![]() ![]() The criteria for mattering morally have long been disputed, and many humans and nonhuman animals have been considered "marginal cases," on the contested edges of moral considerability and concern. One relates to who has moral status, and the other relates to who has moral responsibility. Overall, we celebrate the rigorous evidential standards required by those unconvinced that fish are sentient laud the compassion and ethical rigor shown by those advocating for welfare protections and seek to show how precautionary principles still support protecting fish from physical harm. Sentience vs consciousness how to#To end, we address how to balance such doubts with welfare protection, discussing concerns raised by key skeptics in this debate. Because “bullet-proof” neurological and behavioral indicators of sentience are thus still lacking, agnosticism about fish sentience remains widespread. ![]() ![]() We suggest new experiments on humans to test these hypotheses, as well as modifications to tests for “mental time travel” and self-awareness (e.g., mirror self-recognition) that could allow these to now probe sentience (since currently they reflect perceptual rather than evaluative, affective aspects of consciousness). Potentially more valid are aspects of working memory, operant conditioning, the self-report of state, and forms of higher order cognition. Consequently, none of these responses are good indicators of sentience. subjects” can show approach/withdrawal react with apparent emotion change their reactivity with food deprivation or analgesia discriminate between stimuli display Pavlovian learning, including some forms of trace conditioning and even learn simple instrumental responses. After reviewing key consciousness concepts, we identify “red herring” measures that should not be used to infer sentience because also present in non-sentient organisms, notably those lacking nervous systems, like plants and protozoa (P) spines disconnected from brains (S) decerebrate mammals and birds (D) and humans in unaware states (U). The question of whether fish feel pain – or indeed anything at all – therefore stimulates sometimes polarized debate. However, nociceptors are merely necessary, not sufficient, for true pain, and many measures held to indicate sentience have the same problem. 43 On my view, that makes relevantly normal, developed members of these taxonomic classes intrinsically valuable subjects of experience whom it is no less seriously wrong to kill as it is to kill you or me, other things being equal.ĭebates around fishes' ability to feel pain concern sentience : do reactions to tissue damage indicate evaluative consciousness (conscious affect), or mere nociception? Thanks to Braithwaite's discovery of trout nociceptors, and concerns that current practices could compromise welfare in countless fish, this issue's importance is beyond dispute. 1984 Smith 1991 Gentle 1992 Machin 1999 Sneddon, Braithwaite, and Gentle 2003 Chandroo, Duncan, and Moccia 2004 Elwood, Barr, and Patterson 2009 Braithwaite 2010 Elwood 2011 Mosley 2011 MacClellan 2012, 180 ff. MacClellan and David DeGrazia suggests that mammals and birds almost certainly, and amphibians, reptiles, fish, decapod crustaceans, and cephalopods likely have the capacity for phenomenal consciousness, but probably not insects (Sarjeant 1969 Wells 1978 Gould and Gould 1982 Eisemann et al. A quick look at the relevant scientific literature and three recent reviews by biologist Donald M. Indicators for phenomenal consciousness include the presence of nociceptors, opioid receptors, and a central nervous system, certain behaviors, and evolutionary considerations. In exploring the mental life of insects, the discussion considers the possibility of robots who are conscious but not sentient, eliciting implications for moral status. It then takes up the possibility that insects are conscious yet not sentient. After identifying several methodological assumptions, it proceeds to consider the state of the evidence for sentience in mammals and birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, cephalopods, and arthropods (in particular, crustaceans and insects). ![]() If so, do they nevertheless have interests and moral status? This chapter addresses both questions. Perhaps some creatures are conscious-having subjective experience-yet are not sentient because their consciousness contains nothing pleasant or unpleasant. But which animals are sentient? While sentience is sufficient for having interests, maybe it is not necessary. Sentient beings are capable of having pleasant or unpleasant experiences and therefore have interests, which I assume to be necessary and sufficient for moral status. ![]()
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