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Articles 91 - 120 of 595
Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
A Framework For Evaluating Evidence Of Pain In Animals, Matilda Gibbons, Lars Chittka
A Framework For Evaluating Evidence Of Pain In Animals, Matilda Gibbons, Lars Chittka
Animal Sentience
Crump et al. define eight criteria indicating sentience in animals, with a focus on pain. Here, we point out the risk of false negative or false positive diagnoses of pain. Criteria of different levels of inclusivity are useful for using the precautionary principle in animal welfare considerations, and for more formal scientific evidence of pain. We suggest tightening the criteria -- from more general evidence of sentience to pain alone -- because crucial evidence for animal welfare decisions might otherwise be missed for animals subjected to invasive and injurious procedures.
Pros And Cons Of A Framework For Evaluating Potential Pain In Decapods, Robert W. Elwood
Pros And Cons Of A Framework For Evaluating Potential Pain In Decapods, Robert W. Elwood
Animal Sentience
The rigorous framework for research into potential pain in decapods was successful in allowing legislators in the United Kingdom to evaluate a complex scientific issue. However, it might produce problems for research. I discuss doubts about the usefulness of the eight criteria. Some have yet to receive any investigation and others do not allow much inference about pain. In addition, some existing studies are not covered in the framework. Most worrying, however, is the potential for stifling future research of novel areas that are excluded from the framework.
Integrating Evolution Into The Study Of Animal Sentience, Walter Veit
Integrating Evolution Into The Study Of Animal Sentience, Walter Veit
Animal Sentience
Like many others, I see Crump et al. (2022) as a milestone for improving upon previous guidelines and for extending their framework to decapod crustaceans. Their proposal would benefit from a firm evolutionary foundation by adding the comparative measurement of life-history complexity as a ninth criterion for attributing sentience to nonhuman animals.
Animal Sentience Research: Synthesis And Proposals, Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience Research: Synthesis And Proposals, Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
Most commentaries on our target article broadly support our approach to evaluating evidence of animal sentience. In this Response, we clarify the framework’s purpose and address criticisms of our criteria. A recurring theme is that a framework to synthesise current evidence of sentience is not the same as an agenda for future directions in animal sentience research. Although future directions are valuable, our framework aims to evaluate existing evidence and inform animal welfare legislation.
Time To Stop Pretending We Don’T Know Other Animals Are Sentient Beings, Marc Bekoff
Time To Stop Pretending We Don’T Know Other Animals Are Sentient Beings, Marc Bekoff
Animal Sentience
Rowan et al.’s target article is an outstanding review of some of the history of the science of sentience, but one would have liked to see a much stronger “call to action.” We don’t need any more data to know that many other animals are sentient beings whose lives must be protected from harm in a wide variety of contexts. It is not anti-science to want more action on behalf of other animals right now.
Overcoming Inertia To Deliver Sentience Policy Commensurate With Sentience Science, Claire Bass
Overcoming Inertia To Deliver Sentience Policy Commensurate With Sentience Science, Claire Bass
Animal Sentience
Rowan et al’s target article makes clear that meaningful change in policy and practice to protect animals has failed to progress in lockstep with scientific understanding of their sentience and needs. The underlying causes for inertia in political and practical progress for animals in the UK context are multi-faceted and complex, including economic forces; lack of cross-departmental accountability for animal welfare; and challenges where it suits conservation scientists to dismiss or downgrade the impacts of management decisions on individual animals. All of these influences and more must be understood and addressed if we are to deliver meaningful and timely protections …
Sentience In Decapod Crustaceans: A General Framework And Review Of The Evidence, Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, Jonathan Birch
Sentience In Decapod Crustaceans: A General Framework And Review Of The Evidence, Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
We outline a framework for evaluating scientific evidence of sentience, focusing on pain experience. It includes eight neural and cognitive-behavioural criteria, with confidence levels for each criterion reflecting the reliability and quality of the evidence. We outline the rationale for each criterion and apply our framework to a controversial sentience candidate: decapod crustaceans. We have either high or very high confidence that true crabs (infraorder Brachyura) satisfy five criteria, amounting to strong evidence of sentience. Moreover, we have high confidence that both anomuran crabs (infraorder Anomura) and astacid lobsters/crayfish (infraorder Astacidea) meet three criteria—substantial evidence of sentience. The case is, …
Of Course Crustaceans Are Sentient: But There's More To The Story, Arthur S. Reber, Frantisek Baluska, William B. Miller Jr.
Of Course Crustaceans Are Sentient: But There's More To The Story, Arthur S. Reber, Frantisek Baluska, William B. Miller Jr.
Animal Sentience
We are in basic agreement with Crump et al. that animal welfare, particularly with regard to the experience of pain, is a topic of importance. However, we come to the issue from a different perspective, one in which all species are sentient and can feel pain. The implications of this theory are discussed.
Defining And Assessing Sentience, Barry O. Hughes
Defining And Assessing Sentience, Barry O. Hughes
Animal Sentience
Precisely what is meant by the term sentience and how does it overlap with being conscious? We accept that animals have feelings but how do we know what they are and can we measure them? It is important that we clarify the terminology underlying these difficult concepts. Over the last 50 years a scientific discipline has developed to tackle these questions in a systematic way. We have to avoid thoughtless anthropomorphism yet we have to try to relate sentience in animals, as appropriate, to corresponding experiences in humans.
Defending Human Difference By Raising The Bar, Joe Gough
Defending Human Difference By Raising The Bar, Joe Gough
Animal Sentience
Chapman & Huffman (C&H) offer a theory of why we humans want to believe that we are different: to justify our cruelty to animals. This commentary offers further supporting evidence of this and examines more closely what the claim that humans are ‘different’ amounts to. It also considers some methodological issues in animal psychology closely related to C&H ‘s theory. These problems result from a common strategy for defending hypotheses about human difference.
Animal Sentience Science And Policy, Andrew Crump
Animal Sentience Science And Policy, Andrew Crump
Animal Sentience
Animal sentience research cannot be divorced from its ethical and political implications. For example, discovering which animals are sentient is vital for deciding which require welfare protection. Two legal case-studies illustrate the importance of scientists in such debates: the UK Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 had input from animal sentience researchers, whereas the US Animal Welfare Act 1966 did not. The former defined sentient animals much more plausibly than the latter. I accordingly argue that sentience researchers should inform policy, and that this is achievable without sacrificing scientific integrity.
Lack Of Imagination Can Bias Our View Of Animal Sentience, Brian Key, Deborah Brown
Lack Of Imagination Can Bias Our View Of Animal Sentience, Brian Key, Deborah Brown
Animal Sentience
How an animal reacts to a sensory stimulus is often used to assess whether that animal can experience feelings such as pain and pleasure. This behavioural path is typically complemented with reference to how a human would normally respond to and experience an analogous stimulus. Together, these approaches can lead to a “hard to imagine otherwise” argument for feelings. It is time to go beyond these qualitative assessments and to now determine whether a nervous system can execute the neural functions necessary for sentience.
Sentience Politics : A Fishy Perspective, Culum Brown
Sentience Politics : A Fishy Perspective, Culum Brown
Animal Sentience
The plight of fishes has almost certainly got worse since Bentham (1789) coined the phrase “The question is not Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but Can they suffer?” Despite the fact that fishes are increasingly recognised as sentient animals worthy of protection under animal welfare legislation in many countries around the world, fishing practices are almost universally exempt activities. The human population continues to grow, and, surprisingly, per capita intake of fish is still increasing (FAO 2020). The source of this fish is not wild stocks (catches of which have remained more or less stagnant for …
Legal Recognition Of Animal Sentience: The Case For Cautious Optimism, Jane Kotzmann
Legal Recognition Of Animal Sentience: The Case For Cautious Optimism, Jane Kotzmann
Animal Sentience
Rowan et al.’s target article provides a valuable indication of the work that was required to reach the point where animals are recognised as sentient in various laws. To ensure this work was not in vain, the language of sentience needs to be used as a moral currency to demand further cultural change involving greater human respect for animals.
Revisiting Donald Griffin, Founder Of Cognitive Ethology, Carolyn A. Ristau
Revisiting Donald Griffin, Founder Of Cognitive Ethology, Carolyn A. Ristau
Animal Sentience
Donald Griffin’s writings, beginning with The Question of Animal Awareness (1976), strove to persuade scientists to study the possibility of animal sentience, the basis of Rowan et al.’s efforts to promote animal well-being. Facing great hostility (but also some acceptance) for his ideas, Griffin initially avoided animal welfare advocacy, fearing it would further undermine his efforts to gain recognition of animal sentience. In later years, however, he began to ponder the ethical implications of animal sentience, intending to study wild elephants’ communication and social behavior to better understand their experienced life and apply it to improving conservation methods. As he …
All Living Organisms Are Sentient, Arthur S. Reber, Frantisek Baluska, William B. Miller Jr.
All Living Organisms Are Sentient, Arthur S. Reber, Frantisek Baluska, William B. Miller Jr.
Animal Sentience
We argue that all living organisms, from the simplest unicellular prokaryotes to Homo sapiens, have valenced experiences—feelings as states of preference—and are capable of cognitive representations. Bacteria can learn, form stable memories, and communicate, hence solve problems. Rowan et al.'s statement that "Subjective feelings are just that — subjective — and are available only to the animal (or human) experiencing them" is true but irrelevant. When we see a fish flopping about in the bottom of a boat we immediately recognize suffering without having a glimpse of the nature of piscine distress. Some controlled anthropomorphism can go a …
The Science Of Animal Sentience And The Politics Of Animal Welfare Should Be Kept Separate, Marian Stamp Dawkins
The Science Of Animal Sentience And The Politics Of Animal Welfare Should Be Kept Separate, Marian Stamp Dawkins
Animal Sentience
Although linked historically by Rowan et al., the scientific study of animal sentience and political campaigns to improve animal welfare should be kept separate, for at least two reasons. First, the separation makes it clear that standards of evidence acceptable for ethical or political decisions on animal welfare can be lower than those required for a rigorously scientific approach to animal sentience. Second, it helps to avoid confirmatory bias in the form of giving undue weight to results that are in line with pre-conceived ideas and political views.
Animal Sentience In Indian Culture: Colonial And Post-Colonial Changes, Nanditha Krishna
Animal Sentience In Indian Culture: Colonial And Post-Colonial Changes, Nanditha Krishna
Animal Sentience
The Indian tradition has respected animal sentience and non-injury toward all life. It is repeated consistently in Sanskrit literature and the later literature of the Jains and the Buddhists. Change came with the advent of Islamic rule followed by the British, who built slaughterhouses. The hunting of wildlife increased and several wild predator species were wiped out. The result was the series of legislations for animals which were initially proposed by the SPCAs and later by NGOs. In 1976, the Constitution of India was amended to make the protection of wildlife and compassion for living creatures a fundamental duty. However, …
The Dissonance Between Knowing Animals Are Sentient Beings Yet Eating Them, Yana Bender, Juliane Bräuer
The Dissonance Between Knowing Animals Are Sentient Beings Yet Eating Them, Yana Bender, Juliane Bräuer
Animal Sentience
Animal sentience is linked to the bigger picture of climate and health crises and “carnism” is a factor in the dissonance among (1) knowing animals are sentient, (2) caring about their feelings, and (3) not acting accordingly. We discuss our responsibility as researchers and as individual human beings.
The Reality And Prevalence Of Animal Sentience, Antonio Damasio
The Reality And Prevalence Of Animal Sentience, Antonio Damasio
Animal Sentience
Rowan et al use findings from neurobiology, clinical neurology, and general biology to argue for the extensive presence of sentience in animals, but they are wisely cautious concerning when in the phylogenetic scale that emergence occurred.
The Question Is Not “Can Humans Talk?” Or “Can They Suffer?” But “Can They Reason?”, Clive Phillips
The Question Is Not “Can Humans Talk?” Or “Can They Suffer?” But “Can They Reason?”, Clive Phillips
Animal Sentience
In their target article, Rowan et al (2022) make a welcome attempt to chart the development of Western progress over the past two hundred years toward formally recognizing that animals feel. They outline the heroic efforts of Compassion in World Farming to gain for animals the status of sentient beings rather than merely human property. A broader view exists, from human prehistory to the present day, in which animals have been (and still are) understood to be sentient by indigenous peoples as well as by some Eastern religions. Growing recognition in the West that animals feel represents a new age …
Motivated Science: What Humans Gain From Denying Animal Sentience, Uri Lifshin
Motivated Science: What Humans Gain From Denying Animal Sentience, Uri Lifshin
Animal Sentience
Resistance to the idea that non-human animals are sentient resembles erstwhile resistance to the theory that the earth is not the centre of the universe, or that humans evolved from “apes”. All these notions are psychologically threatening. They can remind people of their own creatureliness and mortality and might make them feel guilty or uncertain about their way of life. An honest debate over animal sentience, welfare and rights should consider the human motivation to deprive animals of these things in the first place. I briefly review empirical evidence on the psychological function of denying animal minds.
Why The Recognition Of Sentience Is So Important For Animal Welfare, Mark Jones
Why The Recognition Of Sentience Is So Important For Animal Welfare, Mark Jones
Animal Sentience
Rowan et al. (2022) provide a useful summary of the history and development of the philosophical, public, and legal recognition of animal sentience and its importance in improving the welfare of animals. Here I argue for the incorporation of the precautionary principle in sentience recognition, and the wider significance of sentience recognition to the current climate, biodiversity and human health crises.
Wild Animal Welfare, Clare Palmer, Peter Sandøe
Wild Animal Welfare, Clare Palmer, Peter Sandøe
Animal Sentience
Rowan et al’s article provides an overview of developments in the science of animal sentience and its links to animal welfare policy, especially regarding farm animals. But changing ideas of animal sentience and welfare are also important for managing wild and other free-living animals. We ask how the welfare of these animals differs from that of farmed animals, especially how the ability to make autonomous choices may matter. We suggest that more research into wild animal welfare is needed to make informed policy decisions, for example, about using animals in rewilding projects and choosing between policies of culling and fertility …
Sentience And Sentient Minds, John Anthony Webster
Sentience And Sentient Minds, John Anthony Webster
Animal Sentience
My commentary builds on Rowan et al.’s (2022) comprehensive review to address the question ‘what do we mean by sentience?’ It suggests how we might recognise degrees of sentience within the animal kingdom, ranging from primitive sensations such as hunger and pain to more complex emotions that determine quality of life.
Sentience And The Science-Policy Interface, Jonathan Birch
Sentience And The Science-Policy Interface, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
I contrast my picture of the relationship between the science and policy of animal sentience with that of Marian Stamp Dawkins, who thinks “the science of animal sentience and the politics of animal welfare should be kept separate” because they involve irreconcilably different standards of evidence. On my alternative picture, (i) the science of animal sentience, like any other empirical science, delivers evidence but not certainty; (ii) this evidence allows us to make better practical decisions, both within and outside science and (iii) the quality standards we apply to the evidence should be high in all contexts, including the formulation …
Extending Animal Welfare Science To Include Wild Animals, Walter Veit, Heather Browning
Extending Animal Welfare Science To Include Wild Animals, Walter Veit, Heather Browning
Animal Sentience
Ng’s (2016) target article built on his earlier work advocating a science of welfare biology (Ng 1995). Although there were problems with the models proposed in Ng’s original paper regarding the balance of pleasure and suffering for wild animals, his call for a science of wild animal welfare was a sound one. This does not require a new discipline but just an extension of the existing frameworks and methods of animal welfare science to include wild animals.
Why Do Chapman & Huffman Think Humans Are Not Different?, Nick Zangwill
Why Do Chapman & Huffman Think Humans Are Not Different?, Nick Zangwill
Animal Sentience
This commentary discusses various shortcomings in Chapman & Huffman’s (2018) denial of differences between human beings and animals and the ethical consequences they think turn on this. Rationality is proposed as a candidate for such a difference, one that also has acceptable ethical consequences.
Heeding The Call Of Covid-19, David Wiebers, Valery Feigin
Heeding The Call Of Covid-19, David Wiebers, Valery Feigin
Animal Sentience
We are grateful to all of our commentators. They have provided a wide range of valuable perspectives and insights from many fields, revealing a broad interest in the subject matter. Nearly all the commentaries have helped to affirm, refine, expand, amplify, deepen, interpret, elaborate, or apply the messages in the target article. Some have offered critiques and suggestions that help us address certain issues in greater detail, including several points concerning industrialized farming and the wildlife trade. Overall, there is great awareness and strong consensus among commentators that any solution for preventing future pandemics and other related health crises must …
When Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others, Steve Clarke
When Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others, Steve Clarke
Animal Sentience
Mikhalevich & Powell (2020) argue that we should attribute moral standing not only to vertebrates but also to certain invertebrates. M&P also object on ethical grounds to policies of scientific funding agencies that encourage scientists to replace vertebrates by invertebrates in research. M&P do allow that some invertebrates with brains may have lower levels of moral status than some vertebrates, but this seems to conflict with their case against replacement policies.