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Articles 1 - 14 of 14
Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
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.
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.
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.
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 …
Animal Sentience: History, Science, And Politics, Andrew N. Rowan, Joyce M. D'Silva, Ian J.H. Duncan, Nicholas Palmer
Animal Sentience: History, Science, And Politics, Andrew N. Rowan, Joyce M. D'Silva, Ian J.H. Duncan, Nicholas Palmer
Animal Sentience
This target article has three parts. The first briefly reviews the thinking about nonhuman animals’ sentience in the Western canon: what we might know about their capacity for feeling, leading up to Bentham’s famous question “can they suffer?” The second part sketches the modern development of animal welfare science and the role that animal-sentience considerations have played therein. The third part describes the launching, by Compassion in World Farming, of efforts to incorporate animal sentience language into public policy and regulations concerning human treatment of animals.
Global Risks Of Intensive Animal Farming And The Wildlife Trade, Deborah Cao
Global Risks Of Intensive Animal Farming And The Wildlife Trade, Deborah Cao
Animal Sentience
This commentary discusses two issues highlighted by Wiebers & Feigin in the context of the current and future global health crisis: the wildlife trade and factory farming. Both are instances of globalized animal cruelty – in China as well as worldwide -- that require global solutions for the well-being of both humans and nonhumans.
Smart Sheep Need More Protection, Michael L. Woodruff
Smart Sheep Need More Protection, Michael L. Woodruff
Animal Sentience
The target article unequivocally establishes that sheep are far more intelligent and cognitively sophisticated than is generally acknowledged. For this reason, the authors advocate for significantly more stringent regulation of agricultural and research practices when sheep are used. I briefly review the existing US regulations governing the use of sheep in research and discuss the extent to which they are applied to sheep. I then discuss weaknesses in the current regulations, concluding that they should be changed to mandate housing all research animals in environments that accommodate the psychosocial needs of each species.
Refining The Precautionary Framework, Jonathan Birch
Refining The Precautionary Framework, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
Most of the commentators so far agree that the precautionary principle can be usefully applied to the question of animal sentience. I consider various ways of refining my proposals in light of the suggestions. I amend BAR to implement C. Brown’s suggestion that the scope of animal welfare law should be extensible by phylogenetic inference from orders in which credible indicators of sentience are found. In response to C. Brown, Mallatt, and Woodruff, I amend ACT to allow that a single credible indicator may sometimes call for urgent further investigation rather than immediate protection. In response …
Sensitizing Humans To Fish Sentience, Kelly Levenda
Sensitizing Humans To Fish Sentience, Kelly Levenda
Animal Sentience
Although fish can feel pain and suffer, they are not often protected legally. Jonathan Balcombe’s What a Fish Knows provides a timely and important contribution to the literature on animal cognition and sentience. By explaining their personalities and capabilities, Balcombe brings much needed public attention to fish and advances the principle that they need and deserve protection.
Animal Sentience And The Precautionary Principle, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience And The Precautionary Principle, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
In debates about animal sentience, the precautionary principle is often invoked. The idea is that when the evidence of sentience is inconclusive, we should “give the animal the benefit of the doubt” or “err on the side of caution” in formulating animal protection legislation. Yet there remains confusion as to whether it is appropriate to apply the precautionary principle in this context, and, if so, what “applying the precautionary principle” means in practice regarding the burden of proof for animal sentience. Here I construct a version of the precautionary principle tailored to the question of animal sentience together with a …
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.
Animal Sentience: The Other-Minds Problem, Stevan Harnad
Animal Sentience: The Other-Minds Problem, Stevan Harnad
Animal Sentience
The only feelings we can feel are our own. When it comes to the feelings of others, we can only infer them, based on their behavior — unless they tell us. This is the “other-minds problem.” Within our own species, thanks to language, this problem arises only for states in which people cannot speak (infancy, aphasia, sleep, anaesthesia, coma). Our species also has a uniquely powerful empathic or “mind-reading” capacity: We can (sometimes) perceive from the behavior of others when they are in states like our own. Our inferences have also been systematized and operationalized in biobehavioral science …
Animal Mourning: Précis Of How Animals Grieve (King 2013), Barbara J. King
Animal Mourning: Précis Of How Animals Grieve (King 2013), Barbara J. King
Animal Sentience
Abstract: When an animal dies, that individual’s mate, relatives, or friends may express grief. Changes in the survivor’s patterns of social behavior, eating, sleeping, and/or of expression of affect are the key criteria for defining grief. Based on this understanding of grief, it is not only big-brained mammals like elephants, apes, and cetaceans who can be said to mourn, but also a wide variety of other animals, including domestic companions like cats, dogs, and rabbits; horses and farm animals; and some birds. With keen attention placed on seeking where grief is found to occur and where it is absent …