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Articles 331 - 360 of 398
Full-Text Articles in Philosophy of Mind
Animals Are Agents, Linda A.W. Brakel
Animals Are Agents, Linda A.W. Brakel
Animal Sentience
Mark Rowlands’s (2016) target article invites us to consider individuals in a broad subset of the non-human animal world as genuine persons. His account features animals reacting to salient environmental stimuli as Gibsonian affordances, which is indicative of “pre-reflective self-awareness.” He holds that such pre-reflective self-awareness is both “immune to error through misidentification” (Shoemaker, 1968) and a necessary precursor to reflective consciousness and personhood. I agree. In this commentary I hope to extend Rowlands’s work with a view in which agency is an even more fundamental precursor and one can (and should) consider individuals throughout the entire animal kingdom as …
Implicit Mental Processes Are An Improbable Basis For Personhood, Michael L. Woodruff
Implicit Mental Processes Are An Improbable Basis For Personhood, Michael L. Woodruff
Animal Sentience
Rowlands argues that animals have implicit pre-reflective awareness and that this is adequate to create the unity of conscious thought required for personhood. For him pre-reflective awareness does not include intentionality and is probably an unconscious process. I suggest that his sense of implicit leads to significant difficulties for his argument and that including intentionality in the definition of a first-person perspective provides a stronger base for viewing animals as persons.
Are Animals Persons?, Mark Rowlands
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.
Insects Have The Capacity For Subjective Experience, Colin Klein, Andrew B. Barron
Insects Have The Capacity For Subjective Experience, Colin Klein, Andrew B. Barron
Animal Sentience
To what degree are non-human animals conscious? We propose that the most meaningful way to approach this question is from the perspective of functional neurobiology. Here we focus on subjective experience, which is a basic awareness of the world without further reflection on that awareness. This is considered the most basic form of consciousness. Tellingly, this capacity is supported by the integrated midbrain and basal ganglia structures, which are among the oldest and most highly conserved brain systems in vertebrates. A reasonable inference is that the capacity for subjective experience is both widespread and evolutionarily old within the vertebrate lineage. …
Cross-Species Mind-Reading, Stevan Harnad
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.
My Orgasms Cannot Be Traded Off Against Others’ Agony, Stevan Harnad
My Orgasms Cannot Be Traded Off Against Others’ Agony, Stevan Harnad
Animal Sentience
Only I can calculate my own welfare as net pleasure minus pain. No one else can do that calculation for me – nor for a population, and especially not averaging across some individuals’ pleasure and other individuals’ pain. Pain and pleasure are incommensurable and only pain matters morally. To maximize welfare is to minimize pain.
In Praise Of Fishes: Précis Of What A Fish Knows (Balcombe 2016), Jonathan Balcombe
In Praise Of Fishes: Précis Of What A Fish Knows (Balcombe 2016), Jonathan Balcombe
Animal Sentience
Our relationship to fishes in the modern era is deeply problematic. We kill and consume more of them than any other group of vertebrates. At the same time, advances in our knowledge of fishes and their capabilities are gaining speed. Fish species diversity exceeds that of all other vertebrates combined, with a wide range of sensory adaptations, some of them (e.g., geomagnetism, water pressure and movement detection, and communication via electricity) alien to our own sensory experience. The evidence for pain in fishes (despite persistent detractors) is strongly supported by anatomical, physiological and behavioral studies. It is likely that fishes …
Sentience As Moral Consideration And Disvalue In Nature, Daniel Dorado
Sentience As Moral Consideration And Disvalue In Nature, Daniel Dorado
Animal Sentience
In recent work Ng assumes that it is good to engage in activities aimed at promoting ecosystem conservation. The only way Ng can derive this from the axiology he assumes (the view that wellbeing is the only intrinsically valuable or disvaluable thing) would be to assume that ecosystem conservation would benefit the individuals involved. This can be so as long as value prevails over disvalue in the target environments. Ng seems to assume this is indeed the case, but he does not explain why, and it is a claim that goes against the conclusions he has argued for previously (Ng …
Inalienable Rights And Pluralism In Animal Advocacy, Beril Sözmen
Inalienable Rights And Pluralism In Animal Advocacy, Beril Sözmen
Animal Sentience
I comment on two of Ng’s suggestions. There is a lack of support for his suggestion that some experiments on individual animals will be useful for future success, so they should be permitted. I also question his recommendation that animal advocacy should focus on farmed animals first and wild animals later. The lack of solid support for why this would be a more effective strategy leads me to suggest a more pluralistic support of a variety of types of advocacy.
Changing Attitudes Towards Animals In The Wild And Speciesism, Oscar Horta
Changing Attitudes Towards Animals In The Wild And Speciesism, Oscar Horta
Animal Sentience
I argue that despite Ng’s claim that we should postpone the defense of those animals that live in the wild, we do have reasons to start spreading concern for them now. We can do it by (i) changing public attitude by heightening awareness of speciesism, by which we will also challenge animal exploitation; and (ii) by disseminating information about the situation of animals in the wild.
The Line Drawn On Pain Still Holds, Bjorn H. Merker
The Line Drawn On Pain Still Holds, Bjorn H. Merker
Animal Sentience
The many substantive criticisms raised against Key by me and by many of the other commentators will not disappear by ignoring or waving them aside with meta-discourse about anthropomorphism, just-so stories, or celestial teapots. The conceptual edifice Key inhabits and defends with such gusto may look like an impregnable fortress from the inside – and Key behaves as if it were. From the outside, however, it looks more like a ramshackle structure gaping with holes and pieced together from imperfectly understood neuroscience and often faulty literature citations.
Slavery, Welfare And The Sixth Extinction, Stephen R. Clark
Slavery, Welfare And The Sixth Extinction, Stephen R. Clark
Animal Sentience
Ng’s laudable concern for animal welfare would be welcome to any sensible slave-owner wishing to preserve his investment. What welfarism – for slave-owners and animal husbandmen – fails to call into question is whether we have the right to breed, hold captive and kill animals at all: If it matters, as the widely recognized slogan of ‘Five Freedoms’ suggests, that animals have the chance to live a ‘normal’ life, then more matters than keeping them ‘happy’ in subjection. Their lives – and also the lives of wild things – also deserve respect.
Wild Animal Suffering And Vegan Outreach, Eze Paez
Wild Animal Suffering And Vegan Outreach, Eze Paez
Animal Sentience
Ng’s strategic proposal seems to downplay the potential benefits of advocacy for wild animals and omit what may be the most effective strategy to reduce the harms farmed animals suffer: vegan outreach.
To Minimize Animal Suffering, Broaden The Definition Of Animal Cruelty, Eleonora Gullone
To Minimize Animal Suffering, Broaden The Definition Of Animal Cruelty, Eleonora Gullone
Animal Sentience
Mandatory veterinary reporting of suspected abuse might discourage caregivers from seeking treatment for their injured animals. Animal abusers are more likely to be brought to justice by raising community awareness about the link between animal cruelty and human violence and its implications for the wellbeing of both humans and animals. Commonly accepted definitions of animal cruelty focus only on cruelty that is socially unacceptable, excluding an enormous amount of unnecessary animal suffering caused by humans. Only by broadening the definition of animal cruelty can we bring about the cultural change necessary to minimize this animal suffering.
Animal Suffering And Human Bias, Stijn Bruers
Animal Suffering And Human Bias, Stijn Bruers
Animal Sentience
Ng proposes concrete ways to decrease animal suffering on the basis of commonsense economic logic and research in welfare biology. But to reduce animal suffering effectively in livestock farming, animal experimentation or the natural environment we have to become more aware of our pervasive and spontaneous but unreliable intuitive moral judgments. These can generate biases that prevent us from decreasing animal suffering effectively.
An Animal Victim's Best Chance: Veterinary Legal Duty To Report Cruelty In The U.S., Lora Dunn
An Animal Victim's Best Chance: Veterinary Legal Duty To Report Cruelty In The U.S., Lora Dunn
Animal Sentience
Legislation throughout the U.S. recognizes animal sentience and the importance of veterinary reporting to combat the ongoing suffering of these animal victims: All 50 states have felony penalties available for animal cruelty crimes, and veterinary reporting is permitted or required in the majority of states. The remaining minority of U.S. states should take action to require veterinarians to report animal cruelty and render veterinarians immune for good faith reporting.
Veterinary Medical Associations Need To Educate Veterinarians For Mandatory Reporting Of Suspected Animal Abuse, Melinda V. Merck
Veterinary Medical Associations Need To Educate Veterinarians For Mandatory Reporting Of Suspected Animal Abuse, Melinda V. Merck
Animal Sentience
When animals are suffering, we have a duty to take action. With appropriate incentive and educational support mandatory veterinary reporting can be a great legal avenue to help ensure their safety and welfare.
Fish Pain's Burden Of Proof, Carl Safina
Fish Pain's Burden Of Proof, Carl Safina
Animal Sentience
A hypothesis like Key’s, that fish cannot feel pain, should really be stated as a null hypothesis — an assumption that there is no difference in the things being compared. Then evidence — including anecdotal evidence — for and against rejecting the null hypothesis can be examined and weighed. Key (2016a) has proven only that fish lack mammalian brains.
Burden Of Proof Lies With Proposer Of Celestial Teapot Hypothesis, Brian Key
Burden Of Proof Lies With Proposer Of Celestial Teapot Hypothesis, Brian Key
Animal Sentience
Bertrand Russell famously imagined the existence of a celestial teapot to highlight that the burden of proof of a hypothesis lay with its proposer and it was not the responsibility of others to refute it. Those who propose that fish feel pain must bear the burden of proof for their hypothesis. There are several common arguments adopted by those defending the position that fish feel pain. For instance, proponents envisage that pain is so important for human survival that they can’t imagine fish could exist without it. Out of this argument from incredulity emerges the idea that pain must have …
Animal Suffering In China, Peter J. Li
Animal Suffering In China, Peter J. Li
Animal Sentience
Chinese policy has been aimed at maximizing GDP; it is time to focus also on minimizing animal suffering.
Science And Sensibility, Bernard E. Rollin
Science And Sensibility, Bernard E. Rollin
Animal Sentience
The sentience and suffering of animals is obvious to common sense, even if science and industry claim to be agnostic. Economic incentives to reduce the suffering of animals are welcome, but it is not clear whether animals can turn to science for help.
When The Client Is Not The Abuser, But One Of The Abused, Tania Signal
When The Client Is Not The Abuser, But One Of The Abused, Tania Signal
Animal Sentience
The question of client confidentiality and reporting animal abuse is complicated when the client is not the abuser, and when the abuse (of both people and animals) may escalate precisely because it has been (or may be) reported.
Cortex Necessary For Pain — But Not In Sense That Matters, Adam J. Shriver
Cortex Necessary For Pain — But Not In Sense That Matters, Adam J. Shriver
Animal Sentience
Certain cortical regions are necessary for pain in humans in the sense that, at particular times, they play a direct role in pain. However, it is not true that they are necessary in the more important sense that pain is never possible in humans without them. There are additional details from human lesion studies concerning functional plasticity that undermine Key’s (2016) interpretation. Moreover, no one has yet identified any specific behaviors that mammalian cortical pain regions make possible that are absent in fish.
The Object Of Grief, Clark Glymour
The Object Of Grief, Clark Glymour
Animal Sentience
King’s new book is a wonderful collection of diverse anecdotes illustrating the variety of animal practices that are convincing illustrations of grief. Those who want scientific arguments for that conclusion should, however, read elsewhere.
Mediating Claims Through Critical Anthropomorphism, Gordon Burghardt
Mediating Claims Through Critical Anthropomorphism, Gordon Burghardt
Animal Sentience
Key’s (2016) discussion of his claim that fish do not feel pain ignores the history of attempts to study the attribution of mental states to other species. Although willing to accept that mammals feel pain, Key claims that fish lack the mammalian neural mechanisms underlying pain and are unconscious of their experiences. Consequently, we do not need to be overly concerned about fishing practices that would otherwise be viewed as painful. Key uses a flawed anthropomorphic lens. All attributions of mental events to organisms other than oneself involve inferences derived from anthropomorphic processes through which we process physiological and behavioral …
Pain And Other Feelings In Humans And Animals, Antonio Damasio, Hanna Damasio
Pain And Other Feelings In Humans And Animals, Antonio Damasio, Hanna Damasio
Animal Sentience
Evidence from neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neuropsychology suggests that the experience of feelings in humans does not depend exclusively on structures of the cerebral cortex. It does not seem warranted to deny the possibility of feeling in animals on the grounds that their cerebral cortices are not comparable to those of humans.
Where Is Pain In The Brain?, Marshall Devor
Where Is Pain In The Brain?, Marshall Devor
Animal Sentience
Key argues that fish cannot experience pain based on (1) brain imaging in humans, (2) consequences of lesions and (3) direct brain stimulation. Imaging indeed shows that pain-relevant signals reach the cortex, but not that they underlie the subjective experience of pain. Lesions and stimulation data are more to the point, but Key paints an idiosyncratic and misleading picture of their effects. S1 and S2 ablation does not eliminate evoked or spontaneous pain, although there may be up- or down-modulation. Likewise, stimulation of pain-associated cortical areas rarely induces pain, and pain almost never occurs at the onset of epileptic seizures. …
Fish Pain: Would It Change Current Best Practice In The Real World?, B. K. Diggles
Fish Pain: Would It Change Current Best Practice In The Real World?, B. K. Diggles
Animal Sentience
Much of the “fish pain debate” relates to how high the bar for pain should be set. The close phylogenetic affinities of teleosts with cartilaginous fishes which appear to lack nociceptors suggests caution should be applied by those who seek to lower the bar, especially given the equivocal and conflicting nature of the experimental data currently available for teleosts. Nevertheless, even if we assume fish “feel pain,” it is difficult to see how current best practice in aquaculture would change. This is because of the need to avoid stress at all stages of the rearing process to optimize health, growth …
Falsifying The Null Hypothesis That “Fish Do Not Feel Pain", Brian Key
Falsifying The Null Hypothesis That “Fish Do Not Feel Pain", Brian Key
Animal Sentience
The reader of Animal Sentience may surmise that because the weight of the commentaries on my target article, “Why fish do not feel pain,” is leaning towards not supporting my argument, it follows that the premise "fish do not feel pain" is incorrect. However, science does not prevail by popular opinion. History is plagued with numerous (and often widely accepted) examples of biological phenomena being explained by mysterious forces. In the absence of a mechanistic understanding, the many different guises of vitalism (the principle that life involves a vital energy) are often invoked to explain the unknown. Spurious …
A Single Strand Of Argument With Unfounded Conclusion, Robert W. Elwood
A Single Strand Of Argument With Unfounded Conclusion, Robert W. Elwood
Animal Sentience
Key (2016) describes the neural system involved in human pain experience in an excellent fashion but then suggests that only that complete system can generate the experience of pain. Thus animals without all components will not feel pain. This argument has been refuted in the past by analogy to vision where it is clear that a broad range of taxa, vertebrate and invertebrate, have good visual abilities albeit with completely different central nervous systems and receptors. This known counterargument to Key’s main idea is not mentioned in the target article. Further criteria that might indicate pain and studies examining these …