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Articles 31 - 60 of 595
Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
Objective Bat Phenomenology, Thomas Nagel
Objective Bat Phenomenology, Thomas Nagel
Animal Sentience
Our discussions prompted Donald Griffin to campaign for the recognition of animal consciousness as a subject for scientific investigation. Ristau shows how much has since been discovered about the experiences of bats and other creatures, by Griffin and others, in spite of the limits to full knowledge imposed by our biological differences. But Ristau seriously misrepresents me as holding that we can know nothing about what it is like to be a bat, whereas these results are precisely of the kind I envisioned in proposing an “objective phenomenology.”
To Be Conscious Or Not To Be, Bjørn Grinde
To Be Conscious Or Not To Be, Bjørn Grinde
Animal Sentience
Carolyn Ristau has done a fine job summarizing the work and life of the zoologist Donald Griffin. Most scientists now accept the existence of animal sentience, but identifying which species possess consciousness remains controversial. Griffin defined consciousness as "the subjective state of feeling or thinking about objects and events.” Nonconscious processes are faster and more energy-efficient, however, and often drive behavior. Consciousness probably evolved for complex decision-making, shaped by evolutionary continuity, with feelings as a common currency for evaluating outcomes. Its survival advantage may be limited, and its presence across species varies depending on evolutionary trajectories.
Communication In Noise Is The Window On Cognition, R. Haven Wiley
Communication In Noise Is The Window On Cognition, R. Haven Wiley
Animal Sentience
As Griffin surmised, communication is the window on cognition, but as shown here, only if it is noisy. This commentary is an invitation to consider the full implications of the evolution of noisy communication. A combination of Information Theory, Signal Detection Theory, and Natural Selection, in a unified theory of the evolution of communication, reveals that noise is inevitable. All organisms are thus decision makers. Perception, thought, freedom of decision, self-awareness, metabolism, and natural selection all share the consequences of signals in noise. A full understanding of each requires attention to the errors of receivers. Griffin’s hunch is correct with …
Attempting To Answer The Question Of Animal Awareness, Alexandra Horowitz
Attempting To Answer The Question Of Animal Awareness, Alexandra Horowitz
Animal Sentience
It was as a graduate student that I first encountered the work of both Donald Griffin and Carolyn Ristau. Griffin's The Question of Animal Awareness (1976) and Animal Minds (2001) helped a budding animal-minds researcher appreciate both the possibilities of studying non-human animal consciousness and the struggle that such an undertaking would face. Now Ristau's (2024a,b) timely biography helps explain how Griffin became the figure in animal cognition that he is.
Donald Griffin, Sentience, And Animal Research Ethics, John Gluck
Donald Griffin, Sentience, And Animal Research Ethics, John Gluck
Animal Sentience
Recollection of early encounters with Donald Griffin’s pioneering work on animal awareness, provoking intense, often hostile academic responses, later forgotten.
Can We Use Judgement Bias To Assess The Welfare Of Fish In Aquariums And Zoos?, Culum Brown
Can We Use Judgement Bias To Assess The Welfare Of Fish In Aquariums And Zoos?, Culum Brown
Animal Sentience
This commentary examines the potential of tests of judgment bias to assess fish welfare in aquariums and zoos. Judgment bias offers a non-invasive approach to interpreting affective states in animals, using cognitive responses to ambiguous stimuli as indicators of mental wellbeing. Despite the constraints of captive environments—such as limited handling and species diversity in exhibits—recent adaptations of judgment-bias protocols make them suitable across taxa, including fishes. Collaborations with progressive zoos and aquariums could facilitate this research, based on the shared goal of enhancing animal welfare and promoting public education.
Précis Of: "Birds, Bats And Minds: Tales Of A Revolutionary Scientist, Donald R. Griffin", Carolyn A. Ristau
Précis Of: "Birds, Bats And Minds: Tales Of A Revolutionary Scientist, Donald R. Griffin", Carolyn A. Ristau
Animal Sentience
Donald Griffin co-discovered bat sonar and founded the field of echolocation. He studied bird migration and founded Cognitive Ethology, the study of animal awareness and mental experiences. In all these endeavors, he faced hostile opposition. The biography (Ristau 2024) examines Griffin's life and the scientific explorations by him and others in these fields. This Précis emphasizes his arguments and supporting evidence for animal consciousness as well as his later research. Griffin considered the inhibiting assumptions made by scientists, including Cartesian views, the misunderstanding of innate behaviors, prejudice against lower animals, concern with violations of parsimony, and the assertions of the …
Psychological And Social Well-Being Of Bony Fishes In Zoos And Aquariums, Ronald G. Oldfield, Patrick Bonano
Psychological And Social Well-Being Of Bony Fishes In Zoos And Aquariums, Ronald G. Oldfield, Patrick Bonano
Animal Sentience
Research on the behaviour of animals in zoos has been conducted for decades, and observations have provided information that has improved the psychological and social well-being of animals. However, research on fishes in zoos and aquariums seems to be lacking. Here, we assess the current state of research on fishes in zoos and aquariums by surveying the peer-reviewed literature. Our assessment differs from previous surveys in that we examine the taxonomic classes Chondrichthyes (sharks and rays) and Osteichthyes (bony fishes) separately. Our survey finds that bony fishes have been drastically underrepresented in zoo journals, more drastically than chondrichthyans, revealing an …
Norms And Variance Fail To Predict Butterfly Effects On Social Dynamics By Idiosyncratic Individuals, Stephen F. Stringham, Lynn Rogers, Ann Bryant
Norms And Variance Fail To Predict Butterfly Effects On Social Dynamics By Idiosyncratic Individuals, Stephen F. Stringham, Lynn Rogers, Ann Bryant
Animal Sentience
Adaptations and adjustments to current environmental conditions are manifest in behavioral norms. Knowing norms facilitates population-level prediction, but doesn’t predict individual behavior where idiosyncrasies might trigger “butterfly effects." Knowledge of individual quirks is particularly important for risk assessment and management during close encounters between humans and potentially lethal wildlife, including bears (Ursus spp.). Innovative foraging techniques can alter population vigor and viability. Traits at the tails of a bell curve might hold the greatest potential for adapting to environmental change.
Wildlife Conservation: The Importance Of Individual Personality Traits And Sentience, Karen A. Owens, Gosia Bryja, Marc Bekoff
Wildlife Conservation: The Importance Of Individual Personality Traits And Sentience, Karen A. Owens, Gosia Bryja, Marc Bekoff
Animal Sentience
Individual differences in personality types within the same species have been studied much less than differences between species and populations. Personality differences are related to risk-taking and exploration, which in turn correlate with individuals' daily responses, decisions, and fitness. Bold and shy personality types can have different advantages and disadvantages under different social or environmental pressures. Analyzing personality differences has helped clarify how elk habituate to a well-populated area and how management strategies can be adapted to them. For wolves newly repatriated to Colorado, individual personality factors are likely to prove important for adapting to their new homes as well …
Precommentary: Animal Personality Needs Animal Sentience, Ralph Adolphs, Yue Xu
Precommentary: Animal Personality Needs Animal Sentience, Ralph Adolphs, Yue Xu
Animal Sentience
We are grateful to Owens, Bryja & Bekoff (2024) for their important discussion of individual differences in animals, emphasizing the role of personality in conservation, wildlife research, and wellbeing. But their emphasis also raises new challenges: How should we conceive of personality in nonhuman species? what modern tools could be leveraged to best measure it? and, perhaps most important of all: how can we ensure that the conscious experience of animals — their capacity for wellbeing and for suffering — is not forgotten along the way? We touch on each of these challenges in this invited Precommentary in the hope …
Donald Griffin: A Visionary In Science And Consciousness, Charles Foster
Donald Griffin: A Visionary In Science And Consciousness, Charles Foster
Animal Sentience
Carolyn Ristau’s (2024) timely biography reviews Donald Griffin’s pioneering ideas with depth and historical perspective, describing Griffin’s approach to science, his openness to interdisciplinary insights, and his bold stance on consciousness. Ristau’s work highlights Griffin’s relevance to contemporary debates on consciousness and natural selection.
Don Griffin And The Early Days Of Cognitive Ethology, Gordon M. Burghardt
Don Griffin And The Early Days Of Cognitive Ethology, Gordon M. Burghardt
Animal Sentience
Carolyn Ristau’s trilogy provides a comprehensive account of Donald Griffin’s life and work, with the third volume focusing on cognitive ethology. This commentary focuses primarily on my own interactions with Don, particularly during my sabbatical at Rockefeller University when his campaign for cognitive ethology was gaining momentum. I recount my research on reptile behavior and cognition, my collaboration with Don and others at RU, and my role in advancing his ideas while contextualizing them within 19th-century comparative psychology. I also discuss developments in cognitive ethology, including critical anthropomorphism, the challenges of integrating subjective experience into behavioral science, and Griffin’s lasting …
Other Perspectives On Animals, Their Sentience And Cognition, Joyce M. D'Silva Mrs
Other Perspectives On Animals, Their Sentience And Cognition, Joyce M. D'Silva Mrs
Animal Sentience
For those of us who work to achieve legal recognition that animals are sentient beings, and should in many cases be allotted personhood, Donald Griffin is indeed an inspiration and a true game-changer. He put paid to the narrow behaviourist interpretation of animals’ lives promoted by Skinner et al. He became a real heir to Darwin’s belief in animal emotions. He enabled campaigners for animal welfare and indeed animal rights to quote his work as a distinguished scientist to give gravitas to their calls for legal recognition and protection of animals.
An Individuals-Oriented Approach To Conservation, Kristy M. Ferraro
An Individuals-Oriented Approach To Conservation, Kristy M. Ferraro
Animal Sentience
Individual cognitive and emotional differences in personality among animals, along with differences in their behavioral traits, are increasingly important in conservation efforts. It is not only more effective but more ethical to take both collective and individual perspectives into account in both research and practice.
Wildlife Conservation And Adaptation To Humans, Valeria Mazza Phd, Claudio Carere
Wildlife Conservation And Adaptation To Humans, Valeria Mazza Phd, Claudio Carere
Animal Sentience
For many animal species, the ability to adapt to coexistence with the human species and to the environmental changes that humans cause is a biological imperative. This adaptive capacity varies not only between species, but within species. Studying individual differences in animals’ behavioral, cognitive and physiological adaptability is important for integrating ethology and conservation. Findings about animal cognitive capacities, including learning, need to be applied in conservation—but humans need to be educated about ethology, coexistence and conservation too.
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.
Not Just Bony Fish: All Nonmammalian And Nonavian Animals Are Neglected In Both Welfare And General Research, Jennifer A. Mather Ph.D.
Not Just Bony Fish: All Nonmammalian And Nonavian Animals Are Neglected In Both Welfare And General Research, Jennifer A. Mather Ph.D.
Animal Sentience
The lack of research on fish welfare highlighted by Oldfield & Bonano (2024) is only part of a more general problem: a relative neglect of animals other than mammals and birds. The causes are our lack of knowledge, our negative view of what we consider to be “lower” animals and our underestimation of their intelligence and sensitivity. Our estimation will increase as our knowledge increases. As a broader view spreads to the public through the media, it should gradually increase the demand to expand both research and welfare, especially beyond mammals and birds.
Multiple Ways To Implement And Infer Sentience, Nicolas Rouleau, Michael Levin
Multiple Ways To Implement And Infer Sentience, Nicolas Rouleau, Michael Levin
Animal Sentience
Segundo-Ortin & Calvo’s (S&C’s) thorough review of “plant neurobiology” presents evidence supporting the possibility of plant sentience. They make a compelling case that plants anticipate, assess risk, cooperate, mimic, and pursue goals, as do their animal counterparts. S&C point out that there is a double standard: behavioural patterns associated with subjective experiences in humans are considered valid for inferring cognition in non-human animals but not in diverse other systems including plants. We argue that cognitive functions, including sentience, can potentially be achieved by very different systems and their disparate substrates. We offer some context from the basal cognition literature and …
Plant Sentience: Not Now, Maybe Later?, Helen Tiffin
Plant Sentience: Not Now, Maybe Later?, Helen Tiffin
Animal Sentience
Segundo-Ortin’s target article provides compelling evidence for physiological and behavioral complexity in plants, bringing us closer to a recognition of some kind of plant cognition – but it does not as yet offer firm grounds for inferring sentience (feeling) in plants, The recent history of the scientific demonstration and recognition of animalsentience in invertebrates, for example, does not entirely rule out the possibility that further research might provide support for plant sentience. Should this ever turn out to be the case, the ethical problems raised are not insurmountable, and would not threaten the now proven case for animal sentience
Crazier Hypotheses: Panpsychism, José E. Burgos, Giselle M. Castañeda
Crazier Hypotheses: Panpsychism, José E. Burgos, Giselle M. Castañeda
Animal Sentience
Abstract: Segundo-Ortin & Calvo (S&C) invite readers to consider seriously the hypothesis that plants have phenomenal consciousness or sentience. Their case is based on behavioral evidence to support their hypothesis. While the hypothesis seems crazy to many, there is a crazier hypothesis – panpsychism – according to which everything is sentient. We discuss panpsychism to raise a number of philosophical questions about S&C’s hypothesis.
Limits To Sentience, Donald M. Broom
Limits To Sentience, Donald M. Broom
Animal Sentience
There are many parallels between cellular function in animals and plants. Plants can have complex interactions with their environments. But they lack a central nervous system, which is a prerequisite for sentience (the capacity to feel). In my view the suggestion that plants are sentient is not only empirically incorrect but potentially harmful to the efforts to protect the welfare of sentient beings.
Plant Sentience: Time Scale Matters, Alessio Plebe
Plant Sentience: Time Scale Matters, Alessio Plebe
Animal Sentience
Segundo-Ortin & Calvo (2023) have made a valuable effort in directing the discussion about plant sentience toward a strict scientific path. However, scientific endeavors must reconcile with common sense beliefs. Although nowadays people tend to accept the idea of animal sentience, this is not easily extended to plants. One reason is the difference in time scale in which phenomena occur in plants and animals; but this still does not preclude the possibility , in principle, of plant sentience in a form difficult for us to imagine.
Disentangling Sentience From Developmental Plasticity, Jonathan Birch
Disentangling Sentience From Developmental Plasticity, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
Plants, like animals, display remarkable developmental plasticity, inviting the metaphorical use of terms like “decision” and “choice”. In the animal case, this is not taken to be evidence of sentience, because sentience is a complex product of development, not something that guides it. We should apply the same standards when evaluating the evidence in plants. It is hard to overstate the contrast with the case of invertebrates such as octopuses, where pain markers that were originally developed for use in mammals have been clearly demonstrated and plausible neural substrates for sentience have been identified.
The Elephant In The Garden, Ila France Porcher
The Elephant In The Garden, Ila France Porcher
Animal Sentience
The other commentators on Chapman & Huffman (2018) have pointed out in different ways that despite our biological nature, there is a widespread tendency for humans to believe that we are not only superior to animals, but that we are not animals at all. Alongside our denial of animal sentience and cognition, this has resulted in the denial of our own instinctive natures. It is this denial that is our error, for it is only by understanding our true natural heritage that we can begin to change the runaway path we are on.
Plant Sentience: "Feeling" Or Biological Automatism?, Andrea Mastinu
Plant Sentience: "Feeling" Or Biological Automatism?, Andrea Mastinu
Animal Sentience
Sentience refers to the ability of an organism to have subjective experiences such as sensations, emotions and awareness. Whereas some animals, including humans, are widely recognized as sentient, the question of whether plants are sentient is still debated among scientists, philosophers, and ethicists. Over the past 20 years, many scientists such as Trewavas, Baluška, Mancuso, Gagliano, and Calvo have reported interesting discussions about memory, behavior, communication, and intelligence in plants. However, the reported conclusions have not convinced the entire scientific community. In this commentary, I would like to focus on two critical aspects related to sentience: cognition and emotion
Plant Sentience: Bias And Promise, Sidney Carls-Diamante
Plant Sentience: Bias And Promise, Sidney Carls-Diamante
Animal Sentience
Whichever side of the debate one chooses, plant sentience is a fertile research area that challenges received views and assumptions, generates novel insights, and suggests new ways that felt states might arise. My commentary discusses methodological and philosophical implications.
From Animal To Plant Sentience: Is There Credible Evidence?, Leonard Dung
From Animal To Plant Sentience: Is There Credible Evidence?, Leonard Dung
Animal Sentience
Segundo-Ortin & Calvo argue that plants have a surprisingly varied and complex behavioral repertoire. Which of these behavioral capacities are credible indicators of sentience? If we use the standards of evidence common in discussions of animal sentience, the behavioral capacities reviewed are insufficient evidence of sentience. Even if some putative indicators of animal sentience are present in plants, it is not clear whether what we should conclude is that plants are sentient or that those indicators are inadequate.
What Can Plant Science Learn From Animal Nervous Systems?, Luiz Pessoa
What Can Plant Science Learn From Animal Nervous Systems?, Luiz Pessoa
Animal Sentience
I welcome Segundo-Ortin & Calvo’s (2023) call for a rigorous science of plant behavior and physiology. My commentary addresses three points drawn from the literature on animal brains that could help elucidate the possibility of cognition and sentience in plants: (1) the presumed requirement of a centralized brain; (2) centralization of control versus heterarchical organization; and (3) connecting plant research with research on animal nervous systems.
Plant Sentience And The Case For Ethical Veganism, Josh Milburn
Plant Sentience And The Case For Ethical Veganism, Josh Milburn
Animal Sentience
Does the possibility of plant sentience pose a problem for ethical veganism? It has not yet been demonstrated that plants are sentient (i.e., that they can feel). Moreover, even if it were demonstrated that plants could feel, it would also have to be demonstrated that they can feel the affectively “valenced” feelings that are ethically significant, such as pain and fear, rather than just neutral sensations such as darker/lighter, or wetter/drier. Finally, if plants could feel valenced feelings, veganism would likely still be the ethical option, on the principle of causing the least harm.