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Articles 61 - 90 of 469
Full-Text Articles in Evolution
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.
Consider The Agent In The Arthropod, Nicolas Delon, Peter Cook, Gordon Bauer, Heidi Harley
Consider The Agent In The Arthropod, Nicolas Delon, Peter Cook, Gordon Bauer, Heidi Harley
Animal Sentience
Whether or not arthropods are sentient, they can have moral standing. Appeals to sentience are not necessary and retard progress in human treatment of other species, including invertebrates. Other increasingly well-documented aspects of invertebrate minds are pertinent to their welfare. Even if arthropods are not sentient, they can be agents whose goals—and therefore interests—can be frustrated. This kind of agency is sufficient for moral status and requires that we consider their welfare.
Do Beetles Have Experiences? How Can We Tell?, Matt Cartmill
Do Beetles Have Experiences? How Can We Tell?, Matt Cartmill
Animal Sentience
We attribute consciousness to other humans because their anatomy and behavior resembles our own and their verbal descriptions of subjective experiences correspond to ours. Nonhuman mammals have somewhat humanlike behavior and anatomy, but without the verbal descriptions. Their sentience is therefore open to Cartesian doubt. Robot "minds" lack humanlike behavior and anatomy, and so their sentience is generally discounted no matter what sentences they generate. Invertebrates lack both neurological similarity and language. Although it may be safest in making moral judgments to assume that some invertebrates are sentient, cogent reasons for thinking so must await an objective causal explanation for …
Avoiding Anthropocentrism In Evolutionarily Inclusive Ethics, Simon Fitzpatrick
Avoiding Anthropocentrism In Evolutionarily Inclusive Ethics, Simon Fitzpatrick
Animal Sentience
Mikhalevich & Powell are to be commended for challenging the “invertebrate dogma” that invertebrates are unworthy of ethical concern. However, developing an evolutionarily inclusive ethics requires facing some of the more radical implications of rejecting hierarchical scala naturae and human-centered conceptions of the biological world. In particular, we need to question the anthropocentric assumptions that still linger in discussions like these.
Zones Of Precaution, Jonathan Birch
Zones Of Precaution, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
My commentary focusses on Mikhalevich & Powell’s criticisms of the Animal Sentience Precautionary Principle. I emphasize the pragmatic nature of my rationale for proposing that, rather than extending the scope of animal welfare protection on a species-by-species basis, we should be willing to protect entire Linnaean orders on the basis of evidence from a single species.
Brain Complexity, Sentience And Welfare, Donald M. Broom
Brain Complexity, Sentience And Welfare, Donald M. Broom
Animal Sentience
Neither sentience nor moral standing is confined to animals with large or human-like brains. Invertebrates deserve moral consideration. Definition of terms clarifies the relationship between sentience and welfare. All animals have welfare but humans give more protection to sentient animals. Humans should be less human-centred.
Invertebrate Cognition, Sentience And Biology, Georges Chapouthier
Invertebrate Cognition, Sentience And Biology, Georges Chapouthier
Animal Sentience
All animal species have adapted for survival and no species is superior overall. For cognitive capacities and sentience, invertebrates such as the octopus, although quite unlike vertebrates, can achieve similar performance levels. So can other invertebrates with small brains; hence they too, as sentient beings, deserve moral consideration from humans. How are we to identify these species? Only though a detailed analysis of their behavior. The decision, which is a moral judgment, depends on biological knowledge that still needs to be acquired.
Convergent Evolution Of Sentience?, Culum Brown Prof.
Convergent Evolution Of Sentience?, Culum Brown Prof.
Animal Sentience
Mikhalevich & Powell make a compelling case that some invertebrates may be sentient and that our moral obligations in the context of welfare should hence extend to them. Although the case is similar to that made for fishes, there is one obvious difference in that examples of invertebrate sentience probably arose independently from vertebrate sentience. We have unequivocal proof that complex cognition arose multiple times over evolutionary history. Given that cognition is our best tool for indirectly quantifying sentience, it seems highly likely that this multiple polygenesis may also have occurred for sentience. In acknowledging this, we must accept that …
Minds, Morality And Midgies, Brian Key, Deborah Brown
Minds, Morality And Midgies, Brian Key, Deborah Brown
Animal Sentience
Mikhalevich & Powell argue that the exclusion of the vast majority of arthropods from moral standing is unwarranted, particularly given the purported evidence for cognition and sentience in these organisms. The implied association between consciousness and moral standing is questionable and their assumption that rich forms of cognition and flexible behavior are dependent on phenomenal consciousness needs to be reconsidered in light of current neuroscientific evidence. We conclude by proposing a neural algorithmic approach for deciphering whether organisms are capable of subjective experience.
Asian Elephant Rescue, Rehabilitation And Rewilding, Liv Baker, Rebecca Winkler
Asian Elephant Rescue, Rehabilitation And Rewilding, Liv Baker, Rebecca Winkler
Animal Sentience
Thailand has fewer than 10,000 elephants left. More of them are living in captivity to serve the tourist industry under grim conditions than are living free in what is left of their wild habitat. Conservation efforts need to be focused on all surviving members of the species, captive and free, but they need to take into account the inextricable entanglement of human and nonhuman animal lives in Thailand today. There is an opportunity for rescuing, rehabilitating and reintroducing captive elephants to the wild with the help of the traditional expertise of a mahout culture that has been elephant-keeping for centuries. …
Rewilding And Domestication: Clarifying Terminology, Catia Correia-Caeiro
Rewilding And Domestication: Clarifying Terminology, Catia Correia-Caeiro
Animal Sentience
Baker & Winkler (B&W) describe the state of Asian elephant conservation, raising unique issues, and proposing a direction based on rewilding. The long history and socio-biology of elephants and humans has some parallels with the domestication of dogs (and other species). However, markers of domestication seem absent from elephants. The proper use of terms such as “wild” and “domestic” is crucial in defining the best conservation strategies, and, more important, in attending to the welfare needs of individuals, which can differ between wild and domestic animals. B&W’s target article represents an important starting point for discussion around elephant conservation, but …
Innovation In Meat Production: A Problem And An Opportunity, Christopher J. Bryant
Innovation In Meat Production: A Problem And An Opportunity, Christopher J. Bryant
Animal Sentience
Innovation in meat production has enabled modern humans to inflict far greater harm on animals, the environment, and public health than was possible just a few decades ago. Wiebers & Feigin aptly express the urgency with which these issues must be addressed. Those advocating for animals on moral grounds face resistance from omnivores citing taste, price and convenience. Further innovation in meat production (plant-based and cultured meat) will enable us to preserve the experience of eating meat whilst phasing out the many problems caused by industrial animal farming.
Harm, Earth Jurisprudence And Human/Nonhuman Relationships, Tanya Wyatt
Harm, Earth Jurisprudence And Human/Nonhuman Relationships, Tanya Wyatt
Animal Sentience
To prevent the next pandemic and to protect the environment and non-human animals, there needs to be a clear definition of harm and a legal system grounded in Earth Jurisprudence. Drawing on evolutionary principles to redefine harm and to radically alter the legal system to be Earth-centred will help ensure that harmful actions like certain wildlife trade, wildlife trafficking, and intensive farming do not threaten the survival of any life.
Covid-19, Evolution, Brains And Psychology, Frederick Toates
Covid-19, Evolution, Brains And Psychology, Frederick Toates
Animal Sentience
Attention needs to be directed to the processes that control behavior in humans and the adaptive problems that they solved in our early evolutionary environment. The evolutionary mismatch between the current environment and the human brain can yield important insights into the problems that beset us in the context of environmental degradation and nonhuman animal welfare.
Re-Engage With The World For Global Health And Animal Welfare, Bradley J. Bergstrom
Re-Engage With The World For Global Health And Animal Welfare, Bradley J. Bergstrom
Animal Sentience
Wiebers & Feigin (2020) make a strong argument for measures that would limit future zoonoses, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, by closing live-animal markets, changing our habits of food consumption and production, and reducing habitat destruction. These would help human health, animal welfare, and conservation of at-risk wildlife all at the same time. China’s command-and-control government can accomplish some of these things by edict, but slower-to-act western democracies play a surprisingly large role in these global problems by the power of their consumerism, including the illicit wildlife trade. We citizens need to insist that our government use all of its …
Thinking Longer, Looking Deeper, Ronnie Z. Hawkins
Thinking Longer, Looking Deeper, Ronnie Z. Hawkins
Animal Sentience
We need to situate the present crisis within the larger context of what we humans have done to the nonhuman forms of life with which we evolved, taking a longer view of our own evolutionary origins and a deeper look at what might be a more appropriate role for our species to play within the Biosphere.
Bridging The Empathy Gap For Invertebrates, John M. Marzluff
Bridging The Empathy Gap For Invertebrates, John M. Marzluff
Animal Sentience
The actions of sentient vertebrates command our attention and inform our morality. Mikhalevich & Powell (2020) (M&P) argue that similar activities in a wide range of invertebrates with central nervous systems should do likewise. However, humans most readily empathize with creatures we recognize as similar in behavior, physiology, or appearance to ourselves. Helping humanity overcome this bias is a significant challenge for those who study invertebrates. Until this empathy gap is bridged, I believe few people and the policies they craft will afford invertebrates the moral standing that M&P argue they deserve. Therefore, I suggest those interested in raising appreciation …
Affective Sentience And Moral Protection, Russell Powell, Irina Mikhalevich
Affective Sentience And Moral Protection, Russell Powell, Irina Mikhalevich
Animal Sentience
We have structured our response according to five questions arising from the commentaries: (i) What is sentience? (ii) Is sentience a necessary or sufficient condition for moral standing? (iii) What methods should guide comparative cognitive research in general, and specifically in studying invertebrates? (iv) How should we balance scientific uncertainty and moral risk? (v) What practical strategies can help reduce biases and morally dismissive attitudes toward invertebrates?
Sentience In Evolutionary Context, Jon Mallatt, Todd E. Feinberg
Sentience In Evolutionary Context, Jon Mallatt, Todd E. Feinberg
Animal Sentience
We appreciate the goals of Mikhalevich & Powell (M&P) and largely agree with their conclusions but we differ on some of their definitions and terms. Affects (emotional feelings) should be part of sentience. Although the evidence presented for insect sentience is strong, we list some of the counterevidence that should be considered. Our own research supports M&P’s choice of arthropods, cephalopods, and vertebrates as the only sentient organisms with moral status.
Relationship Between Cognition And Moral Status Needs Overhaul, Carrie Figdor
Relationship Between Cognition And Moral Status Needs Overhaul, Carrie Figdor
Animal Sentience
I commend Mikhalevich & Powell for extending the discussion of cognition and its relation to moral status with their well researched and argued target article on invertebrate cognition. I have two small criticisms: that the scala naturae still retains its appeal to some in biology as well as psychology, and that drawing the line at invertebrates requires a bit more defense given the larger comparative cognitive-scientific context.
Insect Sentience And The Rise Of A New Inclusive Ethics, David Baracchi, Luigi Baciadonna
Insect Sentience And The Rise Of A New Inclusive Ethics, David Baracchi, Luigi Baciadonna
Animal Sentience
Welfare protections for vertebrates are grounded in the belief that vertebrates are sentient and capable of feeling whereas invertebrates are not. We agree with Mikhalevich & Powell that the exclusion of small-brained invertebrates from bioethics is not warranted by the current state of the scientific evidence. The choice to promote protection for certain invertebrates should be based on the Animal Sentience Precautionary Principle (ASPP). This principle should not prevent us from conducting experimental research with non-human animals to advance knowledge. However, we believe that it is important to outline practical guidelines to manage the wellbeing of invertebrates, while accumulating further …
Appealing To Human Intuitions To Reduce Animal Abuse, Yzar S. Wehbe, Todd K. Shackelford
Appealing To Human Intuitions To Reduce Animal Abuse, Yzar S. Wehbe, Todd K. Shackelford
Animal Sentience
Social scientists may be able to find ways to positively affect people’s evolved moral compasses, thereby doing the planet and its inhabitants a great kindness. They could help to shape a constituency that is increasingly opposed to animal abuse in its largest-scale manifestations, factory farming and wet markets. This would, in turn, motivate people to elect ethical leaders who view inaction with regard to animal abuse as a serious moral and medical mistake, if only indirectly due to factory farming’s exacerbation of the threats zoonoses pose to humans.
Compassionate Conservation And Elephant Personhood, Arian D. Wallach, Sujeewa Jasinghe, Sudarshani Fernando, Jessica Bell Rizzolo
Compassionate Conservation And Elephant Personhood, Arian D. Wallach, Sujeewa Jasinghe, Sudarshani Fernando, Jessica Bell Rizzolo
Animal Sentience
Baker and Winkler (2020) advocate a rehabilitation program that would end the oppression of elephants — not by severing human-elephant relations, but by enabling human-bonded elephants to live a full life. We consider this program within a compassionate conservation framework, which recognises all sentient beings as persons. From this vantage point, we gaze further into the future to ask what direction just human-elephant relations could take: What could emerge from a human-elephant relation once elephants are no longer enslaved and requiring rescue? We envisage a future — beyond captivity and rewilding — of elephant sovereignty.
One Welfare, The Role Of Health Professionals, And Climate Change, Anne Fawcett
One Welfare, The Role Of Health Professionals, And Climate Change, Anne Fawcett
Animal Sentience
Wiebers & Feigin argue that the COVID-19 crisis is a call for humanity to rethink our relationships with animals and the environment. This One Welfare approach has implications for the role of health care professionals and demands that we address climate change.
Tribal Brains In The Global Village: Deeper Roots Of The Pandemic, Robert Gerlai
Tribal Brains In The Global Village: Deeper Roots Of The Pandemic, Robert Gerlai
Animal Sentience
I briefly recap the messages of the target article by Wiebers & Feigin (2020) and the accompanying peer commentaries about what we learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the rapid evolution of viruses as an example of the importance of prevention, I explore why it is difficult for our species to foresee and prevent unintended global changes resulting from human activity. I end with a discussion about the long-term future, the ultimate problem inherent in our current mindset and the structure of our economy: growth.
Problems With Basing Insect Ethics On Individuals’ Welfare, Susana Monsó, Antonio J. Osuna-Mascaró
Problems With Basing Insect Ethics On Individuals’ Welfare, Susana Monsó, Antonio J. Osuna-Mascaró
Animal Sentience
In their target article, Mikhalevich & Powell (M&P) argue that we should extend moral protection to arthropods. In this commentary, we show that there are some unforeseen obstacles to applying the sort of individualistic welfare-based ethics that M&P have in mind to certain arthropods, namely, insects. These obstacles have to do with the fact that there are often many more individuals involved in our dealings with insects than our ethical theories anticipate, and also with the fact that, in some sense, some insects count as more than an individual and, in another sense, they sometimes count as less than an …
Inhibition Of Pain Or Response To Injury In Invertebrates And Vertebrates, Matilda Gibbons, Sajedeh Sarlak
Inhibition Of Pain Or Response To Injury In Invertebrates And Vertebrates, Matilda Gibbons, Sajedeh Sarlak
Animal Sentience
In certain situations, insects appear to lack a response to noxious stimuli that would cause pain in humans. For example, from the fact that male mantids continue to mate while being eaten by their partner it does not follow that insects do not feel pain; it could be the result of modulation of nociceptive inputs or behavioural outputs. When we try to infer the underlying mental state of an insect from its behaviour, it is important to consider the behavioural effects of the associated physiological and neurobiological mechanisms.
Ecological And Evolutionary Dynamics Of Elephant Rewilding, Lysanne Snijders
Ecological And Evolutionary Dynamics Of Elephant Rewilding, Lysanne Snijders
Animal Sentience
Baker & Winkler make a thought-provoking contribution to the discussion of what role captive animals could play in nature conservation and how we could get there through rewilding. There certainly is potential for captive Asian elephants, Elephas maximus, to become targets of conservation efforts, but there are also many questions: (1) How much do (behavioral) traits of captive-origin animals differ from their free conspecifics? (2) What predicts the likelihood and strength of social reintegration of captive animals into free populations? (3) How much of an Asian elephant’s functional role in the environment can captive animals still fulfill and how …
Innovative, Yes: But Is It Rewilding?, Daniel T. Blumstein, Kate E. Lynch
Innovative, Yes: But Is It Rewilding?, Daniel T. Blumstein, Kate E. Lynch
Animal Sentience
Baker & Winkler’s extremely stimulating proposal clearly illustrates conflicting priorities in biodiversity conservation and management that are exacerbated when human cultural resources and animal welfare are a part of the solution. We suggest that the discussion can benefit from an even more explicit unpacking of the conflicting values associated with the proposal.
Rewilding And Mixed-Community Collaboration In Conservation, Liv Baker
Rewilding And Mixed-Community Collaboration In Conservation, Liv Baker
Animal Sentience
Rewilding is a psychological and sociocultural event for nonhuman animals that goes beyond the traditional framework of ecology. Elephants need to be seen as political agents in a collaboration. Our commentators shed light on the hierarchical assumptions and politics involved. Mixed-community collaboration can create dynamic and sustainable conservation interventions that are crucial to reconceptualizing the human-elephant relationship beyond the concept of labor. The profound effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have laid bare the fundamental vulnerabilities of the elephant tourism industry. Moreover, how well an elephant has been buffered by the fallout of the pandemic is dependent on the specific relations …