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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Comparative Cognition And Nonhuman Individuality, Catia Correia Caeiro Jan 2020

Comparative Cognition And Nonhuman Individuality, Catia Correia Caeiro

Animal Sentience

Commentators Washington (2019) and Tiffin (2019) point out that the individual vs. collective dichotomy is much more complex than what is considered in the target article. This commentary will focus on why individuals are more important than collectives. Species differences in cognition and emotional processes and individuals’ feelings and experiences need to be taken into account.

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Just Preservation, Trusteeship And Multispecies Justice, Francisco J. Santiago-Ávila, Adrian Treves, William Lynn Jan 2020

Just Preservation, Trusteeship And Multispecies Justice, Francisco J. Santiago-Ávila, Adrian Treves, William Lynn

Animal Sentience

We are grateful to all the commentators who engaged with our target article. Some commentators have offered important insights into our proposed design and methods for legally intervening on behalf of futurity. Others have focused on theoretical considerations central to our proposal for multispecies justice and trusteeship. All have inspired modifications and further elaboration of our initial proposal. In this Response, we engage with the commentaries, integrating their suggestions, striving for convergence and complementarity, but also discussing points of divergence with our proposed framework where necessary. There is substantial overlap in the points of view of the three co-authors, but …

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How To Engage Public Support To Protect Overlooked Species, Scarlett R. Howard, Adrian G. Dyer Jan 2020

How To Engage Public Support To Protect Overlooked Species, Scarlett R. Howard, Adrian G. Dyer

Animal Sentience

Treves et al. (2019) propose a non-anthropocentric approach to conservation biology for the ‘just preservation’ of non-humans. Some of our current ways of ranking conservation efforts based on benefits to humans are indeed critically flawed, but we doubt that a completely non-anthropocentric approach is possible at this time. We propose a way to generate public support for those non-human species that may otherwise be overlooked in policy-making and conservation efforts.

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Rewilding Or Reviewing: Conservation And The Elephant-Based Tourism Industry, Ingrid Suter Jan 2020

Rewilding Or Reviewing: Conservation And The Elephant-Based Tourism Industry, Ingrid Suter

Animal Sentience

Baker & Winkler (2020) provide a detailed examination of elephants in captivity, from an historical perspective to modern-day concerns. Concerns include the poor level of mahout skills and subsequent captive elephant welfare issues in the Thai elephant tourism industry. Rewilding is proposed as a method of rehabilitation and a way to include mahouts in the conservation process. This commentary argues that the tourism industry is making positive changes and mahout skills can be utilised successfully without the arduous task of rewilding. Animal rights groups and the transfer of misinformation surrounding captive elephant welfare are also examined, as these typically fail …

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Anthropology And Conservation, Nicolas Lainé Jan 2020

Anthropology And Conservation, Nicolas Lainé

Animal Sentience

Baker & Winkler make a welcome contribution to elephant conservation in Thailand in advocating a role for joint human/elephant labor and local expertise in rewilding. Their argument would benefit, however, if it drew more upon the local ethnographic evidence. Ethnocentric notions such as “welfare” and “wellbeing” may not fit into the local perception of pachyderms.

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Animal Welfare Science And “A Life Worth Living” For Wild And Captive Elephants, Lindsay R. Mehrkam, Otto Fad Jan 2020

Animal Welfare Science And “A Life Worth Living” For Wild And Captive Elephants, Lindsay R. Mehrkam, Otto Fad

Animal Sentience

Baker & Winkler (2020) propose restoring elephants to a state of “wildness” and a “life worth living” by reintroducing captive elephants to the hands of indigenous mahout cultures and practices. To evaluate this proposal, we must define operationally a number of critical concepts in a species-centric, individualistic way, avoiding human-centric opinions and romanticized notions of the wild. Animal welfare science can help create greater synergy between ex-situ zoological institutions and in-situ elephant conservation, and welfare efforts that respect and value the cultures of both species.

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Rethinking Rewilding Through Multispecies Justice, Danielle Celermajer Jan 2020

Rethinking Rewilding Through Multispecies Justice, Danielle Celermajer

Animal Sentience

Baker & Winkler’s argument that some humans, especially some Indigenous peoples, neither conceive of themselves as ontologically distinct from nature, nor do they organize their lives as such, is an important one. However, one needs to understand how colonialism and global capitalism have drawn Indigenous peoples and animals into new political economies. The new situation and the constrained opportunities available may have introduced a range of injustices or forms of violence that did not previously exist. This commentary proposes how a multispecies justice lens might assist in evaluating the most just arrangement for all parties, human and non-human.

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A “Halfway House” For Improving Captive Welfare, Phyllis C. Lee, W. Keith Lindsay Jan 2020

A “Halfway House” For Improving Captive Welfare, Phyllis C. Lee, W. Keith Lindsay

Animal Sentience

It is certainly time to aim for higher quality management strategies for Thailand’s captive elephants, and to engage with sustainable livelihoods for traditional mahouts. Baker & Winkler’s proposal to rewild Thai elephants by placing them under the guardianship of Karen mahouts is recognized as not “wild” since it remains a form of management requiring elephants to live under the control of human caregivers. We applaud the positive welfare aims of this proposal; however, we caution that few of the long-term consequences for elephants or habitats can be known, and further considerations of elephant population dynamics and forest ecosystems are required …

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Compassionate Conservation And Elephant Personhood, Arian D. Wallach, Sujeewa Jasinghe, Sudarshani Fernando, Jessica Bell Rizzolo Jan 2020

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.

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Rewilding And Domestication: Clarifying Terminology, Catia Correia-Caeiro Jan 2020

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 …

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Future Of Thailand's Captive Elephants, Antoinette Van De Water, Michelle Henley, Lucy Bates, Rob Slotow Jan 2020

Future Of Thailand's Captive Elephants, Antoinette Van De Water, Michelle Henley, Lucy Bates, Rob Slotow

Animal Sentience

Removal from natural habitat and commodification as private property compromise elephants’ broader societal value. Although we support Baker & Winkler’s (2020) plea for a new community-based rewilding conservation model focused on mahout culture, we recommend an expanded co-management approach to complement and enhance the regional elephant conservation strategy with additional local community stakeholders and the potential to extend across international borders into suitable elephant habitat. Holistic co-management approaches improve human wellbeing and social cohesion, as well as elephant wellbeing, thereby better securing long-term survival of Asian elephants, environmental justice, and overall sustainability.

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Rewilding And Mixed-Community Collaboration In Conservation, Liv Baker Jan 2020

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 …

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Cultured Meat Could Prevent The Next Pandemic, Jonathan Anomaly Jan 2020

Cultured Meat Could Prevent The Next Pandemic, Jonathan Anomaly

Animal Sentience

Wiebers & Feigin identify intensive agriculture and trade in exotic animals as the main sources of novel zoonotic viral infections. They recommend a transition away from meat. I would add that we would do well to invest in the mass production of cultured meat, derived from stem cells, as a radical alternative to animal agriculture.

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One Welfare, The Role Of Health Professionals, And Climate Change, Anne Fawcett Jan 2020

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.

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Plant-Based Diets And Covid-19: Those Who Harvest Crops Are At High Risk, Jarret S. Lovell Jan 2020

Plant-Based Diets And Covid-19: Those Who Harvest Crops Are At High Risk, Jarret S. Lovell

Animal Sentience

This commentary extends Wiebers & Feigin’s (2020) plea to adopt diets that are less dependent on animals by calling on experts and activists to work for change with regard to farm worker labor conditions. Already doing among the most dangerous jobs, farmworkers are at increased risk of COVID-19. As we increasingly transition to plant-based diets, we must all ensure that farmworkers have safe and just working conditions to meet the demands of our changing diets.

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Innovation In Meat Production: A Problem And An Opportunity, Christopher J. Bryant Jan 2020

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.

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Harm, Earth Jurisprudence And Human/Nonhuman Relationships, Tanya Wyatt Jan 2020

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.

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Covid-19, Evolution, Brains And Psychology, Frederick Toates Jan 2020

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.

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Re-Engage With The World For Global Health And Animal Welfare, Bradley J. Bergstrom Jan 2020

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 …

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Tribal Brains In The Global Village: Deeper Roots Of The Pandemic, Robert Gerlai Jan 2020

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.

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Zoonotic Realism, Computational Cognitive Science And Pandemic Prevention, Tyler Davis, Molly E. Ireland, Jason Van Allen, Darrell A. Worthy Jan 2020

Zoonotic Realism, Computational Cognitive Science And Pandemic Prevention, Tyler Davis, Molly E. Ireland, Jason Van Allen, Darrell A. Worthy

Animal Sentience

Using animals in food and food production systems is one of many drivers of novel zoonoses. Moving toward less dependence on animal proteins is a possible avenue for reducing pandemic risk, but we think that Wiebers & Feigin’s proposed change to food policy (phasing out animal meat production) is unrealistic in its political achievability and its current capacity to feed the world in a cost-effective and sustainable manner. We suggest that improvements in communication strategies, precipitated by developments in computational cognitive neuroscience, can lead the way to a safer future and are feasible now.

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Thinking Longer, Looking Deeper, Ronnie Z. Hawkins Jan 2020

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.

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Problems With Basing Insect Ethics On Individuals’ Welfare, Susana Monsó, Antonio J. Osuna-Mascaró Jan 2020

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 …

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Sentience In Evolutionary Context, Jon Mallatt, Todd E. Feinberg Jan 2020

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.

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Lessons From Miniature Brains: Cognition Cheap, Memory Expensive (Sentience Linked To Active Movement?), Giorgio Vallortigara Jan 2020

Lessons From Miniature Brains: Cognition Cheap, Memory Expensive (Sentience Linked To Active Movement?), Giorgio Vallortigara

Animal Sentience

Studies on invertebrate minds suggest that the neural machinery for basic cognition is cheap, and that bigger brains are probably associated with greater memory storage rather than more advanced cognition. Sentience may be linked to feedforward mechanisms (Reafferenzprinzip) that allow organisms with active movement to distinguish active and passive sensing. Invertebrates may offer special opportunities for testing these hypotheses.

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Insect Sentience And The Rise Of A New Inclusive Ethics, David Baracchi, Luigi Baciadonna Jan 2020

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 …

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Ethical Considerations For Invertebrates, Scarlett R. Howard, Matthew R.E. Symonds Jan 2020

Ethical Considerations For Invertebrates, Scarlett R. Howard, Matthew R.E. Symonds

Animal Sentience

Mikhalevich & Powell (2020) have built on the discussion about which species deserve inclusion in animal ethics and welfare considerations. Here, we raise questions concerning the assessment criteria. We ask how to assess different species for their ability to fulfill the criteria, which criteria are most important, how we quantify them (absolute or on a continuum), and how non-animals such as fungi and plants fit into this paradigm.

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Bridging The Empathy Gap For Invertebrates, John M. Marzluff Jan 2020

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 …

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Inhibition Of Pain Or Response To Injury In Invertebrates And Vertebrates, Matilda Gibbons, Sajedeh Sarlak Jan 2020

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.

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Users’ Perception Of Print Media Retention In A Digital Era., Obia Inyang, Margaret Umoh Dr Jan 2020

Users’ Perception Of Print Media Retention In A Digital Era., Obia Inyang, Margaret Umoh Dr

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Print media usage presented some important qualities overtime, which have made it an advantageous medium of study regardless of the technological advancements of the contemporary times popularly described as the information age. The value, as perceived by scholars in training (users of academic libraries especially), were sort by this research to analyze why prints are still glamour for, in a digital era with all the improvements made by digital adoptions. This study revealed that 378 respondents returned their questionnaire copies out of the 500 sent out and constituted 75.6% returns. Results for objective 1, revealed among others that, clients’ have …

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