And Reclaiming Humanity’S Place In The Living World, Paul Waldau
Animal Sentience
Donald Griffin’s work revolutionized cognitive ethology and continues to challenge human exceptionalism by emphasizing rigorous, unbiased inquiry. His legacy calls for a deeper recognition of humanity’s place within the broader animal community, urging interdisciplinary approaches that bridge science, ethics, and cultural traditions to foster a more inclusive understanding of life.
Donald Griffin, Cognitive Ethology, And Animal Life Histories, Walter Veit
Donald Griffin, Cognitive Ethology, And Animal Life Histories, Walter Veit
Animal Sentience
Carolyn Ristau offers a stellar investigative biography of Donald Redfield Griffin and his influence on the science and philosophy of animal minds. This commentary focuses on his aim to study animal minds through an ethological lens—that is, by examining the evolved, adaptive functions of mental capacities and consciousness in natural environments, rather than confining research to controlled laboratory settings. I argue that, far from being romantic, this approach can be firmly grounded in modern life history theory.
Précis Of The Edge Of Sentience: Risk And Precaution In Humans, Other Animals, And Ai, Jonathan Birch
Précis Of The Edge Of Sentience: Risk And Precaution In Humans, Other Animals, And Ai, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
We often face grave practical decisions that seem to hinge on whether a system is sentient. This family of cases includes invertebrate animals, people who are unresponsive after brain injury, fetuses, neural organoids, and now AI technologies. We must decide what to do despite ongoing disagreement about the nature of sentience. In our state of uncertainty, we should pragmatically transform the question from “Is it sentient?” to “Is it a sentience candidate, an investigation priority, or neither?”. When a system is a sentience candidate, it is negligent to fail to consider precautions. We should instead evaluate precautions for their proportionality …
Griffin's Slow Burn Revolution In Philosophy And Comparative Cognition, Kristin Andrews
Griffin's Slow Burn Revolution In Philosophy And Comparative Cognition, Kristin Andrews
Animal Sentience
Ristau presents Griffin as launching a scientific revolution supported by philosophical insights. This commentary focuses on two points: Griffin as a scientific revolutionary, although the cognitive ethology revolution is not yet complete; and on the immense influence Griffin had, and continues to have, on philosophy.
What Is It Like To Be A Diplomat? Reflections On Donald Griffin And Emotion, Oliver H. Turnbull
What Is It Like To Be A Diplomat? Reflections On Donald Griffin And Emotion, Oliver H. Turnbull
Animal Sentience
This commentary addresses three aspects of Donald Griffin’s work: (1) his thoughts beyond cognition, on emotion; (2) his views on the earliest origins of mind, including primitive forms of consciousness; and (3) his diplomatic use of memorable phrases to facilitate change.
What Is It Like To Be A Cognitive Ethologist?, Anne Wordsworth She/Her
What Is It Like To Be A Cognitive Ethologist?, Anne Wordsworth She/Her
Animal Sentience
Donald Griffin not only made the study of animal minds acceptable for scientific investigation but the work of the cognitive ethologists that he inspired made animals and their lives fascinating and accessible to the greater public. The scrupulously detailed examination of his life and work by Ristau ensures that this history will always be there to respect his work and his legacy
Can Animal Consciousness Be Resolved Scientifically?, Yoram Gutfreund
Can Animal Consciousness Be Resolved Scientifically?, Yoram Gutfreund
Animal Sentience
Carolyn Ristau's biography of Donald Griffin is a comprehensive work that sheds light on a seminal chapter in the history of ethology—the ambitious attempt to establish a research field dedicated to animal consciousness. Although Donald Griffin's endeavor ultimately fell short of its revolutionary goals, it catalyzed significant progress in understanding evolution and mechanisms of animal cognition.
Beyond Human Perception: The Remarkable Science Of Donald R. Griffin, Gareth Jones
Beyond Human Perception: The Remarkable Science Of Donald R. Griffin, Gareth Jones
Animal Sentience
Carolyn Ristau shows how Donald Griffin’s revolutionary science sometimes progressed from ridicule, to opposition, to being self-evident. Griffin’s work involved phenomena beyond human perception, making it sometimes difficult for others to fathom. His work on ultrasonic echolocation, navigation and animal cognition has shifted established paradigms. His ‘zoomorphic’ approach provides a realistic framework for understanding how other animals perceive the world.
Donald Griffin: A Visionary In Science And Consciousness, Brock Fenton
Donald Griffin: A Visionary In Science And Consciousness, Brock Fenton
Animal Sentience
I share some reflections on a sabbatical with Donald Griffin a half-century ago, with fieldwork on bats and echolocating swiftlets in Australia and our discussions of animal behavior and consciousness. Griffin's influence has been vast, from recent advances in bat research, including learning, navigation, and longevity, to his enduring legacy as a pioneer in animal cognition.
Cognitive Ethology, Animals And Society, And The American Sociological Association, Arnold Arluke
Cognitive Ethology, Animals And Society, And The American Sociological Association, Arnold Arluke
Animal Sentience
Griffin’s The Question of Animal Awareness (1976) and Animal Minds (2001) enabled and emboldened other disciplines to expand their research to include non-human animals. The creation of a dedicated section on human-animal relationships in sociology’s national professional organization is but one example.